Summer Night Market - Richmond - revisited

My pal Vince and I were talking about Night Market Chinatown last week he mentioned he'd never been to the Richmond Night Market.  One thing led to another and we ended up with some others at Richmond's "Summer Night Market" to get some cheap tasty food and also have a laugh at the expense of the variety of stalls that sell knock-off DVDs, Japanese swords, and a stall that sells retractable asps/batons and bearspray for self-defense purposes.......because you might get attacked my a grizzly in the middle of Richmond.

......and this stand that specializes in Human Pain, haha!

This night was a lot more crowded than my last visit.  It was a sea of people, and it was pretty much shoulder in the "dining area".

I know I said I would return to Night Market with an empty stomach, but it didn't work out that way.  Still, I managed to find some room for desert =). 

I was exchanging messages with Gloria from I'm Busy Eating and Janice from Good Eat about where to get good shaved ice in the city.  I wasn't expecting much at night market, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Cherry Ice Bar must have had a pretty sharp blade because the ice was as fine as fresh powder on Cypress!  They mentioned it to me before and it was just dumb luck when I stumbled on it at Night Market.  The green tea ice cream was the perfect compliment to red beans, mochi and condensed milk.  Who knew you could get fat from eating ice! 

My pal Tony had the mango with ice cream.  It didn't look like anything special, but the juices from the mango permeated the entire bowl of ice and we weren't quite sure if it was syrup or the natural juices from the mango.  Either way, it tasted awesome.  And again, the ice was like snow.

.

Gloria also told me about the crab claws for like five bucks.  Super cheap, haha, very little if any real crab meat in them, but still tasted good! 

Mmmmm.....B.O. flavoured lamb skewers, haha!  Yes, the scent of B.O. hung heavily in the area of this stand and Vince decided to give them a shot.  They smelled of B.O. but they tasted like lamb.....or is that the same thing?  Haha, anyway, they weren't too bad.  I figured that this might be my last visit to the Richmond Night Market this year, but I recently got news that the Turkey legs might be worth a try.....dammit!  Now I gotta go back.  Well, I haven't had a chance to try the Butter Chicken Poutine yet either so, maybe that will make it worth my while =)

Richmond Night Market

Richmond Night Market (Or Summer Night Market as it's currently known on Urban Spoon) is basically a cheaper, portable vesion of any of the local Chinese shopping centres and their food courts, that operates in the summertime. It's some business person's attempt to capitalize on the polularity of places like loi yun gai (lady's market in HK), but with stalls that sell fewer useful items.

Unfortunately, I was pretty full by the time I made it to the Night Market, but this Butter Chicken Poutine really caught my eye and if I ever visit again, I think I'll give it a try.  How can you go wrong with Butter Chicken and Poutine, lol!

Another stall I wanted to try was one of the Viet Namese stands.  The prices didn't look too bad and the food looked really tasty, even though I wasn't hungry.

Of course, what festival would be proper without a takoyaki stand?  There are several of these located throughout the food stalls,a nd this particular shop returns ever year and so far, I haven't been disappointed. 

My friend's girlfriend actually worked for them before and I've tried them on numerous occasions.

I wasn't really in the mood for something salty as I stuffed my face earlier on shao long bao, so I ended up getting something sweet and settled on a "Japanese Luxury", haha!  It was funny watching the staff here belt out announcements like "Authentic JAPANESE crepes!", or "Crepes from JAPAN!" haha!  There was a Korean stall right next door so maybe they were competing?  Or maybe they were playing on the whole authenticity fiasco.  I really didn't care where the staff were from, but in the end, what I got tasted good so it didn't matter for me one way or another. 

I got a macha, mochi, anko, whipped cream crepe which turned out surprisingly good.  The crepe skin itself wasn't freshly formed (they had a small pile of skins made already) but it still tasted really good. 

Night Market is chock full of shops that sell toys, cell phone accessories and other useless little trinkets.  One of the biggest travesties of Richmond Night Market is this one shop that sells "Samurai Swords". Being a practitioner of iaido, I get cold shivers up my spine knowing that there are shops like this trying to pawn off these "authentic Japanese swords" which are really no more than sharpened wall-hanger decorations, to the wannabe bad-boy types that flock there.  That place, and a shop that sells $10 prescription contact lenses has "SKETCHY" written all over them, haha!  Buyer beware I guess.

The food here isn't too bad, it's inexpensive, and it's always kind of fun to eat something outside in an festival type environment.  It's got a TON of variety and certainly one-ups the standard hot dogs, corn dogs, popcorn and cotton candy.  And in typical Chinese food court fashion, the prices get slashed big-time near closing (not that anything is overly expensive to begin with) so if you're a cheapskate like me, hit the place late in the evening (and you won't have to fight over parking around this time!).