Night Noodle Market Hyde Park, Sydney

It was a very warm Spring evening when hundreds or even thousands descended into Hyde Park for this pop up event, Night Noodle Market which is part of the CRAVE Sydney International Food Festival.

Meals are cooked to order and only the freshest ingredients are used by JackieM Malaysian Restaurant. I can see a lot of other stalls are prepping up for the rush, and the vendors are cooking their meals away whilst hungry and patient patrons line up and wait to order their meals for the evening. For some, the aroma reaches the nose before the foods can reach the mouth. It must be quite torturous, the waiting.

For me, it was worth the wait. After tasting every morsel of the char kway teow which was a generous portion by the way with its fine wok breath, one can almost feel like one have been transported back to the street stalls of Malaysia. I also visited Mamak stall, for my all time favourites; satay. I could happily lived on satays alone if I were to give up carbs...but not tonite ;) because that char kway teow is just stupendous!

And this is exactly what Noodle Night Market is all about. The park is transformed into a Street style hawker center,  just like ones, you see in Asia when you traveled. Here are the various stalls that are participating this year.

NNM_map-stalls.pdf

Every year, for the month of October, the beautiful City of Sydney brings you CRAVE International Food Festival and the Night Noodle Market has become one of the regular event. Because of its success in the past, this year, the event has been extended to thirteen nights.

I love this event and was sad to leave. I am already planning my next vacation, October next year and I will be staying longer to visit with this beautiful city of Sydney.

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*** To note, something quite different for this year; is the Noodle Lounge. For $79.95 per person, this includes your drink on arrival plus full menu Рentr̩e, main, dessert and you get to lounge around and catch up with friends after work and eat fabulous hawker fare without the lines. How good is that? Drinks are provided by The Morrison Bar and there is a live jazz music to keep your feet tapping.*****

Where: Hyde Park North

When: October 3-5, 8-12, 15-19; 5-10pm

Paper Rice Spring Roll

Hmmm, what to do with extra greens? I could eat them of course, but today I wanted to try out rolling out rice paper roll. First, I added sliced rump steak from my dinner last nite. Then I added crabmeat and mixed it in with the greens. I blanched some beansprouts to add into the salad mix. Then I added a little chilli and hoisin sauce and gave the salad one final toss. I am not using vermicelli rice noodles as I am reducing my carbs intake.

To wrap the ingredients into the rice paper is no easy task for a first timer. You will need a plate. Place a sheet on the plate. Then wet it a little with warm water, do not over wet, that makes it hard to fold. once you put your filling in, fold it up as you would an envelope then roll it up. Ta da! Easy, right? Not so! But you will get there after a few rolls. This is fun! Serve with a bowl of chilli sauce mixed with hoisin, if you have crushed peanuts, add it as toppings to sauce ;)

Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant

So our Melbourne's dining out experience was not a total loss. I have one word for Mekong and that is WOW!!!!

This was my first time dining on vietnamese cruisine. We have a chinese/vietnamese place in Wagga and they don't really do Vietnamese dishes, which is a shame.

So, no funky music or decor in this place but just noisy people talking and laughing and enjoying their food, busy waiters, lots of people slurping away with their noodles. The smell of the place was a typical aromatic asian kitchen, I can also smell the fresh mints on the tables as you walked in.

We ordered vietnamese pho, what else does one eat in a vietnamese restaurant? I didn't know that when Clinton visited Melbourne, this was the place he was taken to and apparently he had two bowls of noodles. Impressive as I could only manage the small bowl because we also ordered paper spring rolls as side dishes. The noodles comes in two sizes, small or regular...although the regular looked like a large... HUGE even..slurp slurp... wipe forehead!  Hot and steamy!

The chilli paste is to die for... they sell that as a takeaway condiment, you can buy it home...Sweet, I don't have to be a smuggler then! hehhehehhe! You can't take me anywhere...oh, and I love that we can order our drinks by the colour ;) Who does that? Heheheheh! Mine was Assam juice, Karen had something with coconut which tasted like chendul, the others ordered something with barley in it?

And the hot tea was free ;)