Rob Koenen
While Australian travellers have fallen in love with Japan and have long been devotees of Thailand, Vietnam and Bali, Taiwan has remained slightly off the radar for some. If you’ve been, you’ll already know it’s one of the most exciting places in the world to visit right now, with its own distinct vibe that’s relaxed, friendly, at once futuristic and charmingly retro.
Most of my trip is spent in Taipei, the northern capital of almost seven million people. Excitingly, there are around 20 night markets dotted across the city offering an array of dishes for little more than $5 a pop. At Ningxia, a long stretch of carts battle it out in a cacophony of sizzling, smoking, steaming and slicing. The scent of stinky tofu fills the air (reminiscent of rotting garbage, you can’t miss it), while crowds gather around the best vendors selling everything from crunchy fried chicken tossed in numbing Sichuan salt to stretchy pancakes stuffed with peanut brittle, ice-cream and fragrant coriander. At the Tonghua Street Night Market, I smash steaming tangyuan rice balls filled with sesame and peanut over mounds of shaved ice. At Raohe, pepper buns are the main attraction – hunks of fresh dough pressed with spiced pork and a blanket of spring onions baked in a tandoor-style oven. At around $3 each, they’re the temperature of the sun, so let them cool before scoffing.
Visitors and locals love to queue for the best food, but however long the line is, it tends to move quickly. Having said that, at Michelin-awarded breakfast joint Fuhang, fans wait up to an hour for sweet or savoury soy milk, served hot or cold, alongside sticks of fried dough known as youtiao. Over in Ximending, a mildly gritty shopping and LGBTQ+ nightclub district, you’ll find mobs at Lao Shan Dong, another Michelin-recognised spot dishing rich bowls of beef noodle soup. The ribbons of hand-pulled noodles in a complex broth are soft yet firm, slippery and chewy – a texture known as “QQ”, or “bouncy”, which is akin to Italy’s al dente, and a Taiwanese obsession.
Taipei is a city of districts, so choosing the right base to explore is crucial. My first stop is the stylish W Taipei, which occupies a 31-storey tower in the Xinyi District, known for its sleek malls with designer stores from Dior to Chanel. With 405 rooms, “heavenly beds”, chic bathrooms, a mirror-surfaced pool and one of the best buffet breakfasts in town, it’s tempting not to leave the property despite being located on top of a Metro train station. One surprise feature is its onsen-style spa, with hot and cold pools, steam room and sauna, no swimwear allowed. There’s a glossy restaurant, Yen, on the top floor serving killer Peking-style duck.
And my room overlooks Taiwan’s most iconic view: Taipei 101, a green skyscraper that was once the tallest building in the world (now 11th) and is sometimes described as looking like a stack of takeaway containers. It’s worth a trip to the top in one of the fastest lifts on the planet, which speeds from the fifth to the 89th-floor observation deck in 37 seconds. It’s far easier than the terrifying route taken by free climber Alex Honnold for a recent Netflix special; the American scampered 508 metres up the exterior in just 91 minutes, without ropes.
Another revered address is the Mandarin Oriental, Taipei. Set on a tree-lined boulevard in the Songshan District, the building was completed in 2014 yet looks airlifted from Paris or Milan. The white marble lobby is staffed by an army of impeccably dressed attendants, leading to 256 rooms and 47 suites. Each offers classic hotel glam, with handcrafted wallpaper, ornate furnishings and lavish bathrooms. There’s a pool, of course, and an exclusive club lounge serving cocktails and cakes throughout the day. You’ll also find one of the city’s finest Cantonese meals here – a Michelin-starred dining room called Ya Ge. My lunch is a dazzling menu of sticky barbecued pork, intricate pastry dumplings, tender lobster, fragrant egg fried rice, and a ginger milk pudding crowned with bird’s nest jelly. By now, I’m starting to get very full. Good thing I’m walking about 20,000 steps a day.
It would be a mistake to visit Taiwan and only see Taipei. Beyond the capital lies a landscape of lush valleys, atmospheric towns and smaller cities ripe for exploration. I board the thrillingly efficient Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) to Taichung, then travel to the hot-springs town of Guguan. Established as an onsen resort by Japanese settlers in the early 1900s, it’s the traditional home of the Atayal people, one of Taiwan’s 16 official Indigenous groups. The premium place to stay is Hoshinoya, a Japanese luxury hotel group that opened here in 2019. Just 49 rooms, each with its own hot-spring bath, are arranged in sleek cubes around a tranquil garden threaded with rushing streams and groomed greenery.
Life in Guguan unfolds at a gloriously slow pace, with kaiseki dining and gentle activities such as weaving or instrument-making. Multi-generational guests clip-clop around in wooden sandals wearing cotton samue, while the spritely can explore hiking trails through the surrounding mountains, home to monkeys and Formosan black bears. It’s a place of subtle rules, with ryokan-style bedding on the floor and no televisions or clocks. After a few days, I feel completely relaxed, squeaky clean from all the bathing and ready to return to the capital for one last culinary pilgrimage.
Din Tai Fung is a phenomenally successful restaurant chain that originated in Taipei in 1972 and expanded rapidly across the world in the 2000s. It closed down in Australia in 2024 and I’ve missed its immaculate xiao long bao soup dumplings pleated with exactly 18 folds. The original Taiwanese locations operate with the precision of a hospital with glassed kitchens and bright lighting, and are a must-visit on any itinerary. It takes well over an hour to get a seat at the Xinsheng branch, but one bite of the delicate parcel slicked in chilli oil confirms it. Like Guinness, these dumplings really do taste better at the source. Now, the question is, what am I going to eat next?
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Why Malta should be your next Mediterranean escape
Native ad body.
Discover Australia’s first UNESCO Region of Gastronomy
Share this post