Richmond Night Market: Summer 2019
The Richmond Night Market is Vancouver’s biggest and most delicious night market every summer. They boast over 120 food vendors with 600+ different food items. They also provide carnival-style games and prizes, stage performances, and retail stalls selling jewelry, stationary, clothing, and other goods.
General admission is $4.75, children and seniors are free but be prepared for a lineup to park and to enter the gates if you don’t have an express pass ($28 for 6 passes, can be used for multiple people).
This review will showcase some of the new and trendy food items this year as well as some of my classic night market favourites.
What I got this year
Mango yummy
We puchase their mango sago drink this year for $7-8 and it came with lots of mango, sago (tapioca) and coconut milk. Slightly hard to drink with a straw but enough for 2 people. Mango Yummy is a dessert shop in Richmond known for having an all mango menu.
Okonomi Bites
This Japanese style poutine stall became popular this year for their cheese tonkatsu ($12) – deep fried pork cutlet stuffed with cheese on top of a bed of poutine.
It’s nice to dip your french fry in the cheese, my only comment is that the actual meat has been beaten down to make room for the cheese.
Salty’s Lobster Shack
This is one of the new food items I was really excited to try because I love po boys/lobster rolls (they were amazing when I was traveling in Halifax).
Ultimately, I am disappointed because they put the lobster filling in a hot dog bun (?!??!?). In the photos I’ve seen on Instagram by their company account and other user generated content, the po boy was in a legitimate brioche bun. We were also there around 7 pm, and since the night market opens at 6 pm, I can’t imagine they already ran out of bread.
They did respond to me via Instagram to tell me “we didn’t run out of bread. The bun you have was an alternative to our normal bun that we were not able to get for that weekend.” + a Google definition of a lobster roll (LOL really because that’s a good excuse).
So basically yes, they ran out of bread and had to use their alternative hot dog bun. I would recommend asking ahead of your purchase if they have their original bun if you want what was advertised to you. If you don’t care then the hot dog bun will hold up just fine.
It is $19, probably the most expensive purchase we made.
Deep fried squid
There are many stalls that sell BBQ squid, but there are only a few that sell deep fried squid – the kind of deep fried your mother would never let you do in your kitchen.
Sadly I cannot tell you the name of the stall but you will know which stall it is if you just go to the one that has the longest lineup. They are selling a whole deep fried squid for $8 or deep fried squid tentacles for $12-15 (small vs. large) this year. I chose large because this is my favourite purchase from the night market every year.
The deep fried squid this year is a little more tough than last year’s and the tentacles took a much longer time than the whole squid. It is still damn delicious and very filling. We chose the sweet & sour sauce, but their most popular sauce is the spicy garlic.
TukTuk
I only have room in my tubby for one dessert and this is the one I want to try badly. New to the night market this year is TukTuk’s Thai-style panna cotta with a Thai Flower DokJok Cookie ($8).
For $8, this is a very quality dessert – just look at the gold flakes on that cookie. I feel like it deserves to cost more and should be sold in restaurants.
I choose a thai tea flavoured panna cotta and it has a nice savoury and sweet flavour. The flower cookies are very interesting and looks very intricate. You can get them in black (squid ink) but the original one tastes very sweet with almost a caramelized ting (I don’t know why I wrote “ting”, I hope you know what I’m trying to say).
Things I didn’t get this year
Say Cheeeese Toast
Without a doubt, this is the most trendy food item this year – the rainbow cheese toast. Remember that snapchap filter? This is it in real life.
For $6.50 you can have a cheese toast for the gram. The mozzarella is coloured by food dye and flavoured with sweet condensed milk and sugar toasted white bread.
Even though this grilled cheese is all over Instagram, I opt not to order one because I’m not going to pay $6 for grilled cheese. Looks great though and it is a novelty idea.
Asomi Mochi
This is another very popular food item in the last 2 years – strawberry mochi stuffed with your choice of red bean or cheesecake filling.
Unfortunately at the prices of 1 for $5 or 2 for $9, I wasn’t willing to try it. Some plus points: the mochi is big and they are locally made in Vancouver from a grandma’s recipe, so that’s kinda sweet.
Rotato
An OG classic, the rotato is basically a potato spiraled onto a stick and deep-fried. When they were first introduced at the night market years ago, they were selling a stick for $5 but now it has increased to $7-8 with huge lineups.
I love potatoes though so rotatos will always have a place in my heart (and my blog).
Milk Cha
I tried this drink last year – it’s essentially a bubble tea of your choice in a baby bottle. Sometimes they give you a bib that says “I’m not weird” but trust me you do feel weird sucking on that bottle as you walk around the night market. I think the purpose of it is supposed to make girls look cute (they claim it’s to go back to their beginning roots but c’mon) but I felt very awkward and didn’t look anyone in the eyes. The bubble tea is yummy, bottle size can be bigger for $7. Don’t worry – they do have normal cups too.
Rainbulb
These are soda drinks in light bulb bottles that also light up. They sell at 1 for $8 and 2 for $15. No refills but you can take the lightbulb home with you for aesthetic purposes. Drinks will spill (no actual lid).
Final thoughts
Some clear winners for food this year are:
- TukTuk’s Thai-styled panna cotta – you must must add the flower cookie. They also have a squid ink version in black.
- Deep fried squid – worth the lineup and all your future acne
- Dragon beard candy – this is not featured on my blog but my parents love this stall and I hope the grandpa who runs that dragon beard candy stall never dies because probably no one else knows how to make it
Some disappointing stalls are:
- Salty’s Lobster Shack – can’t even explain my disappointment with that hot dog bun and their Google definition reply
- Asomi mochi – $5 for one mochi is just out of my budget and they were also out of the red bean filling on the day I went
Obviously there are so many food options at the night market. My friends indulged in giant fried chicken steaks, stinky tofu, meat skewers, giant plates of dim sum and more.
The unfortunate thing is that the night market does get more expensive every year. Budget $40+ if you want to be full. Lineups get longer and longer but that’s because there are more and more interesting food stalls taking part. There are more games, more entertainment, more everything. The Richmond night market is still a super fun place to go to in the summer, whether that be with your family or with a date.