Saturday, January 17, 2009

Suzuki Night Market

Location: Queen Victoria Market
Link: www.qvm.com.au/night_market.php
Cuisine: various
Company: everyone!

Apart from the annual Chinese New Year festivals, I've rarely been to any night markets in Melbourne. Melbourne has a fairly disappointing night life compared to most other countries, so when Jenn decided to organise a group outing to the Suzuki Night Market, I jumped at the opportunity.

We got there early in order to get seating, and luckily there were almost 20 of us, as it meant we had enough people for half to guard seating while the other half got food. Mel and I shared a Mauritian dish of 'hot plate bread' with potato curry, a burrito, Spanish seafood rice [thanks Shu for getting it for us!!] and a nutella and ice cream crepe. The Mauritius dish was fantastic, and tasted twice as good as it looked. I'm feeling hungry now thinking about it!! The burrito was somewhat disappointing. The rice was soggy and unflavoured, and the filling not mixed very well. The chicken and the beans weren't too bad, but not enough to entice us for more. The Spanish rice was good, but I was a little disappointed as I had expected it to be fantastic - given the line of some 50 people waiting outside the stall. The crepe at the end...was beautiful!! Loads of nutella, two scoops of ice cream, and soft, light crepe... I also tried the traditional lemonade, which I thought was pretty good, despite Stace preferring her soft-drink version! There was also heaps of other food, including pasta, pizza, corn in a cup, tacos, nachos, noodles, dutch pancakes, curries and the list goes on.

top: hot dog
bottom: hot-plate bread with potato curry


Atmosphere wise, it just couldn't quite compare to the night markets I have been to before. Perhaps because the food was still slightly expensive, and the crowds just weren't quite the same - most were newbies at night markets and didn't understand the concept of navigating through crowds, and found themselves causing roadblocks everywhere! At least the number of friends there made up for the atmosphere, and it was particular fun seeing what food other people came back with.

Pricewise, it was still pretty expensive. Crepes were $5 - $8. The Spanish rice was about $13 and the Mauritian dish and burrito cost almost $20 together.

Will I return? Maybe sometime before the summer ends and the market stops running. But like this time, will have to wait for a bit of a crowd to maximise the experience!

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