16.203 Niu Rou Mian

Cycle 16 – Item 203

POST 5,682

27 (Sun) July 2025

Niu Rou Mian

3.0

at Wanderlust (Chi Niu Xiang Niu Rou Mian)

(Raohe Street Night Market)

-Songshan, Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan)-

with the Family

Summer Vacation in Taiwan: Day 4 of 4

- Day 1 (16.200 Lobster, “Taiwanese Style”)
- Day 2 (16.201 “Chicken Meat”)
- Day 3 (16.202 Braised Beef Noodles)
- Day 4 (16.203 Niu Rou Mian)

In Taipei with the Family. 2nd time for me (see most recently 5.112 Niu Rou Mian), 2nd time for W, 1st time for the boys. Before sending DJ off to college, the original idea had been to take a grand summer vacation to somewhere far and fancy, like Italy, but neither W nor I felt much like planning or paying for it, so we settled on somewhere closer and cheaper. No plans really, just looking forward to great food, a bit of touring.

INK

As noted in yesterday’s cliffhanger post, I made a reservation to get a tattoo today at Hyun Tattoo, which I just happened to notice while visiting the night market. In retrospect, if we’d arrived at the market later in the evening when it was more crowded, I might not have noticed.

Located 2 m from the entrance to the market.

10 years ago, on a trip to Chiangmai, Thailand, I was inspired to get a tattoo to commemorate the occasion and decided on “CNX” (see generally 6.173 Black Pepper Giant Prawns) – the airport code for Chiangmai, as per IATA (International Air Transport Association). It was done on the leg, sorta to symbolize travel, with a long term plan to get a tattoo of the airport code from every city that I visited henceforth, cities from Asia clustered on the right flank, Middle East and Africa on the back, Europe on the inner flank, and the Americas on the front, then all tied together with a faint tracing of the world map in the background. Since then, I’ve managed GUM (Guam), NAD (Nadi), HAN (Hanoi), MNL (Manila), and now TPE (Taipei) for Asia, and BEY (Beirut) for the Middle East. The challenge is finding an available tattoo parlor in an unfamiliar city with limited time. Had I continued working for WHO, more opportunities would’ve come up. For no reason, I hadn’t bothered getting MNL done while living in Manila – just had it done during our recent visit, with time to kill in the mall on our final evening in town (see generally 16.148 Deep-Fried Crispy Cod Fish with Supreme Fish Sauce) – in fact at the same tattoo parlor where I’d gotten my first ink ever (see generally 5.237 Quarter Pound Churkey Burger Meal). For no reason, I have yet to get ICN (Incheon).

If I could start over, I might start with the world map then add cities in much smaller font, placed in their approximate geographical location on the map.

LUNCH

Chi Niu Xiang Niu Rou Mian is a Taiwanese restaurant. Specializes in beef noodle soup. According to the Google Lens translate function, the name means “Chi (toothy/tasty) Niu (beef) Xiang (fragrance) Niu (beef) Rou (meat) Mian (noodle),” though the business is listed in English as “Wanderlust” on Google Maps.