Popular Artbox Market will be visiting Singapore very soon!
Date: 14-16 April & 22-24 April 2017
Time: 3PM – 11PM
Location: Bayfront Event Space
Directions: Bayfront MRT, Exit E
For more information, please visit event page here.
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I’m so happy to be back at Artbox – my favourite hangout place in Bangkok since Sep 2015.
Since then (over the past 14 months), Artbox has shifted from Queen Sirikit to Em-District and now they will be at Chatuchak area (Kamphangphet MRT Exit 1) weekly (Fri-Sun) for 7 months!
Anyway, always check their faceboook for the latest update before heading down in case they are having some repair works (which happened before for their previous editions)
This Chatuchak Location (30 Sep to 30 Apr) will be the longest location this pop-up container night market may “stay” for – 7 months.
As I was on a media-invite “touch and go” itinerary, we were only allocated 45 mins for this place but it wasn’t too bad as I knew what I was there for!
The afternoon before we visited Artbox, I stalked the IG account of my favourite beef stall (@barbieandbottle) to check if they were still operating at Artbox. I guess I was really lucky as it was the one and only thing I look forward to in Artbox. Thankfully, the size of this edition of Artbox is smaller than the previous one and that we visited really early, it took me less than 5 mins to locate them. Without any hesitation, I ordered the 180B Beef. It was a pleasant surprise to know that there was NO INFLATION despite Chatuchak famous coconut ice cream price’s increased from 35B to 50B.
I was so happy to see that the serving of the beef was still pretty decent! Despite it being very nice nice, it could have been nicer if it was slightly raw-er like the one I had last year for TWO NIGHTS. Apart from that, I would totally eat this again & again, as long as I’m back in Bangkok they are still around.
The only other thing I ate here (within the 45 mins) was the biggest cockle I have ever seen my whole life.
It is.. the size of my palm and we bought 2 huge cockles at 150B. The shop owner didn’t want to sell me just one cockle but I was glad that my fellow tour-mate was willing to share!
As seen from the picture below – it was kind of 90% cooked aka overcook. Usually, I would have preferred it to be 60% cooked to retain more of its juiciness but nevertheless, it was still pretty interesting to chew on such a giant cockle.
The shop had other seafood giants on sale too – though the price is really not cheap in thailand context.
This Hokkaido Cheese Toast had the longest queue when I was there. Sadly, I don’t have the luxury of time to wait. If you’ve tried this, please let me know how amazing it is!
Random snaps of instagram-worthy food/drinks!
Something new about this container market is that you can now go up to “Level 3″ for a greater vantage point!
I only had time for “Level 2″‘s view before getting called back to eat my giant cockle.
Similar to the previous edition that I’ve been, they used pallets as seats and tables. There’s also a live stage for music performance . Compared to the previous one at Queen Sirikit, the seating area was bigger and the food and shops (though lesser in numbers) were properly segregated. There was also green carpet/turfing for most areas supposedly as a “cover-up” for their somewhat uneven ground but I guess it was a lot better than mud and gravels.
If you’re wondering why it looks so empty, it’s because we visited and left before 7PM. The atmosphere would have been better later in the night with the live music and crowd.
Food trucks were also a common sight.
Shops – It was a little ‘tiring’ to shop given that I spent 2 hours in Chatuchak prior to visiting Artbox.
This location was kind of like a double-edged sword. They can get the flow over crowd from Chatuchak’s visitors but it also mean that they will be getting tons of tired and already worn out customers. Shopping in Chatuchak can take up a lot of your energy as it is not only hot but there’s so many things to look at that your eyes can get real tired..
I didn’t buy much – just 3 socks and 1 bag – but it was like more than 50% of all the things that I bought for my this trip.
They had the personalized hammer-name bracelet that I previously did in Hua Hin.
Since Artbox is about “ART” too, there were a few murals.
and several #OOTD worthy quotes all over.
Apologies for posting photos that look like crap. I was literally just snapping and moving on since there was not much time.
I couldn’t even wait for this random head to be out of my frame..
Since Christmas is round the corner, there were beautiful lights too!
After visiting this Artbox location, I can understand why people are saying that it is not as nice as the previous ones. It is significantly smaller with lesser stalls and the food selection didn’t appear to be as fanciful as the previous editions. However, if you’re visiting it for the first time, I’m pretty confident that you will still enjoy it as it has a different vibe from the other night markets in Thailand.
A new trying-to-be-artsy night market Talad Neon recently opened (1st Dec) at the Pratunam area which is definitely a lot more centralized. Haven’t visited it yet so I can’t comment but I’m pretty sure it will be a strong competitor.
Nevertheless, I’m quite certain that I will be back at Artbox for my future Bangkok visits, that’s if it is still around.