street food Archives - Curiously Carmen

Richmond Night Market 2015 – Part 2/2

June 28, 2015

Hi everyone!

Continuing part 2 of my trip to the nightmarket with some friends a few weeks ago! Here is part 1 if you missed it =)

As we were walking around, I noticed a stand from Mogu Street Eats. I’ve read about their food truck and heard great things about it, and my friend said that she saw it on The Food Network. So, my other friend decided to get the chicken karage and see if it was actually that good!

Honestly, it didn’t look too appetizing to me because the batter looked pretty old and it looked pretty oily. He insisted that I try it and my opinion was right – it was soaked and dripping in oil.

It’s probably prepared better at their actual food cart because there’s no way that this chicken could get such great reviews.

The nightmarket was almost closing, and we saw that some places were beginning to offer closing specials (they weren’t super good deals though so no point waiting to come later). Decided to ask this stand if they were offering any closing specials, and they said no, but offered us a cheaper price.

After some negotiation, we settled on a price we were both happy with (sorry forgot what it was)! We got the lamb, prawn, and chicken skewer.

The chicken skewer was still a bit raw inside, so I didn’t eat it because I didn’t want to risk feeling sick afterwards. The prawn was also slightly raw too =( If they were both cooked fully, it would have been pretty delicious as the seasoning was great!

The last thing I got was a mango shaved ice!

The mangoes tasted really fresh and ripe. Drizzled with condensed milk, it tasted heavenly!

The ice cream tasted very cheap and like ‘cardboard’ to quote my friend. It wasn’t exactly the best quality ice cream, you could definitely taste the lack of quality in it.

As for the shaved ice, it was just crushed ice with no flavour because well… it was just crushed ice LOL. I was expecting something like this, but maybe this is a different style. There was more ice than toppings, so it was hard to combine the ice with the mango/condensed milk/ice cream to make it taste better.

Overall, this dish was definitely not worth the price.

——

Richmond Night Market 2015 – Part 1/2

June 24, 2015

Hi everyone!

Last year, I wrote a post on the Richmond Night Market so I thought I would do one again this year. That post received quite a few views, so I figured that you readers like to hear what’s good/bad at the nightmarket!

There are two nightmarkets in Richmond, this is the one by River Rock Casino (the more popular one to go to). There is free parking, but the lot was apparently ‘full’ so we drove around the area for a good 15-20 minutes looking for parking. But when we actually walked across the parking lot, half the lot was empty so I’m not sure why they said it was ‘full’. =.=”

Admission to enter the nightmarket is $2.75 per person. You can buy a booklet with 10 entry stamps and skip the long line ups if you think you’ll be coming here often though! Even though the line was long, we waited under ten minutes.

I took a picture of the booth at the top, followed by what we ordered underneath. All the food here is cash only! Although it is street food, it’s not exactly cheap.
The boyfriend loves his takoyaki, and quickly set off looking for a takoyaki stand! While I was in line for squid, he came back with this!

We enjoyed the flavours of the takoyaki. It was well seasoned, tasted fresh, and came with a generous amount of flakes and sauce on top!
While he is obsessed with takoyaki, I am obsessed with squid and a trip to the nightmarket is not complete without some grilled squid.

I ordered the ‘signature’ squid, which had a salty but sweet aftertaste. The squid was nice and crunchy, with a hint of smokiness from the grill.

My friend ordered the ‘garlic lovers’ squid, which I liked more than the signature. The flavours felt more rounded and I liked the strong garlic taste, compared to the sweet aftertaste that I had with the signature. They were both delicious, but my personal preference was the garlic lovers.

My friend, who came here a few weeks before us, said not to get the bubble waffle from the ‘orange stand’, so we went to this place instead LOL.

Although the wait time was pretty long, it was worth it. The bubble waffle was nice and puffy, with a crisp exterior and soft interior.

Thanks for reading! I felt that this would be too long of a post if I included all the food we tried, so stay tuned for part 2 =)

-Carmen

Richmond Night Market 2014

September 13, 2014

(Updated Sept 2014) The Richmond Night Market is back for another Summer! I love coming here for the cheap things you can buy, even though a lot of the products are very cheaply made and questionable… and of course, the food! I went with a few friends and it was actually their first time at this night market (the new one by the casino), seeing that they are both here on a working visa from Australia. They were excited and curious to try the different food that the stalls offered. It was my first time trying the S. Korean ice cane dessert, which is basically an ice cream that comes in a “J” shaped cone and made out of cornpuff. It was truly interesting… keep on reading below to see what it looked like and how it tasted!
It was very busy and crowded the night that we went, probably because it was an ideal summer’s night.
Takoyaki and squid! The takoyaki ($6) was very chewy,delicous and doughy. The squid was very good as well. Felt kind of bad for the guy grilling the squid because he didn’t wear a mask, and kept having to hold his breath while he was cooking it. The squid itself ($6.50 for a small) was very good. There was a nice satay sauce, with a hint of sweetness and smokiness.
The famous hurricane potato ($6). Basically a lightly deep friend potato on a stick, seasoned with your choice of flavouring salt. We chose the cheddar, and it was really good. There was also a long line up for this booth, but we didn’t wait that long. There were 60 numbers ahead of us in line, but the wait was only around 10 minutes. Pretty efficient! However, I’m not sure that it’s worth $6 for a potato though, it just looks cool.
The Korean snow cane stand! They were pretty busy as well, and ended up selling out of the duo cane cone right after we ordered. It was $3.75 for the single J shaped cone, which I got below…
The cone is made out of a corn puff pastry and into a tube, which they put the soft serve ice cream into. The ice cream was your standard soft serve. As for the cone itself? I enjoyed it. It reminded me of the cereal corn puffs, only harder and less puffy. Imagine eating corn puffs cereal with ice cream, that’s basically how it tasted. The cone also did not go soggy, as I expected it to and remained crunchy until the end. It was also very clean and not messy to eat. Would I get this again? Probably, I love corn puffs!
My friend’s deep fried Snickers bar ($6). She said it tasted amazing, and loved it a lot. I’m not sure if I’ll ever try one of these in my lifetime though, what about you?
Update: Going back a second time in September, we didn’t order as much. I wasn’t too hungry, but knew I would regret not trying anything new here and end up snacking at home later. So we walked around the food stands until something caught our eyes. I am a big fan of mangoes, and I saw someone holding this mango dessert and decided to order one as well ($5.75). It came with a generous portion of fresh mango chunks and vanilla ice cream under a bed of crushed ice, topped with condensed milk. I loved the freshness and sweetness of the mango chunks, and the juices soaked into the ice chunks! The condensed milk was the cherry on top of a great dessert. I have to warn you though; it’s a really, really cold dessert so you might be cold after you finish eating this, because I sure was.
The second item we ordered was the takoyaki balls ($5.50). It came in original, chili, curry, and wasabi flavour- this one was the chili flavour. I didn’t try this, but I was told that it there a mild spice and did not overpower the taste of the takoyaki. The sauces themselves are only drizzled on the top.
Apart from food from our second visit, I also ended up buying a cute pair of fuzzy fleece socks ($4) too! My feet get really, really cold in the fall and winter so I wanted a thicker pair of socks. I am also a HUGE fan of polkadots and Minnie Mouse (I was Minnie Mouse last Halloween) so it’s a win-win situation. I’ll probably wear these as slippers around the house as the weather gets colder. I’m just hoping that these socks won’t be of horrible, cheap quality and actually keep my feet warm!
Andddd to finish this post off, a picture of some random product stands! Korean socks and iphone case stands were the most popular. Hope you enjoyed the post, now go and try the J corn cone ice cream!

-Carmen