Garden Night Market (花園夜市), also sometimes called Flower Night Market, is Tainan city’s largest and most famous night market.
One of the top night markets in Taiwan, it is known for its sheer size, variety of foods, and tall flags set up to attract customers to stalls. It is so popular and crowded that locals have dubbed it a “human conveyor belt” (人肉輸送帶).
Only running on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, you’ll need to time your visit if you want to catch this one. If you miss it, don’t worry – many of its vendors move to the two other major nights markets in Tainan (Ta-tung and Wusheng) on different nights of the week.
Deciding what to eat in Tainan’s “food garden” can be intimidating. Below, I’ll guide you through it, introducing some of its best (and my personal favorite) things to eat. You’d better wear some stretchy pants!
Welcome to Garden Night Market
There is a local saying in Tainan (大大武花大花花, or Da-Da-Wu-Hua-Da-Hua-Hua) which reminds people which night market is open on which night of the week.
Those three flowers (花) on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday represent Flower Garden (花園) Night Market. In mid-2025, Garden Night Market started opening on Fridays, too.
大 is for Dadong (Ta-tung) and 武 is for Wusheng.
The furthest north of Tainan’s major night markets, Garden Night Market is also the largest, with a staggering 400 food, shopping, and game stalls filling a 3000-square meter lot.
Like the others, Garden Night Market is a mobile night market (流動夜市) set up in a large parking lot. This means the vendors pack everything up and take their stalls away every day.
Many of the vendors move between the night markets, so you can find many of the same ones at all three.
Garden Night Market is relatively new on the Tainan night market scene. It first opened in 1999, closed in 2003, then reopened in 2005. By 2013, it reached its present huge size.
At one point, the night market famously became the most “checked into” place on Facebook in Taiwan, and #12 in the entire world. Its success has inspired copycats in other cities in Taiwan, such as Shulin Xingren Garden Night Market in New Taipei City.
On my last visit, I counted 12 north-to-south rows of stalls at Garden Night Market. The four rows on the east side are dedicated to food, while the eight rows on the west are for products and games.
Getting There
Garden Night Market is located North District (北區), to the north of the city center where most people stay. Use GoogleMaps directions to get there on foot, by bus, or by taxi from wherever you are in the city.
If you come by scooter, you’ll find a large scooter parking lot at the southern end of the night market, where there are also toilets and trash bins. There’s also parking for cars on the east side of the market.
Arriving by taxi, you’ll most likely be dropped off at the main entrance here at the market’s northeastern corner, at the intersection of Huwei and Hai’an roads. There’s also a YouBike station there.
What to Eat at Garden Night Market
We’ll start our foodie tour of Garden Night Market at the northeastern corner, where you are most likely to arrive. The corner is marked by a tower with neon lights.
We’ll walk down Row 1, back up Row 2, and so on, in the way you would logically walk through this night market.
While the most popular food stalls are *usually* set up the same spots, it’s not always the case. Because this is a mobile night market, you may find that some stalls aren’t where I’ve described them or where GoogleMaps puts them. Some may simply not be there.
Most of the English translations of stall names are my own.
Row 1
Several of Garden Night Market’s best foods are in the first row, but do try to save a little tummy space for the other rows!
Chen Da-min’s Spicy Duck Blood
As soon as I walked into Garden Night Market, I spotted the signature orange and black signs of Chen Da-min’s Spicy Duck Blood (陳大民麻辣鴨血).
It’s on the right side (or far northern border) of the night market, before you’d turn left to go down Row 1.
This stall serves fish balls (魚蛋), pig intestines (肥腸), or duck blood (鴨血) in original (原味) or spicy (麻辣) soup. My recommendation is to get the combination of all three (綜合) in spicy soup (TWD 100 per bowl).
While the thought of these ingredients may be off-putting for some, if you’re willing to be adventurous, you may be pleasantly surprised!
The soup is extremely fragrant, with bits of green onion and pickled mustard, while the ingredients add texture and chewiness.
