Guides · Cycling in Taiwan

First Meal at Songshan Airport: Raohe Night Market Is Not Walkable

Songshan Airport is close to central Taipei, and plenty of guides say it is "right by Raohe Night Market". Close is true; walkable is not. The two are about three kilometres apart, which is out of the question with a bike box and luggage. The market as a whole also does not open until 17:00, so anyone landing at midday needs another plan. This guide lays out the time, the distance and the honest ratings of the stalls — including the famous ones that only score in the threes on Google. Data checked on Google Maps, 8 August 2026.

The distance, stated plainly: three kilometres, not a walk

Songshan Airport and Raohe Night Market are about three kilometres apart. Most Chinese-language guides just say "very close" without spelling out what that distance means to someone who has just landed with a bike box and bags.

The realistic options are metro or taxi, roughly ten minutes either way. By metro, take the Wenhu Line from Songshan Airport station and change to the Songshan Line for Songshan station; leave by Exit 5 and walk about fifty metres towards Cih-You Temple to reach the market entrance. By train, Taiwan Railway to Songshan station, out of the north exit and turn right.

With a bike box, that transfer is genuinely awkward — carrying a bicycle on the Taipei Metro is subject to specific rules, which you should check before you travel. This is the most direct case for a support vehicle at Songshan: one trip delivering rider, bike and luggage to the door, with no juggling three large items at an interchange.

The market opens at 17:00 — what if you land at noon?

Raohe Night Market runs along Raohe Street between Bade Road Section 4 and Fuyuan Street in Songshan District, about six hundred metres end to end, open daily from 17:00 to 23:00. Walking the length takes around an hour and a half; with queueing and eating, allow two to three hours.

So if you land at midday or in the afternoon, your first meal is not going to be at the market. The practical answer in that case is Dongfahao, which opens at 08:30 and trades through to midnight — one of the few long-standing shops here not bound by night-market hours.

Landing in the evening, watch the peak instead. Dongfahao runs at 92% at 18:00, 100% at 19:00 and 94% at 21:00 on a Saturday; Fuzhou Shizu Pepper Buns hits 93% at 18:00 and 100% at 19:00. Around seven in the evening is the fullest it gets. Fresh off a flight and hauling luggage, you are better off going after 20:30.

Two long-standing stalls, and their actual ratings

Every stall in this guide falls into the second tier of this series’ two-tier rule: long-established or Bib Gourmand status, but a Google rating below 4.0. We list the scores as they are, without dressing them up.

Ratings for famous Taiwanese night-market stalls generally sit between 3.5 and 4.0, mostly because queue times and prices dominate tourist reviews. That does not mean the food is bad, but you should know what you are queueing for. Both are cash only, and neither has an English menu.

• Dongfahao oily rice and thin noodles (No. 143, Raohe St): open 08:30–00:00, seven days a week, under NT$200 per person. Google rating 3.5 from 3,528 reviews. A century-old shop selling only oily rice, thin noodle soup and pork thick soup. Its real advantage is the hours — from half past eight in the morning until midnight, it is the only all-day option here.
• Fuzhou Shizu Pepper Buns (Raohe St): open 15:30–23:30, seven days a week, under NT$200 per person. Google rating 3.7 from 2,666 reviews. A Michelin Bib Gourmand listing and the stall most often named as a must-queue, where waiting thirty minutes or more at weekends is normal.
• Chen Dong Herbal Pork Ribs: another Bib Gourmand stall, but two attempts to retrieve its hours and rating returned nothing, so it is not recommended here. Confirm for yourself before you go.

What a support vehicle actually does at Songshan

The problem at Songshan is not distance, it is hauling things over the last three kilometres. A bike box, a suitcase and a person moving three kilometres by metro interchange is about the worst value stretch of any trip.

A support vehicle covers three things here. It takes rider, bike and luggage from arrivals straight to the accommodation or the market in one go, removing the transfer and the carrying. On the way back it can take the bags first, so you walk the market empty-handed and get in the vehicle afterwards. And assembling or boxing a bike needs flat space and time, which is easier alongside a vehicle than in a terminal or a metro station.

Restaurant and night-market stops are not standard inclusions but can be requested while planning.

Vegetarian, halal and other dietary limits

Raohe is a meat-led night market, and travellers with dietary restrictions should go in expecting that.

Vegetarian: there are some vegetable and dessert stalls in the market, but both Dongfahao and Fuzhou Shizu are meat-based. Taipei has plenty of vegetarian restaurants, so treat the market as your companions’ outing and find a vegetarian place separately.

Halal: no stall in Raohe holds halal certification. Both the pepper buns and the oily rice contain pork, and shared fryers are the norm. We are not going to invent an alternative — travellers needing halal food should arrange a certified restaurant elsewhere in Taipei rather than build the market into the plan.

Allergens: shared woks and shared oil are standard across night-market stalls, so cross-contamination is hard to avoid. Treat this as high risk if your allergy is severe.

Sources

• 交通部觀光署 — 饒河街觀光夜市
• 台北松山機場首頁
• 臺北大眾捷運 — 帶自行車搭捷運
• 臺北大眾捷運 — 路網圖、各站資訊及時刻表

Rules and road conditions change — always check the official announcements before you travel.

Related guides

• Getting from Taoyuan Airport to the Ten-Day Traverse Start Line in Kaohsiung
• Flying a Bike from Korea to Taiwan, Baggage Rules and What It Actually Costs
• Bring Your Bike to Taiwan｜Airline Baggage Rules

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