World Food Confluence: 24-Hour Neighbourhood Eatery

It’s always good to have multiple 24-hour choices in your arsenal to fall back on after a late night out, and we’ve recently made it our mission to expand on our list of go-to places. So although we’re suckers for 24-hours McDonalds, Sushi Express, Sukiya, dim sum, cold noodles, and even catch-your-own shrimp, it’s always fun to check out somewhere totally new. We were introduced to World Food Confluence by a Taiwanese friend who always seems to know the best local spots in the city. Located in Datong District just around the corner from Dihua Street, this restaurant serves up a variety of tasty Taiwanese snacks and, according to our friend, several extremely inauthentic Western dishes. It may not be the best quality food, but it is extremely popular at all times of the day, especially with elderly neighbours at around 1 or 2AM.

What World Food Confluence lacks (according to online reviews) in quality, it makes up for in quantity of dishes: breakfast foods, stir-fried dishes, hamburgers, sandwiches, toast, buns, danbing, radish cake, beef noodles, traditional desserts, and a variety of rather interesting animal body parts like cow stomach or pig cheek are all available. We weren’t quite ready for the animal parts when we visited, but were interested in their famed, popular fried rice. We weren’t sure if it would live up to the hype — it does come highly recommended on Google — but after ordering we can definitely confirm that it’s fantastic. The rice was soft and fluffy, with the flavours of the egg and scallions and meat really coming through. We can confidently say that it’s the best fried rice we’ve had so far in Taipei.

Having been so taken with the original fried rice, we immediately ordered a serving of their curry fried rice. This was another delicious dish, but in our opinion not quite as good as the original. The curry flavour was mild and added an interesting dimension, but it slightly overpowered the other flavours in the mix. We still recommend trying it if it sounds appealing, but our favourite was definitely the first.

We also ordered some pan-fried dumplings. These were tasty but pretty basic. If you do order them, we recommend slathering them with their hand-made chili sauce, which they stir-fry themselves with radish. The sauce was great, but the dumplings were just okay. Still, dumplings are always a solid late-night choice, and we didn’t think they were bad, just not particularly special.

Another dish that World Food Confluence is famous for is their stir-fried instant noodle with lettuce and pork. According to our Taiwanese friend, this is a pretty unusual dish to come across, but to be honest it didn’t really stand out to us — especially not compared to the fried rice, which was fantastic. It was still pretty tasty, but we didn’t really get the appeal of the instant noodles. He loved it, we loved it less.

We enjoyed these noodles in a clear broth for its light flavour, but they weren’t our favourite. Still, it was a pleasant break from the heavy dishes we had had so far, and we enjoyed the fact that it was so refreshing.

We washed everything down with peanut milk. It was a delicious, light drink that helped combat the kick of their amazing home-made chilli, which really started to burn our mouths after a while.

Last but not least, we gave in to temptation and ordered ourselves a cheeky little dessert. This was a very basic, slightly sweet pastry that was satisfying, but perhaps not enough to order again in a hurry. Still, it was interesting to try, and a nice way to end our meal.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal at World Food Confluence. Google was right, it wasn’t the best food we’ve had, but for a 24-hour joint it was tasty, filling, and extremely cheap: for 5 dishes, 3 drinks and 1 dessert, we only paid $305. It wouldn’t be our first choice during the day, but when options get more limited in the middle of the night, we would definitely return. The fried rice, in particular, was worth coming back for, and we loved how much variety they had on the menu, hopefully satisfying a range of cravings in one shot.

Check out their menu (only in Chinese — you’ll have to guess, point, or mime) down below:

What’s the vibe?

Very casual but popular neighbourhood joint serving up an extremely wide range of food. Customers are likelier to be (in the words of our Taiwanese friend) “ratchet old people from the neighbourhood” than drunken revellers, so this probably isn’t the place to keep the party going at 4AM.

Worth it?

During the day? Not so much. The food is good, but there are tonnes of amazing food places in Taipei to take your pick from. But in the wee hours of the night? Absolutely. So many things to choose from, and so cheap.

Would you go back?

We’ll do anything for food at 4AM. Count us in.

Last updated October 2019.

World Food Confluence

Chinese Name: 世界美食總匯

Hours: Open 24/7

Phone: 02 2553 0902

English Address: 187 Guiyuan Street, Datong District, Taipei City

Chinese Address: 台北市大同區歸綏街187號