Vegetarian Travel - Taipei: Around Longshan temple 龙山寺

Longshan temple 龙山寺


Probably because of the presence of a Buddhist temple, there are many vegetarian eateries in the vicinity of Longshan temple(龙山寺).

Most of the eateries are along Xichang Street (西昌街) next to the Longshan temple park, just by the MRT station named after the temple. There are 2 eateries in the small Sanshui St (三水街) off Xichang Street.

If you come here in the morning of afternoon, get your vegetarian food at the eateries along Xichang Street or Sanshui Street. If you come here at night, you can look for more vegetarian food along Xichang Street night market or Guangzhou Street night market.



Sanshui Street 三水街

Probably because I do not know where to look, I found it difficult to get decent breakfast in Taipei. Most of the vegetarian stalls were not yet open before 9am. Thus, I was quite delighted to find Sanshui Street.

Walk in from the Longshan Temple Park and you will find that Sanshui Street is quite a bustling little alley. At the other end of it, there is the Sanshui Market 三水市场. If you like to visit local markets, it's worth taking a look. I found many stalls selling vegetarian ingredients in the market.

There are 2 vegetarian eateries here. One is Hefeng Vegetarian Restaurant （和风素食）. From its name, I think it is Japanese style vegetarian restaurant. It's on the second floor.

Where I ate was the Shangding Huangjia Vegetarian Fried Buns, the green signboard in the picture. It's name sounds real grand (it's something like Supreme Royal Vegetarian Fried Buns), but it's really a street eatery. Most of the customers take away their orders. But there are a few seats inside the restaurants. So you can eat inside there.


The specialty of this stall is fried buns. Buns with bamboo shoots fillings and cabbage fillings are NT$10 each. Buns with vegetables 雪里红 are NT$20. There are fried dumplings 水煎饺 selling for 10 for NT$40 or 5 for NT$20. When I was there for breakfast, there was soy milk as well (NT$10 a bowl). I ordered a portion of fried dumplings, a cabbage bun, a bamboo shoot bun as well as a bowl of soy milk (see picture above). It was a very hearty and satisfying breakfast for NT$70. I preferred the bamboo shoot buns over the cabbage buns though.

The last day I was in Taipei, I came here again for the hot and sour soup, and packed a few buns to eat on the flight. The hot and sour soup was Sichuan style. But I found it strange because I was asked if I wanted it hot (spicy) or sweet. I wanted it hot and they added chilli. The taste was nothing special, but it had a lot of ingredients in the soup. It was not hot and sour enough for me and I had to add a lot more pepper and vinegar to it. But at NT$30, I still thought it was a good deal.

Xichang Street 西昌街

Along the Xichang Street next to the park, I spotted 3 vegetarian eateries and 1 vegetarian pastry shop.

I ate at the Yangshengfugu Vegetarian Restaurant. (养生复古素食馆, see picture below)












The restaurant is on the second floor. It is a "buffet" restaurant. The dishes were laid out at the counter and I picked the dishes I want onto a plate. It was up to the owner's "judgement" how much the food was worth. The plateful I picked in the picture above cost me NT$60, which was quite reasonable. The plate of noodles was NT$40. The soup was free.


There were 2 other restaurants/eateries (see picture on the left) along the same stretch of the street. But I did not try there.

Across the Guangzhou Street, also along Xichang Street, there is another eatery （老牌龙山素菜部） opposite the Dizhang temple (marked 4 on the map above). I had a mushroom soup noodle for dinner there (NT$40), but found it less than satisfying.


Xichang Street night market 西昌街

Most people coming here at night would head to the Huaxi Night Market (Snake Alley) or the Guangzhou Street Night Market and would missed Xichang Street on the other side of the temple.

For those who like porridge and dishes(清粥小菜), I found a road-side stall set up in front of a bank just at the junction of Xichang Street and Guangzhou Street. It is not a pure vegetarian stall, but it has one section with quite a number of vegetarian dishes.

There is a night market along Xichang Street. At the end of the street (marked 5 on the map above) , there is a vegetarian street stall. I had soup noodles for NT$30 and stewed tofu for NT$40.

Guangzhou Street Night Market 广州街夜市

The Snake Alley (Huaxi Night Market) is well known for snake stews. Most of the food stores are seafood stalls. There is nothing much for vegetarians in there.

Towards the end of Guangzhou Street Night Market away from the Longshan temple (labelled 6 on the map), I found a few stalls serving vegetarian food. One of the stall is the usual local food stall selling noodles and stewed tofu and gluten. There is another one selling vegetarian stinking tofu and another stall selling vegetarian crispy fried mushroom (酥炸菇).