Street-side spicy oden stall    Dim lighting, casual but very relaxing

Text and photos by /Orange Dog Loves Candy

For a while, at the intersection of Xiaodong Road and Changrong Road in Tainan, several oden stalls would appear every midnight. These were all temporary street-side stands, with one stall at each corner of the intersection. They’d just set up a few small tables and chairs on the sidewalk and start business. The area was only lit by dim streetlights, along with the steam rising from the simmering pots at the stalls. I remember every stall served spicy oden XD. Back then, no matter which corner you went to for a plate of oden, you’d inevitably have to wait in line for ages. Eventually, they all disappeared without a trace. It seems one of them moved to Changrong Road and became a proper shop called 【Spicy Li’s Oden】, but somehow, I later discovered that this Spicy Li’s Oden had reappeared near the intersection of Xiaodong Road and Linsen Road. And the later it got, the more people there were. I wondered how there could be two stalls with the same name. That day, I came to eat the asked-for sauce dumplings, but since they weren’t open, I just sat down at the neighboring stall.

A small red stall, with ingredients lined up in neat rows — quite a lot, in fact. This is often what draws me to an oden stall. Honestly, you might not end up picking that many, but there’s just something satisfying about the visual, plus it’s a street-side stall.

I’m not sure how others feel, but for me, the reason I like street-side stalls is simply because you can eat so casually. Because of my job, I’m out running around all day, and wearing a suit all day long is actually pretty tiring.

When eating at a dimly lit little roadside stall like this, you don’t have to worry too much about your tie or attire XD. As for hygiene — something many people care about — I guess I’ve been eating from street-side stalls since I was a kid, so I’m pretty laid-back about it XD.

But from what I could see, I’d say about 80% of the customers were students. Oh, and the broth itself isn’t spicy — the spiciness comes from the sauce. The main stall has pots on both sides: one side cooks the spicy broth, the other side has the original mild broth.

The ingredients on both sides are slightly different, but you can tell the boss whether you want it spicy or not. You pick the ingredients you want and place them on the iron tray in front of the stall, then tell the boss where you’ll be sitting and go wait.

Next to that is the area for vegetables and instant noodles. Aside from the old favorite Science Noodles, there are several other noodle options. There are no price tags displayed, and I’m the type who can’t be bothered to ask about each item. But I later found out they’re actually not expensive. Still, not having price tags makes you feel a bit uneasy when picking things, especially for someone like me who has no self-control.

So I ended up picking two big plates for a total of 150 NT$. Would I say it’s expensive? Not really. But there weren’t many extra side ingredients added, unlike Fucheng Braised Delicacies on Dongning Road, where you’d actually pick just a little, but then they’d pile on so much pickled mustard greens that it becomes a huge plate.

It was roughly one pack of baby bok choy, two packs of Science Noodles, one piece of rice blood cake, one piece of fish cake, one piece of liver meat, two large meatballs, two pieces of daikon radish, one piece of pork intestine, one piece of frozen tofu, one piece of German-style sausage — about 10 items in total, costing 150 NT$.

Actually, I was a bit suspicious at first whether they’d undercharged me, because it seemed a bit less than I expected. They also offer unlimited refills of black tea (not iced but too sweet) and hot broth, which is the same broth used for the oden. You have to serve it yourself.

Most of the items were pretty tasty. The only issue was the pork intestine — it was a bit overcooked, chewy to the point of being like chewing gum. The daikon radish was nicely selected, not like some shops where the radish still has lots of fibers inside. Especially the liver meat, which was cut thickly (I didn’t pick any huge pieces), sliced into about five or six chunks.

Since it was thick-cut, it had good chewiness. Paired with their homemade sesame dipping sauce mixed with a bit of spicy sauce, it was actually pretty delicious. But go easy on the spicy sauce, because it’s seriously spicy.

I also quite liked the sausage. It wasn’t too skinny, though a bit salty, but still tasty. The Science Noodles came with a scoop of meat sauce — it was cooked in the spicy broth, giving off a faint spicy aroma, though it wasn’t actually spicy.

That scoop of meat sauce kind of reminded me of vegetarian meat sauce, but once mixed in, it was actually pretty good. The baby bok choy portion wasn’t too little or too much — it was just right, on the whole. I quite liked it.

I’ve seen some mixed online reviews. The negative ones mostly said the prices were high. But after I checked out today, two people eating for 150 NT$ actually left feeling pretty full, and I didn’t feel it was that expensive. As for the spicy flavor — perhaps because the ingredients are only lightly blanched in the broth — compared to the Spicy Li’s on Changrong Road, I felt the Xiaodong Road version wasn’t as deeply infused. It was just a faint spicy aroma on the surface, which was a bit of a shame. Aside from that, I think it’s pretty good overall. But why both stalls are called Spicy Li, I never asked. Interested folks can still come here and sit for a while — the atmosphere is actually pretty nice, if you don’t mind dining alongside exhaust fumes and cooking smoke.

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[Xiaodong Road Spicy Oden | Xiaodong Road │ East District]
Address: Intersection of Xiaodong Road and Linsen Road, East District, Tainan City, opposite Xiaodong Park
Phone: 04-24737711
Business Hours: 7:30 PM – 2:00 AM
Consumption Note: Irregular closure days, check luck or Facebook announcements. More people = more fun
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