TAP-NY Taiwanese Night Market

Place was cramped and hot.
40 bucs to wait 20min on each line to get sample portion of street kart food.
Since when did macaroon become Taiwanese cuisine.
waste of money and time.

I was expecting this to be better quite honestly.
The space was packed damn near to capacity if it wasn’t already.
There was a live DJ that played alright joints. I wasn’t expecting Santos House tunes so there’s that.
For $ 42.99 (service charge incld), I expected well to be able to make more than 1 round of everything I want.
TIGER BEER was an additional $ 3 per can even though they were listed as a sponsor (meaning free for those who paid ticket fee) on the TAP 2^nd Annual Night Market Website. Sodas, and another kind of beer were also $ 3.
Bamboozled…
Let’s start with the line. I arrived early and I had my chance at trying everything once. An hr later the line for most things were 20 – 30 minutes wait and that is if you weren’t busy waiting for the bathroom which was another 10 – 15 minutes.
Mind you this is a 3 ½ hr event, you do the math.
If you have Yellow Fever (fetish for Asian chicks) more than likely you would have been here. There were a few good looking Asian chicks but overall I came here for the food and not to play phone tag. There were also a few Non-​Asian people at the event whether they were working the stations, came with an Asian friend or just so happened to live across the street and just stopped by, they were in there.
Some foods that I really enjoyed…
***Taicken Chicken — The line waiting for this the second round was horrendous but they didn’t disappoint on the quality. This was pretty close to authentic Taiwanese fried chicken with a nice bread crust deep fried but didn’t retain the oiliness (good). The chicken was obviously tender and flavors were locked in. It came with these extra, extra long toothpicks to stab at this chicken nuggets to eat with.
Worth the wait? Bleh… but considering the other options I did wait for them.
***Mamak — They had a cart of this Malaysian delight right outside the venue on the corner as they only served the chicken dish at this event. For the beef, they offered a $ 5 flat fee if you went out to the cart.
The presentation was well orchestrated. It came with rice, pineapple, green/​red peppers, chicken, and two air fluffed tortilla chips. I didn’t ask what was the orange sauce that came with this but it was very similar to Thai sauce when you order their curry dish. Good stuff.
***Passport 2 Taiwan — I honestly completely forgot about this little burrito as I had it earlier in my life that I vaguely recall. This dessert burrito made with scoops of ice cream, peanut brittle wrapped in a soft burrito shell was simply delightful.
***Umame Nuts — Simple snacker that you might find at a bar except it is made of assorted nuts with pieces of SWEET seaweed mixed in to give it a well balanced taste. NOT IN STORE YET.
***Macaron Parlour — These weren’t Asian oriented but the Earl Grey macarons are a MUST TRY! Shame that we could only have one per customer because they didn’t bring enough apparently.
Drinks…
***Remy Martin Pineapple — These shots were nice and smooth but nothing special. Well, except of course their brand REMY…
***Imperial Woodpecker Snowballs — These were basically snowballs with artificial flavors added onto of snow shavings. I ordered the tiger blood (strawberry coconut) good but I probably wouldn’t visit the store just for it.
***Thirstea Café — I think I still have a Groupon for this store. Good thing too because they were just okay. The Cinnamon Sunset tasted like 50 sticks of Wrigleys Big Red that kicks you in the mouth initially then smooths out. I also tried the Paris flavor one. This one was rather bland. Girl serving was cute so I gave it a star but not if I visited the store.
AFTERPARTY —
Radegast Hall and Biergarten — TAP offered free admission to this spot which was packed even before we got there. Sorry but I’m not going to play elbow, elbow push to order my drinks tonight. It did have a Medieval beer hall feel to it. I might visit this on my own on a weeknight perhaps…
Overall —
Wasn’t worth the price/​hassle. REAL TALK.
3^rd Annual TAP Night Market venture not likely on my calendar.

Ticket was $ 37.74 for a general admissions ticket to celebrate the first annual TAP-​NY Taiwanese Night Market at the Downtown Community Television Center.
Hand picked food merchants and vendors from NYC like i8 NYC, Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Hong Kong Street Cart, Filled With Sweets, Wooly’s Ice, Macaron Parlour, Taicken, Thirstea Café, Passport to Taiwan, Fun Buns NYC, A-Pou’s Taste Cart and Iris Tea and Bakery.
Performers are Peishan Lo, Jonathan Lee and Pamela J. Powell.
Sponsors: Taiwan Beer, Asian in NY, The spatula queen, Valiant Pictures, Downtown Comminity Television Center, Taiwan Tourism, Google Places and Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.
Overall good effort but definitely not worth $ 38. The place was too cramped and hot. The layout made certain lines so long that it was hard to navigate. I’m glad I didn’t pay $ 50 for VIP.
Come next Thursday 4÷19÷12, NYU TASS will have a Taiwanese night market for only $ 7! ($ 10 for non-​NYU and govt ID)