Note that this stall used to be at the far southern end of Row 1 (and GoogleMaps still puts it there). But now it seems to always be at the northern end as I’ve described.
Sit, order, and eat first, then pay.
Hyun’s Souffle Pancakes
Going down Row 1, you simply cannot miss Hyun’s Souffle Pancakes (炫の日式舒芙蕾鬆餅專賣), which will be on your right.
While I’m no soufflé connoisseur, if this is what soufflé always tastes like, then call me a diehard fan. It’s originally a French dessert but this is a Japanese/Taiwanese version of it.
The super soft, poofy, and eggy soufflé pancakes here include flavor choices like Oreo chocolate (Oreo巧克力), tiramisu (提拉米蘇), lemon chocolate (檸檬巧克力), and pudding with pearls (牛奶布丁, each TWD 100).
I went for the pudding one and regret nothing. This thing was so good that I practically inhaled it.
The stall is very popular, so you may have to take a number then wait some time for your chance to order.
They told me the wait would be around 15 minutes, so I actually left after I got my number and to find some other food (see the pork pastries below) then came back.
GoogleMaps only shows the Dadong Night Market location of Hyun’s, but I promise you its here too!
Wooden Cabinet Braised Foods
Right next to Hyun’s is Wooden Cabinet Braised Foods (木櫥滷味, here). This is one of several lu wei (滷味 or “braised foods”) stalls in the night market, but the only one that makes use of a traditional, classic-looking wooden cabinet on a bicycle.
I didn’t personally try it, and GoogleMaps reviewers give it a very low rating, but it’s worth getting a photo of the cool wooden cabinet at least!
I’ll introduce a more popular and highly rated luwei stall further below – save your tummy space for it!
Old Tongguan Pork Pastries
Just a few steps past Hyun’s, I also highly recommend Lao Tong Guan Pork Pastries (老潼關肉夾饃, here).
This stalls specializes at rou jia mo (肉夾饃), a kind of flaky pastry stuffed with stewed pork – it’s like a Chinese pulled pork sandwich, originating in Shaanxi (陕西), China. Tongguan refers to a county in that province
These things are so freakin delicious everywhere I’ve had them (including Gongguan Night Market and Tonghua Night Market, both in Taipei).
The signature rou jia mo here come with a ton of meat fried with onions and some fresh lettuce. It was piping hot and extremely delicious.
There was no line at this stall when I ordered.
Row 2
In Row 2, I gravitated to the below two stalls, but I suggest you keep your eyes peeled for anything that stands out to you!
Shoucang Sweet Pancakes
At the southern end of Row 2, Shoucang Sweet Pancakes (收藏糖餅) does Korean hotteok (pancakes stuffed with nuts and seeds, and coasted in sugar).
I’ve had these in Korea too, and these ones are legit. You can never go wrong with hotteok.
You can get a hotteok on its own or with ice cream. There’s also a savoury (cheese and bacon) one. The menu has English.
I saw this at the south end of Row 2, but GoogleMaps puts it here in Row 3 or 4.
Hong Fei’s Sausage & Rice Sausage
Hong Fei’s Sausage and Rice Sausage (紅妃大腸香腸, here) serves an interesting variation of Big Sausage Stuffed with Little Sausage (大腸包小腸), a classic Taiwanese street food.
Instead of stuffing the regular sausage into a sticky rice sausage, here they cut both up into bite-sized pieces, grill them together with tons of Taiwanese basil, and serve with sweet soy sauce and various condiments.
You get to add your own garlic, onion, pickled ginger, pickled cucumber, and green chilis. A small order is 60 and large is 120.
The stall has abysmally low rating on GoogleMaps, but I thought it was very yummy, if a little unusual in terms of so many flavors going on.
This stall seems to jump around between rows 2, 3, and 4, so you’ll just have to watch for it. You may also see it at Dadong Night Market.
Row 3
Here we start at the north end again and work our way down.
Two Master Brothers Classic Braised Foods
Back at the far northern end of the night market, Two Master Brothers Braised Foods (二師兄古早味滷味, here) is a stall across from the entrances to rows 3 and 4. GoogleMaps translates it as Two Shi Xiong Stewed Food.
