Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! It’s a wonderful time of celebration as the Muslims from all over the world break day fast on this day which marks the end of Ramadan. The month of fasting begins one month ago and that’s also the start of Geylang Serai Bazaar, a night market where Muslims in Singapore could purchase some food after dawn breaks or do some shopping before Hari Raya Puasa.
Since last year, Geylang Serai Bazaar garners a lot of attention from foodies in particular because of the presence of food stalls selling Insta-worthy food which are further heavily publicised by the local media. It’s nice to see all locals gathering together at a Muslim festival event, with people across all ethnic groups coming together to soak into the festive mood with the fellow Muslims. Food brings people together but let us also learn how to be more culturally-sensitive when it comes to these cultural festivals. It doesn’t matter if the food standard at Geyland Serai Bazaar is good or not because it is simply just a marketplace for the Muslims to buy Hari Raya goodies, clothes and food to break fast for the day. Besides, there’s so much more to this place other than food. In the evening, the festive lights along the long stretch of road would light up against the night sky and it looked pretty stunning.
The Geylang Serai Bazaar is about 5 minutes walk from Paya Lebar MRT station and you should be able to find your way there easily by just following the throngs of people which are all hunting for good food at the Bazaar. It starts around late afternoon so we reached there around 6 pm before the sky turns dark. By 7 pm, the whole bazaar would be flooded with people queuing up for food.
There’s a section where you can find shoes, clothes, accessories and even household decorative items. A lot of space is dedicated to food and that’s where you can find local favourites like Ramly burger, Chicken wings, Kebab, Ayam Goreng and other hipster food.
Before heading down to Geylang Serai Bazaar on our own, we actually checked out the food reviews and write-up by local media and influencers. I have to say that everyone has different taste buds, opinions and expectations when it comes to food. Some influencers didn’t like a particular food but when we tried it on our own, we thought that it was delicious. What can I say? Sometimes you just have to be more adventurous and come down to try the food for yourself.
This cookie stall is worth mentioning. They put up the challenge to anyone who can finish eating a bucket full of cookies within a certain time. And if they do, they do not have to pay for the bucket of cookies.Well, the cookies looked warm and yummy but I don’t think I could stomach the excess calories in my body.
Divide and conquer is one strategy you can adopt while you are queuing for food at places where the queue stretches very long. Sam bought a drink while I stood in one corner to check out what others are buying. I could have queued up for the famous handsome burger though.
This stall has created a spot just for their customers to take photos of their food. Sweet!
Singaporeans seem to love Thai Milk tea a lot. It’s just like another version of Taiwanese bubble milk tea. Over here at Geyland Serai, you can get a cup of Thai Milk tea for $2.
All of the hipster food stalls over at the Bazaar, Word.Fast Food stall has the longest queue. What is everyone queueing up for? They were all ready to get a bite of the Handsome Burg, a juicy beef patty sandwiched between a rainbow bagel.
Another hot favourite is their Bucket Gangster. Colourful drinks served in a plastic bucket. I wonder why everyone loves it.
We though the burger is sold at $8 with the fries. Apparently, you got to top up an extra $2 for the fries. That makes it so expensive for a burger! And based on the reviews online, the burger with fries supposedly only costs $8. Have they jacked up the price just because the queue is really long?
The beef patty was good but not too fantastic. The food was way overpriced.The fries were average and mind you, the burger isn’t very huge either. Influencers highly recommend this burger but I wouldn’t have tried this if it costs me that much.
Instead, Pokerrito, which most influencers thought was average, turned out to be really good! But if I remember correctly, it’s not that cheap either. Half of the Pokerrito was $8. It’s definitely way more expensive than Cafe food if you’d ask me.
Would you buy a $8 meal at a market in the neighbourhood? If there’s one thing to grumble about, it would have to be the pricing.
We had the spicy one which tasted very flavourful. It’s like one very delicious sushi which is packed with lots of yummy ingredients.
As you walked deeper into the bazaar, you will find more food stalls which are selling food at a more expensive price. Take for instance this raclette cheese set which costs us $12. It looks very appetising because of the melted cheese but taste-wise, it is not that fantastic. It’s just melted cheese drizzled on average-tasting potatoes and sausages.
We still had some room in our tummy for more food so we walked down further and spotted this stall that sells chilli crab churros. It’s an interesting food combo so we decided to try it.
It turned out to be quite delicious because the chilli crab sauce was hot and tasty. The churros tasted like our localised form of dough fritters.
Besides food, we also found some interesting stalls selling Arabic carpets and Turkish lamps. It’s fun just to browse through some of the items they are selling and perhaps take a breather from all that food craze.
If you haven’t been to Geylang Serai Bazaar, I would recommend that you drop by at least once just to try out some hipster food and soak into that festive mood along with our fellow Muslims. You might get to learn a thing or two about their culture and try out some traditional Malay food.
Perhaps they should do one for Deepavali or Christmas. We love eating and shopping, don’t we? That’s how we Singaporeans spend our weekends.
Have you been to Geyland Serai Bazaar? Let me know what are your thoughts like by leaving a comment below this post!
