Many of the elderly residents of Tataocheng District pine for the old days, when Taiwan was part of Japan and this area of town was the best place to have fun outside of Tokyo. The streets were incandescent from the lights on nightclub facades and jazz would spill onto the pavement each time the door opened. Patrons would stumble out of piano bars and red-envelope cabarets in the small hours in search of sashimi, sushi and midnight tepanyaki.
Nowadays the lights may flicker more than shine and the music is all karaoke, but there are still plenty of places serving up raw fish. Xiao Xiang Ting is among the best to check out.
Xiao Xiang Ting's address looks incomplete. That's because it is not so much a restaurant as a night market unto itself. Tucked in an alley adjacent the new glass-encased Yuan Huan building, across the street from Ningxia night market, Xiao Xiang Ting holds its own against both of these more famous places to eat -- and for good reason.
Despite being on the street, the place is considerably cleaner than any of the carts lining the night market. The alley looks more like a movie set than a street -- something out of In The Mood For Love perhaps -- and you expect Maggie Cheung to saunter through the steam rising from the kitchen at the head of the alley.
The food is a level above most anything in the area. The tables lining the alleyway are nearly always occupied and patrons are often invited into one of two indoor dining areas on either side of the lane.
At 5pm, when the sashimi is freshly filleted, people in the know stream in from the back end of the alley to grab a table before getting in line. They' ll eat through an ocean of tienbula and save just enough room for a plate of sashimi and a pair of seafood wraps. (Delicious, by the way -- try the shrimp and asparagus!) Then wash it all down with a bowl of piping hot miso or a cold beer.
This is likely the only alley in Taipei that serves Taiwan Beer on tap. There's a hot sake dispenser, too. And the service staff of mostly elderly women could almost be called doting.
The potential drawback to Xiao Xiang Ting is that it's an outdoor eatery in the subtropics that serves raw fish. Remember: You are not lucky to have gotten the last plate of sashimi on the counter, you are a fool to have gotten it.
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