Fuzhou Shizu Pepper Buns

Tandoor-baked beef and scallion buns, an obligatory Taipei snack

Address Entrance Raohe Night Market, Songshan District, Taipei

The single most famous food stall in Taipei's night-market scene: a tandoor-oven bun stall at the western entrance to Raohe Night Market, serving one product only. The pepper bun (hujiao bing) is a yeasted, sesame-topped flatbread stuffed with marinated beef and a great quantity of black pepper and chopped scallion, slapped to the inside wall of a charcoal tandoor and pulled out crackling.

You can see them being made: the bakers reach into the oven with bare hands, pull a hot bun off the inner wall, and toss it onto a tray to cool. The queue routinely runs to 30 minutes; the buns are sold one to a customer in busy periods. NT$70 each as of mid-decade. Eat standing in the night market lane, with great care for the molten interior.

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