Keelung 基隆: Feasting on Seafood
Keelung, or 基隆 (Jilong), is about 30 kilometers from Taipei, and a great location for those looking for a daycation. It’s a ideal place to see the views of the northeastern coast of Taiwan, for those who like eating seafood, or want to experience a night market unlike the ones in Taipei. Wikitravel has helpful instructions on how to get to Keelung by bus, which is the most convenient and the cheapest way to get to Keelung without a car.
A portion of the northeast coast of Taiwan
Upon arrival, make sure to take a picture of the Keelung Harbor. There, you will see that they used each letter of the name, “Keelung”, and created a big statue for each letter, which was reminiscent for me to the ones in front of Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, California. And at night, these letters light up for another good photo opportunity.
Keelung is the closest port city to Taipei and when visiting trying the seafood if a must! If you're spending a day there, I would first recommend having seafood for lunch, and then wandering around the night market in the evening. Within the city and near the harbor, there are plenty of restaurants to chose from. When you walk past the front of these restaurants, don't be shocked when several 阿媽* simultaneously try to lure you into their restaurant (*Ahma, which means "Auntie", is how you would refer to these women). These ladies are actually pretty nice, they tell you about the selection they have, they let you take pictures of their seafood, and even let you hold and take a picture with the blowfishes that many of these restaurants have. If you're brave and adventurous, you can even order one of these to eat--I heard they taste really good.
Each restaurant cooks their seafood a bit differently, and the prices of their seafood usually indicate the quality of seafood they offer. A large majority of the seafood in these restaurants are fished locally, but some are imported. Nonetheless, there is a large variety of fresh fish and other seafood at each restaurant. After you choose what you want, they immediately bring it into the kitchen to cook. So, what looks good to you?
My friend and I opted to go further out from the city center, since we were traveling by car, to Keelung Peace Island 和平島 (HePing Dao), and chose a restaurant on the second lane of Heyi Road 和一路2巷. This was nice because we were on a street where seafood restaurants lined up one next to another. We chose a restaurant and then pointed at what we wanted to eat. At many of the seafood restaurants in Keelung, you simply point at what you want and then they will cook it for you. Often times, they will also ask how you would like each seafood cooked, or recommend a certain way to have it cooked for you. For example, if you like crab, you can get it boiled, steamed, or stir-fried. Depending on the seafood, there is often the option of having it served as sashimi as well. But for me, my favorite option would be to have my crab steamed because it preserves the natural sweet flavor of the crab.
These are the dishes we ordered:
Taiwanese style kim chi, 台式泡菜 (tai shi pao cai)- This dish tends to be the common starting one at these seafood restaurants. As you can probably guess from the picture, it’s not as spicy as kimchi.
Stir-fried Venus Clams, 炒海瓜子 (chao hai gua zi)-This was definitely my favorite dish of our feast. The sauce they use is midly spicy with a hint of sweetness, which makes the clams really enjoyable to slurp.
Seaweed, 海藻 (hai zao)- The seaweed served here was a lot different from seaweed that I’ve eaten in the past. The texture was very chewy, but I wasn't able to taste any of the seaweed flavor, so I would prefer eating dried seaweed, which is crunchy and flavorful.
Steamed Fish, 蒸魚 (zheng yu)- When I first saw this fish, I laughed out loud. Maybe it's just me, but the fish's head looks really funny, for some reason. Anyways, this dish was actually really tasty, and more appetizing than it looks. It came on a special metal platter that kept the fish heated. The sauce was a bit similar to what was used for the clams but lighter in flavor. The meat of the fish was very soft and flaky, and the flavor was slightly sweet and fresh. I couldn't stop myself from smothering each piece of fish into the sauce before eating it. Also, the bones of the fish were pretty easy to pick out, so I thought that was a plus.
Sashimi/Raw fish, 生魚 (sheng yu)- This dish is made up of the same fish as the one that was steamed. Turns out that half of the fish was steamed while the other half was cut and left raw--what a great use of a fish! Unfortunately, I can’t comment on how it tastes because I don't have the acquired taste for raw fish. For some reason, since I was a child and tried sashimi, I wouldn't be able taste anything besides salt.
Deep Fried Short Snout Ice Fish, 炸水晶魚 (zha shui jing yu)-Before I found out this was short snout ice fish, I thought this dish was unusually long anchovies wrapped up in a lot of batter and then fried. When I bit into the fish, I realized the flavor of the fish is very light and there were no traces of fish bones, which surprised me. This dish comes with colorful shrimp chips and the fish goes really well with salt and pepper, which makes up most of the flavor, and is included on the side.
Steamed Crab, 清蒸螃蟹 (qing zheng pang xie)- The crab was pretty sweet in flavor, but it was smaller than crabs that I'm used to eating. I like eating bigger crabs since their legs have a lot more meat than the smaller ones, but whenever I eat crabs, it's always a tedious challenge for me picking out the crab meat from within their legs and claws. What I enjoyed about this crab, though, was that the shell was not very hard, so I could easily crack the shell of the crab legs with my teeth.
Lastly, we had Steamed Tiger Shrimp, 清蒸草蝦 (qing zheng cao xia)- After the shrimp was placed on the table, I immediately reached for the shrimp. After peeling a few, I could not longer take a picture of it, in fear of getting shrimp all over my camera. This shrimp was easy to peel too, after peeling off the head, I was surprised to see that each shrimp had a lot of juice inside, so it turned out to be a very messy dish. The mess was worth it, though, because the shrimp was really tasty and fresh.
And for two people, this was more than enough food for lunch. This seafood feast was very filling, but a bit hard on the wallet, since it ended up costing over 1,000 NTD per person. This was a bit of a shock probably because we didn't ask about the price about each seafood and just ordered everything we wanted. I would recommend checking prices beforehand and telling them how much you want or how much you're willing to spend, and they will prepare your food accordingly. I would highly suggest ordering fillers, like soup, rice, or seafood noodle stir fry for a cheaper feast, since I noticed the table next to us only paid about 500 NTD per person, and they left equally as full. Though we had gone a bit over budget, I really enjoyed how the seafood was prepared and how fresh the ingredients are, so I would definitely come back again and recommend all of you to try seafood in Keelung, at least once.
