Night Market

Night It Up 2009 (Metro Square, 3636 Steeles Avenue East, Markham)

If you love street food, then you'd love night market. It's a yearly event in which Metro Square plaza dedicates a good chunk of its parking lot to setting up a whole bunch of mostly food related tents. There's also a small stage for music and dance performances during the evening. If you can get a seat, it's a great place to sit down and eat your food. On to the food!

Marbolicious

They call this "stir fry ice cream". I call that deceiving. There is no stir-frying [Dictionary!] of anything involved anywhere in the whole shebang. The ice cream never even touches a pan or a wok. Instead, the toppings are mixed into the ice cream on a marble slab. The whole mixture is served in a crêpe that's draped over a bowl. Wait... that mixing on marble part sounds familiar... Oh, that's right. That's because the idea was stolen from Cold Stone Creamery. I guess the originality of Marbolicious comes in the fact that they offer toppings that you might find in the snack aisle of a Chinese grocery store (like the T&T in the next plaza).

Here's my mango ice cream with chocolate chips and Oreo chunks being "stir-fried":
The finished product ($5):
It deeply disturbed me that the marble block and tools used to mix the ice cream weren't completely washed of previous ice cream mixtures. I'm a picky eater when it comes to sweets, and I didn't enjoy the visible flecks of green and pink in my food.

Authentic Osaka Takoyaki

This tent had a pretty long line leading to it, so I thought it might be worthwhile. Having never been to Osaka, I can't comment on the authenticity, but it was a pretty cool snack.

People lining up for this Japanese snack would've caught a strong whiff of the stinky tofu stand next to it. In the picture, you can see the lady with the SARS mask under the "Smelly Tofu" sign serving up some stinky goodness next to the takoyaki table.

Whatever this is, it is part of making "authentic Osaka tokayaki":
The finished product ($5, I think):
I expected more crunch from the shell, but I liked the sauce it was served with.

Deep-fried spicy chicken ($4):
It's so greasy, it's "window of opportunity" (Simpsons reference):

The piece of chicken was quite massive, crispy, oily, and spicy. It was perhaps just a little too much of all of those things.

Wei's Smelly Tofu!

It's quite a staple food at night market, and with the stench coming from these tents, people who have not heard of it might wonder why so many people are lining up to get food that smells so bad. I think it's because people would fear stinking up their homes if they made this dish for themselves.

Stinky goodness ($3)! With exciting pickled vegetables and tasty sauce!
The tofu is spongy, but not too airy.

Honey green tea ($1):
It takes a while to get used to. I scrunched my eyebrows at the first sip, but it slowly became refreshing afterwards.

Taiwanese Sausage ($2)

What's street food without meat on a stick?

The sausage has a unique flavour. It has a sweetness to it that I can only describe as similar to Chinese sausage, but its texture is more like that of a less fatty Italian sausage.

Diana's Seafood Delight

Yes, Night It Up 2009 even had fresh oysters.

For $10, you could get a box of eight raw oysters, lemon wedges, oyster sauce, ice, and a wet wipe. And a $5 discount coupon to Diana's Seafood Delight. This package was even better as night market was closing when its price tag dropped to $10 for two boxes.

My oyster shell had a funky shape, but it still tasted right:

These oysters were really good. You could see them being shucked as they were taken out of the van. I'd say they were better (fresher-tasting) than the ones from the Rodney's Oyster House booth during Luminato.

Young Coconut

Normally $2 or $3 depending on which stand you go to, but I got mine for $1. End of day sale. Towards closing hours of the night market, people from the tents yell at you as you walk by. They scream that everything is on sale, and you can learn the term "one dollar" in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

It's a coconut with a straw. What's not to like?
There was a lot more liquid in it than I thought there'd be.

Unlike in the current city of Toronto, the garbage was well taken care of. There were people who changed the bags in the bins as soon as they got full. There were a lot of skewer sticks on the ground, but there were people picking them up by hand later in the night.

As a general rule for this event, if you stand in any line that is in the way of food vapours and smoke (especially stinky tofu), chances are that you'll go home smelling like you need Febreeze-ing (or a good wash).

Night It Up 2009 was full of food, but it was also full of people.
The map layout of the booths could have been helpful. Next time, I think I'll just go at 11:30 p.m. on the second day. The crowd is smaller, and almost everything goes on sale.

Total damage: $22 (I only had one oyster).