Fry-by-night joints are jumpin'

Cheap beer and seafood - and plenty of it - has become a winning formula for Taipei's new 'seafood-100 fast-fry' joints. At Xin Ke Zhan on Minsheng East Road, the fried clams cost just NT$100 (HK$27). So do oysters and the sweet-and-sour fish slices.

By about 7.30pm on most nights the 200 seats are filled with people from local office or residential blocks. By closing time at 2am, customers are on stools spilling out onto the pavement.

'If they get drunk, they can just relax because we call a taxi for them,' says co-owner Hsu Ying-ying, whose year-old business has a friendly ambience that draws the steady flow of customers required to make a profit from low food prices.

'Seafood-100 fast-fry' joints, as they're called in Chinese, started popping up in Taiwan's capital over a decade ago and have really proliferated in the last two years. They serve up volumes of seafood from the waters surrounding Taiwan in a chaotic, low-rent but glittery ambience similar to that of Taiwan's ever-popular night markets. Prices are low compared with Taiwanese restaurants.

'The Taiwanese value their night market culture, as well as the tradition of small dishes, where small amounts of food can be bought inexpensively. For those who want to sit down and enjoy seafood but would rather have a lot of small things to try without paying a lot for them, as you would in a night market, it's perfect,' says Jenna Cody, a Taipei-based food blogger.

'They are popular because the seafood is generally high quality and served quickly, which is a better guarantee of freshness.'