By Yang Hsin-hui / Staff reporterThe last snake restaurant in Taipei’s Huaxi Street Night Market (華西街觀光夜市), also known as “Snake Alley,” is to close today, with second-generation owner Kuo Yi-chien (郭懿堅) saying the shop is to be converted into a hot pot restaurant. Six decades ago, Huaxi Street in the city’s Wanhua District (萬華) was a red-light district that featured brothels, street performers and snake-meat restaurants, said Kuo, who inherited his father’s restaurant, which has only ever served snake. There were as many as eight snake restaurants in the area’s heyday, but the only two other remaining restaurants with snake on the menu now manly sell softshell turtle meat, Kuo said. Meanwhile, the busker culture on Huaxi Street was dying out, which is why their family decided to stop serving snake, Kuo Yi-chien said. Many people expressed regret online over the store’s closure, with one saying that their skin problems were cured after they drank snake soup on the street.

Source: Taipei Times May 20, 2018 15:56 UTC