The tea merchants’ shutters come down around six.
After they do, the smell stays in the arcades — roasted oolong, angelica root from the herbalists, dried squid stacked at the dry-goods doors. Dihua Street’s evening begins with that smell, not with a drink.
No. 34 Section 1: one building, two nights
The walk starts at No. 34, Dihua Street Section 1. The ground floor is a shop; the two floors above are each a bar, as if the two faces of Dadaocheng had been stacked into one stairwell.
The second floor is 沃森茶酒館 WOSOM / Teahouse & Bar, with more than eight hundred reviews. Their idea is to pour what Dihua Street already sells into a glass: oolong from the tea merchants as the base, smoked plum and osmanthus from the herbalists and dry-goods shops as the supporting cast. A tea cocktail costs NT$400 to NT$600 — a step below Xinyi prices, and what you are buying is the street, not only the glass.
One floor up is Antique Bar 1900, three hundred-odd reviews and a 4.8 rating. Same building, but the mood shifts to old timber and old glassware, and voices drop. Both open between six and seven and close around ten; on a weekday you will usually find a seat, on a Friday or Saturday without a booking it is luck.
My suggestion: sit on the second floor first, take the third as your second round. The reverse works too — only the antiques bar runs slow, and by the time you come down the teahouse may already be washing glasses.
Following the house numbers north
Leave No. 34 and walk north along Section 1. By day this stretch is packed with tourists; after seven it is lit baroque façades and a few people walking dogs. Go slowly. Twenty minutes.
At Lane 72 turn in; No. 10 inside the lane is Corner Sip 角啜, ninety reviews and a 4.9. The place is the size of a corner — the name is honest. The trouble with rooms like this is how few they seat; groups of four or more should not count on it.
Further north at No. 318 Section 1, 迪宅南洋餐酒 DEE JAI BISTRO-大同 brings Southeast Asian cooking into the tail end of the old street, seventy-odd reviews and still new. If you want a hot meal on Dihua Street before heading home, this is closer to dinner than a snack.
The whole stretch from No. 34 to No. 318, stops included, takes an hour and a half to two hours.
Hungry: Minle Street and Yanping North Road
The food on Dihua Street itself runs small. To eat properly, walk one street east to No. 18 Minle Street, where 幹嘛日式餐酒館 has six hundred-odd reviews and izakaya portions to go with a drink; or a little further to No. 93 Yanping North Road Section 2, where 叁壹居酒屋Izakaya has a hundred and forty-odd reviews and a 4.8. Both are NT$600-to-NT$800 places for a full meal and a round. More in Datong bars and bistros.
No. 83 Yanping North Road Section 2 also has a chain karaoke house, for anyone singing until dawn.
A few honest warnings
Do not come in the month before Lunar New Year. The New Year goods market sets up from mid-January through New Year’s Eve, the crowds do not thin at dusk, bar waits start at an hour, and most shops that month only want to sell out their stock.
The rice-dumpling season before Dragon Boat Festival, late May into early June, is crowded too.
The arcades are walkable in rain, but Dihua Street’s arcades are uneven and the steps are hard to see after dark. Wear shoes you can walk in.
One more thing: this street closes early. Past ten, to keep going, head east to Chifeng Street or south to Ningxia Night Market — Dihua Street itself is dark by eleven. For the part of the district where bars run later, the Dadaocheng old-house bar walk covers the Nanjing West Road side; that piece and this one are two lines through the same district.
Winding down, going home
Feet tired: 太原養生會館_天水店 at No. 14 Tianshui Road has more than eighteen hundred reviews and sits near Beimen station; to finish at the north end, 華南泰式會館 at No. 215-6 Dihua Street Section 2 has few reviews but is right on the road. The list is in Datong massage and spa.
Two ways back. From around No. 34, walk to MRT Beimen — the exit at No. 10 Tacheng Street — about ten minutes; from the north end to Daqiaotou is about the same. Whether it was tea cocktails or plain spirits, the row of scooters outside the arcade stays there tonight and gets collected tomorrow. Taxis are not hard to flag here after dark, and designated drivers can be booked.
Ningxia Night Market lies toward Shuanglian station, ten minutes on foot, stalls open until around midnight. A pocket-change bowl of soup to take the sweetness of the tea cocktail down, then home. For the district as a whole, the Datong guide is one page.