Last month, I went back to Singapore and one of the first things I wanted to try was this food court style TaiWan Night Markets at Cineleisure Orchard. This is a Taiwanese street food concept that opened on the 28th July 2023. I hoped to bring back memories of visiting Taiwan (2016) 7 years ago and trying out their street foods.
This is located on the basement level and has a seating capacity of 300 people. To get there, you can either take the MRT to Orchard Road station or Somerset station and then take a walk to the location. The building is very easy to find and they have advertisements by the building to tell you the night market is there.
Their opening hours are from Sundays to Thursdays & public holidays are 11:30 am to 10:30 pm (last orders 9:30 pm) and Fridays, Saturdays & eve of public holidays: 11:30 am to 12 am (last orders 11 pm).
This place is said to be inspired by Taipei’s Dadaocheng Wharf. You can find a few decorative items dotted around the food court like a postbox, two army men etc. I didn’t take many photos as the place was very busy.
I love street food as this is what I was brought up with. Street food or Pasar Malam is always buzzing and filled with a lot of different kinds of food. There are so many choices, from hot to cold, from mild to spicy!
Anyway, there are 19 food kiosks and 5 mini restaurants in this place. I went there twice in August but not all stalls were open. Hopefully, they are all fully open as I write this.
They sell foods like peanut roll ice cream, crispy chicken, small sausage in a large sausage, sweet potato balls, oyster vermicelli and many more. The pricing is around $4 onwards. It is slightly expensive, but it is located in Orchard Road, hence the price is more expensive.
I loved most of the food we bought. My son is not as keen on the peanut roll ice cream as the block of mango ice cream just tasted okay. I did opt out of the coriander. Peanut roll ice cream is called 花生饼 Hua Shen Bing. It is wrapped in popiah skin, peanut shaving, ice cream and coriander. I loved it when I ate it in Taiwan, but in Singapore, instead of scoops of ice cream, they served the ice cream in a block.
There is one thing that I dislike about eating there is that they serve the food in takeaway packs and disposable plastic cutlery. It makes it so hard to slice the food to share. Also, it created so much waste! I prefer to eat with real utensils! One thing to note is that there are two steps as you approach the kiosks. If you are taking hot food orders away, do take care on these.
On a positive note, I like the aunties and uncle helpers, as they are very efficient and polite. They are always ready to take your waste away.
This isn’t the only place in Singapore to eat Taiwanese street food. In fact, there are many kiosks dotted around Singapore shopping malls that sell Taiwanese street food. This TaiWan Night Markets gathers most of them here though. If you want to taste it all, this is the best place to go!