Miaokou

Miaokou means "temple mouth" — the market grew up at the entrance to the Dianji Temple, which was built in the 1870s (1875 by most accounts) by immigrants from Fujian. Food stalls gathered where the worshippers were, and never left.

Part of the main lane is under cover, and every stall carries an identical yellow lantern with a number on it. Locals give directions by number. Some stalls trade by day, it gets busier from mid-afternoon, and the city recommends dusk to about 21:00.

What to eat, in order

Ding bian cuo — the one to start with. Rice batter is poured around the hot rim of a wok, sets into sheets, is scraped off and cut into strips, then dropped into a broth of pork, squid, dried shrimp, bamboo and cabbage. It is a Fuzhou dish and it is the signature of this market.

Nutritious sandwich. The name is a joke and the sign says it in English. A deep-fried bread roll, split, filled with braised egg, ham, cucumber and a great deal of mayonnaise. It should not work.

Thick crab soup. Keelung is a fishing port and the crab and fish-paste soups here are the real local product, not a tourist item.

Tempura, which in Taiwan means something closer to fish cake than to Japanese tempura — a linguistic fossil from the Japanese period.

Take small portions from many stalls. The mistake is to sit down and order a full plate at the first place with a photograph you recognise.

Practical, and honest

Bring cash in small notes. Most stalls do not take cards and will not love a large bill.

The market is a ten-minute walk from the cruise berths, is partly covered along the main lane, and mostly works in rain — which matters, because Keelung is among the wettest cities in Taiwan.

And it works at lunchtime. Many cruise calls here are daytime only, and some stalls trade by day, so a daytime call still gets a taste. How many is not published.