Everything’s Bigger in Taipei’s Night Markets

Taipei’s night markets run on a simple principle: anything that can go on a stick will go on a stick, and anything that can be made into a popsicle will be made into a popsicle. The city’s street food culture is one of the great unassuming pleasures of East Asian travel—unpretentious, absurdly varied, deeply committed to the bit. And then someone looked at all of this and decided the logical next step was a frozen novelty shaped like a very detailed, very veiny, anatomically precise penis.

They come in red, blue, yellow. Raspberry, orange, strawberry. Oversized, emphatically sculpted, sold at night market stalls without ceremony, the same way you’d sell any other iced treat. You don’t take a quick bite—the whole thing demands a patient, considered approach. The vendors don’t flinch. The tourists do.

Micaela Braithwaite documented the scene firsthand from Taipei’s streets, reporting that some specimens were larger than her head. I don’t doubt it. The restraint on display was essentially nil, which is the correct attitude. If you’re going to do this, commit. Half-measures would be worse.

Whether they taste good is almost beside the point. The whole thing is about the cheerful vulgarity of a food culture that sees no reason to take itself seriously—served at a stand next to the fish balls and the stinky tofu, under fluorescent lights, at midnight. I respect it enormously.