This large and extremely popular lu wei (滷味) or “braised/stewed foods” stall usually has a long line but it moves quickly.
I watched an elderly cook sweating as he furiously tended to over a dozen pots of ingredients stewing in fragrant broths.
I took a photo of him but he really didn’t like that (very rare in Taiwan, especially in a night market!) so I won’t share it here (and heads up about that…)
By the time the luwei items are sold, they are typically served room temperature and are mostly brown in color after having absorbed so much of the soup.
The menu includes items like dried tofu (豆乾, my favorite), chicken hearts (雞心), fish cake (甜不辣), quail eggs (小鳥蛋), rice blood cake (而米), and chicken feet (雞爪).
You can also just point at the items you’d like. They’ll ask if you want spicy or not.
Singapore Laksa Noodles
Going down Row 3, the most famous stall is Singapore Laksa Noodles (新加坡邋撒麵, here). The stall goes back over 25 years, to 1999.
Here you’ll get a paper menu to mark your choice. It’s split into three sections: seafood (海鮮), beef (牛肉), and pork (豬肉).
Each one gives you the option of plain coconut soup (原味椰奶), spicy red curry (椰香紅咖哩), pesto cream (青醬奶香), or Thai coconut (椰汁泰香).
In the vertical column, choose your noodle type, including egg-based Tainan yi noodles (意麵), wulong noodles (烏龍麵), oil noodles (油麵), and vermicelli (冬粉). They range from 140 to 150 per bowl.
I haven’t tried this one yet. I would love to hear from any Singaporeans (I know you’re reading this!) about how authentic or Taiwan-ified these are. Please let me know in the comments at the end of the article!
Row 4
There are a few more foods worth seeking in the last food row.
Uncle Mochi
Uncle Mochi (麻糬叔叔) is a popular mochi stall that has origins going back to 1993, even older than Garden Night Market itself. GoogleMaps puts it in the 1st row, but I definitely found it in the fourth on my last visit.
Forget what you already know about mochi – this is a southern Taiwanese style that tastes softer, creamier, and practically melts in your mouth.
There’s a long list of flavors. For TWD 80, I got 8 pieces, with my choice of 4 different flavors. They showed me an English list of the flavors to choose from.
Just a few of the flavors on offer were matcha, peanut, red bean, taro, black sesame, chocolate, coconut, purple potato, and coffee. A couple weirder ones were curry and mushroom.
This reminded me a lot of a similar mochi stall in Ruifeng Night Market in Kaoshiung, whose mochi is so soft that it’s like liquid in your mouth.
Three Аh Вrоthеrѕ Оуѕtеr Оmеlеtѕ
Three Ah Brothers Oyster Omelets (阿三哥蚵仔煎, here) is a Garden Night Market institution. The elderly man cooking them is a recognizable figure in the night market.
The choices here are more varied than what you’ll see in Taipei. You can choose oyster (蚵仔), shrimp (蝦仁), cuttlefish (花枝), or even crab (蟹肉).
The omelets are fried until crispy around the egdes and then lathered in sweet and sour red sauce.
While this stall is usually in the 4th row, I couldn’t actually find it on my most recent visit, so I hope it’s still around. If you spot this stall at Garden or any other Tainan night market, please let me know in the comments.
Other Drink and Food Stalls
Here are some more photos of food and drink stalls at Garden Night Market.
For some of these, I forgot which row they were in. For others, I shot them on previous visits to the night market years ago, but they may or may not be there anymore.
Shopping and Games Rows
More than half of Garden Night Market is actually made up of shopping and game stalls. Rows 5 to 12 are less busy and I don’t have much to say about them.
Take a wander through, if anything to walk off all that food you just ate. Kids may enjoy tossing rings, throwing darts, pinball games and so on – if you play enough times you can win one of the many prizes on display.
That’s all I’ve got for now – but be sure to check out my guides to many other night markets in Taiwan!