It does seem that things are starting to get a little more interesting these days at Cathay Cineleisure Orchard especially with the closure of *SCAPE; the mall had recently seen the opening of a few new eateries in recent months — such include the move of the McDonald’s outlet at *SCAPE into the ground level of the mall, as well as the opening of other establishments like the new Hainan Lao Ba 海南老爸茶 and an outlet of Ah Chew Desserts as well. Taking over the former premises of the now-defunct Koufu food court is a multi-concept dining establishment named Taiwan Night Markets 台湾小夜市. A concept opened by the Fei Siong Group which operates brands like Boleh Boleh!, Encik Tan, Malaysia Boleh!, Malaysia Chiak!, Eat., Nam Kee Pau etc., Taiwan Night Markets is one of Fei Siong Group’s concept where the focus strays away from local and Malaysian cuisine — instead, the establishment purely focuses on Taiwanese cuisine which one might be able to find at their night markets. The food hall is decked in a style similar to a Da Pai Dong with metallic tables and chairs /occupying one side of the food hall for dine-in patrons to consume the food at — with pink lanterns being hung from the ceiling to further add on to the vibe; the stalls serving more substantial mains are located nearer to the dine-in seating, while the stalls serving up lighter snacks are all located towards the inner side of the food hall. One can expect quite a wide variety of food available at Taiwan Night Markets, though it is noted that some stalls have yet to open when we made our visit a month into their grand opening; some of the items served up from the various stalls at Taiwan Night Markets includes hotplate noodles, seafood congee, sesame oil chicken, crepes, peanut rolls, shaved ice, oyster omelette, scallion pancakes, deep-fried sweet potato balls, sausage with sticky rice and many more. Beverages available include Papaya Milk, as well as bubble tea and coffee — just to name a few.

Truth to be told, the food items were a little bit hit-and-miss depending on what one decides to go for at Taiwan Night Markets — this is also not a fact that is particularly surprising considering how Taiwan Night Markets is run by the Fei Siong Group; it would not be unfair for one to form an expectation of the food served at Taiwan Night Markets to be of a similar standard to that is being served at their other multi-brand concepts such as Malaysia Chiak!, Malaysia Boleh!, Kawan Kawan and Boleh Boleh!. After having a walk around the entire food hall, we pretty much stuck to trying out the Chicken Chop from the Night Markets Steak House stall that is located around the dine-in area of the food hall. The Night Markets Steak House stall serves up hotplate noodles — its signature offering seems to be the Huge Steak, though we eventually ended up going for the Chicken Chop since we weren’t too keen to try the Huge Steak at its steep price tag at $32. All main course items come served with a bowl of creamy corn soup on the side; the hotplate noodles also come with broccoli and a sunny side-up, with patrons being able to make a choice between mushroom sauce or black pepper sauce as well — we opted for the former for our order. There really isn’t anything that attempts to change the wheel over here, but we really liked the fact that the hotplate wasn’t used as simply dining ware here — the sauce does come sizzling on the hotplate which suggests that the hotplate is warmed before plating the food on top. The chicken was reasonably tender and juicy; came with a crisp skin — sufficiently savoury. The mushroom sauce which we had opted for came with some bits of button mushrooms; the sauce itself was thick but just lightly savoury for a bit of flavour, while the pasta did come with a good bite — itself being a little chewy where the slightly more charred parts are at due to the heat from the hotplate. The broccoli was a thoughtful addition to add a crunch whilst making the dish feel more wholesome, while the sunny side-up does come with a molten egg yolk without any stench overused oil. At $15, the Chicken Chop was a relatively decent eat at Taiwan Night Markets.

Wanting to give multiple items from the various stalls at Taiwan Night Markets a go, we have also tried the Oyster Omelet stall for their Omelette and the Shrimp Omelette, the Taiwanese Sausage with Sticky Rice stall for their Original Taiwanese Sausage with Sticky Rice, as well as the 青蛙下蛋 (Jelly Tapioca Pearl) stall for their Sesame Hot Mochi with Ice. We are not quite sure if this was a case of us ordering all the wrong items, but we were not quite impressed by the other items that we have had — the Shrimp Omelette was probably the better one of the entire lot, considering how the omelette had crisp edges and the starchy interior with bits of shrimp that provided some hint of sweetness; the Omelette being doused in a sweet, tomato-based sauce for a little bit of flavour. We were actually looking forward to the Original Taiwanese Sausage with Sticky Rice the most; it does seem that we did somewhat a mistake for not going with the variant that comes with pickles or marinated cucumber — this was considering how pickles were a default addition in the variant of the same dish that we had tried at the now-defunct Ho Jia Ga at The Poiz Centre. Nonetheless, the Original Taiwanese Sausage with Sticky Rice came with sticky rice that had been a little bit too charred on the underside, making it a little bit too difficult to chew and we left the sticky rice mostly untouched. As for the Sesame Hot Mochi with Ice, there wasn’t much going on considering this was just simply shaved ice with flat coins of mochi that have seemingly absorbed some form of brown sugar that comes covered in ground black sesame that is splashed with a bit of condensed milk atop; we felt that the black sesame can get a little choking after a while, and the hot nature of the mochi meant that the shaved ice melted a little too fast with the black sesame being unable to integrate with the melted ice. With all said about the food, Taiwan Night Markets does have some seriously strong vibes — all with live music performance at least during the evening we visited; probably a spot to check out if one isn’t too fussy about the food, and is around the Somerset neighbourhood for a meal.