Launch of guide to longest night market

by yvonne t. nathan

Looking for simple bites with a quirky edge to them in the Taman Connaught night market is no longer a secret with the launch of the “Pasar Malam Taman Connaught Food Guide”.
Known as the longest night market in Malaysia with around 700 stalls on a 2km stretch along Jalan Cerdas, the booklet highlights what Malaysians love best about the place. The highlight is, of course, its street food.

The guide booklet, a collaboration between the Hawkers Welfare and Development Association of Malaysia (PKKPM) and Bandar Tun Razak MCA division chairman Datuk Chew Yin Keen, took three months to complete and was launched on July 20.

Narrowing it down to 48 unique foods, the recommendations include local comfort food such as curry noodles as well as Taiwanese and Korean delicacies such as creatively shaped marshmallow cotton candy and bingsu.

Chew said they would be supplementing the guide booklet with an e-brochure on Facebook, with plans to launch a mobile app in the near future.

“It is the first guide book on a night market in Malaysia which the traders themselves compiled as a way of promoting the Taman Connaught night market to the world at large.


“Our main aim is to make the market a visible part of the Kuala Lumpur travel destination, so you have not experienced Kuala Lumpur fully if you have not paid a visit to this market,” he said.
Written in Chinese and English, 10,000 copies of the guide was distributed to night market patrons, who in turn, will hand them to visitors.

PKKPM chairman Tan Thiam Ooi added that the booklet was published to introduce the night market’s specialities, and in recognition of the effort put in by small businesses to popularise their wares but still earned little.

“Among the challenges we had in producing the booklet was the lack of funds,” said Tan.
“The Government also needs to pay more attention to exposing or promoting small businesses such as those in night markets.”

Tan hoped the night market, which catered to locals, would be able to attract tourists, as well.
“Our vision is to eventually create a better, cleaner environment for market visitors such as using proper power sources instead of a generator,” he said, giving Petaling Street and Taiwan’s Shihlin night market as examples.