A trip to Taiwan is considered incomplete if you did not pay a visit to any of its Night Market. And Shilin Night Market is considered one of the largest and most popular Night Market in Taiwan with its maze of alleys filled with good food. I am talking about Large chicken cutlets, bubble tea, Oyster Omelet(蚵仔煎), small sausage in large sausage(大腸包小腸) and of course the stinky tofu(臭豆腐). Does mentioning about Taiwan's Night Market and its food makes you want to immediately jump onto the next flight to Taiwan? Here is a good news for you as you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of a Taiwan Night Market without having to leave Singapore as Singapore's version of the Shilin Night Market will take place at The Grounds @ Kranji for 2 weekends in the month of April. What is Shilin Night Market Singapore?Shilin Night Market is a concept by Invade (the same team that host ArtBox in Singapore last year). You will get to experience a taste of Taiwan with elements of local twist at this event. Look forward to a Night Market where you can eat(吃), shop(逛), play(玩) and have fun(樂) with a wide range of Taiwanese and Singaporean street delicacies, creative eats, pop up artisan stores, arcade games and even movie screenings. Dates: 19 – 21 April 2019; and 26 – 28 April 2019 Time: 3pm – 11pm free admission How to go to Shilin Night Market Singapore?Singapore Turf Club is the Official Venue Sponsor of Shilin Night Market which will be held at The Grounds@Kranji (Singapore Turf Club Carpark B). You can get to the event by taking the MRT and alighting at Kranji Station. You can also take the public bus service 160, 170, 178, 925, 960 and 961 to the event. My experienceMy family took the MRT to the venue and arrived around 5pm. Entry was very orderly and smooth. I even get to use the priority and fast pass lane because I was travelling with my parents whom are above 60 years old. We decided to head for the food section first before the crowd gets bigger (the crowd was not big when we arrived partly because it was drizzling). I had very mixed experience at different food stalls. I must first say that the following are my personal experience and meant for your reference only. I have pre booked some food vouchers on Klook beforehand. At stores that you can use the Klook voucher, you will see a sign that says Klook priority queue. The very first stall i went to was HOT STAR fried chicken cutlet. There was already a very long queue when we arrived. I check with the lady at the counter do i join the queue even though I have the queue voucher? She replied in chinese "都一样" which translate to All the same. So I joined the queue. After 1 hour in queue i finally reach the counter. The same lady that told me to queue now look at me and say "你排错,请再排队" which means you are in the wrong queue, please queue again. I told her you were the one who told me to join this queue but she claim I was mistaken. Not wanting to create a scene, I move to the other queue. Only now then I saw the Klook Priority Queue sign right at the front which was hang so low that you cannot see from the entrance side. Ok my own fault for not being observant i told myself. As the queue was very long, I got my parents to stay in line while I get the other food i bought using Klook. The second stall I visited was LIANG sandwich bar. Things were more systematic over here. Firstly there is a Klook staff that was actively directing the crowd. Similarly there were 2 queue namely Klook Priority Queue and normal queue. Following the sign and the staff, it was easy to recognize which is which. After making purchase, regardless which queue you are from, you will be given a collection queue number. I like this system because I got to receive the number quicker as I belong to the Klook Priority Queue. Subsequently since we collect our order based on queue number, it is clear when is our turn (hard for people to cut queues). So overall things went very smoothly here. The sandwich taste great too, machiam like roti prata in subway style lol. After confirming with my parents that they are still very far behind in the queue via phone, I decided to grab my third Klook purchased from MILKSHA which is located directly opposite of LIANG sandwich bar. There were a slight confusion among the 2 queues in front of MILKSHA. It was hard to tell which is which due to the fact that the queue beocome merge into one somewhere in the middle. However the Klook staff stationed here was quick to react and immediately proceed to identify Klook user among the 2 queues. They then reorganize us and 2 neat queues were once again formed in front of the stall. Although there was a small hipcups, I still get my order relatively quickly. The drink is good but nothing overly special in my opinion. Finally i am back to the first stall. I rejoined the queues so that my parents can rest. There were a stage at the center where you can enjoy some performances.
Around 8pm, I have only moved halfway through the queue. At the same time, I noticed a family that starts queuing the normal queue around 7pm already walking away with their orders. Hence I become very doubtful of the queue and ask my Mum to stay in line while I check things out. This is when I realized they have 3 staff serving the normal queue while only 1 serving the priority queue. What?! So I ask the Klook staff walking around how can you call this a priority queue when you are not serving us as such? She say she will help me check and then suddenly just disappear. Finally at close to 9pm, I am just 3 customer away from the counter. This is when another series of incidents occured. Firstly another victim of their poor signage and directions came up to our counter to say that she was told she joined the wrong queue only when she reached the other counter. I can understand what she is going through because I was also faced with the same issue but I was angry that the only staff serving our queue have to stop to attend to her while staff at the other queue continue like nothing has happened. Why should the rest of us wait until her case was settled? Can't they get someone to attend to her on the side? Secondly this group of family just squeeze in from the side and claim that they were in the queue earlier but was not served and demand for their orders right now. So I told the demanding lady of the group that I have been here since 5 and I do not remember seeing you. 2 ladies in front of me tried to explain to the staff that they too did not see this family while they were in line but the the staff just look at us and say there is no reason to be angry. The staff then went on to say since they only ordered 1 cutlet, we should be gracious to wait and let them have their order first. Actually I was ok to wait but the way the staff puts it makes me feel like we were wrong to point out they were cutting queues. So instead I should say thank you to the family whom just cut the queue? I was too pissed, too tired from the long queue to care about the taste of their food so no comments on their taste. So from my observation, things can go smoothly if properly managed. Blaming it on the fact that there were too many people is just a lousy excuse of a poor manged team. Another observation I have made was that some people managed to switch queue on the lead of the staff by purchasing the vouchers on site. So my suggestion is to go to the site to see first. Joins the normal queue if it is still manageable. Otherwise purchase the vouchers on site. In summary, this is just my personal opinion but if you have been to Taiwan before or you have not managed to stay alive without knowing what a chicken cutlet or bubble tea taste likes, then I do not think that it is a must to make a visit to this event.
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KelvinYo. I am from Singapore. I love to travel. Follow me as I share my experiences and tips for budget travelling as well as my hunt for Ho Kangs around Singapore. Archives
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