Famous ‘Stunt’ Teh Tarik & Pad Thai Stalls From Bangkok Now In S’pore’s Chatuchak Market

Chatuchak Market is the third market from overseas to do a Singapore pop-up, after Bangkok’s Artbox and Taipei’s Shilin Night Market (a few stalls from Taiwan's Ningxia Night Market are also currently doing a pop-up at Sentosa till February 9, though they are under the Taiwan Food Festival billing). And unlike the two previous markets, which were open only over a few short days, Chatuchak Market is here for a longer stint. So if you’re afraid of catching, er, germs in a crowd, you can afford to wait a while more before you head down to check out the market.

Over 400 Thai and Singaporean vendors will be taking part in the market. Due to limited stall lots, the vendors are divided into three batches, with a fresh batch coming in every couple of weeks to a month. Chatuchak SG’s marketing rep tells us there are “two-third local vendors and one-third Thai vendors”, the latter hailing from the actual Chatuchak Market in Bangkok.

The prices here are definitely higher than Chatuchak BKK as the Thai vendors have to fly here with their staff and goods, but the event rep adds that prices for food and products will not be “significantly marked up” due to the low rent offered to vendors (a small 2m by 2m stall costs just over $1,000 to rent a month).

Where you have to balance your mango sticky rice as you paw through bargain clothes at Chatuchak BKK, the SG version has 400 seats for you to sit down and savour some Thai stall snacks and knock back some Chang beer (the Thai brewery is an event sponsor, and has its own booth there serving booze).

Here is what to expect:

The food

This stall from Chatuchak Bangkok sells just one item: baby octopuses.

This famous-in-BKK pad thai stall has one of the longest queues at the market, and it also sells only one item: pad thai ($6, or $8 with prawns). We eagerly line up to buy a plate.

We usually hit up Chatuchak in Bangkok for bargain-priced clothing, but the few stalls in operation that we see during our visit don’t seem particularly stylish or even wallet-friendly (a cotton dress that looks like it might go for 100 baht, or S$4, in Bangkok costs $15 at a random stall here). That said, there are more stalls that weren’t ready on the first day, so there might be more exciting stuff once the market is in full swing.

This stall run by a Thai artist sells hand-drawn movie-inspired merchandise.

A cool indie label offering bags and accessories made with recycled sacks. Like Swiss fashion brand Freitag, but Thai.