I decided and was determined to return on Sunday night as it is the final night of the Night Noodle Markets for this year. Miss it and I'll have to wait another 12 months unless I travel to Melbourne for their Night Noodle Markets during their Good Food Month.
First stop at the entrance to the Night Noodle Markets was a bag check - what were they searching for - glass alcohol drugs? None in my bag. I deliberately only bought with me a small back pack containing a bottle of water in a clear plastic drink bottle, an umbrella, a scarf, a raincoat, tissues, wet ones and some other essentials.
Onto find some food. First food stall I saw was Mr Bao and I just took a look at their menu and joined the queue of people. The line moved quite quickly and I could see why, their make shift kitchen was crammed shoulder to shoulder with workers at every food preparation station working full bore in order to keep up with order demand. I chose the gourmet trio ( 3 bao duck tempura prawn and Korean beef $25) over the classic trio (chicken pork tofu $20). It was worth the $25 I paid although I had a few bones in the duck one. Light and fluffy white buns with a perfect combination of fillings. Rating 7/10
Mr Bao's gourmet trio
As I walk around the grounds of the Night Noodle Markets I find that there is bao competition - how about a stall named "Wonderbao" or even a stall with the cool name of "Mr Miyaji" both selling baos of some sort on their menus.
Mr Miyaji's menu including baos
Wonderbao's menu
Ok time to take a load of photos as I finish my trio of gourmet baos. Nothing heavy for me tonight as I did not want to get sick like I did at previous year's Night Noodle Markets.
Past the pop up Citi VIP lounge which I did not make use of this year, there were plenty of pop bars and a varity of savoury food stalls as well as a pop up Ping Pong area. Lacking at this year's Night Noodle Markets were dessert stalls - I only spotted a Gelato stall and Blackstar - what no Gelato Messina this year? Blackstar was disappointing sold out of chocolate caramel desserts on their menu but plenty of strawberry cakes on display ready to purchase - no queue at all. So savoury dishes it was at the Night Noodle Markets this year.
You had to watch where you walked - there was a path however to get to a majority of the food stalls you had to step onto the series of mats inadequately laid out to avoid the extremely slushy muddy ground within the majority of the Night Noodle Markets @ Hyde Park North.
Rating 8/10. It was busy but there did not seem there were as many food stalls as there were in previous years. Some interesting dishes though and what is the Night Noodle Markets without a lion dance demonstration? The lion dance made it's way around through the main path of the Night Noodle Markets to the Citibank VIP lounge where it spends a bit of time interacting with patrons sitting around tables inside the Citibank VIP lounge. The lion heads bobbing up and down lit up and their bodies winding their way round.
(refer short video uploaded onto Youtube)
Photos below Friday night
Photos below final night Sunday Night
I didn't spend a lot of time at the Night Noodle Market - about an hour or 2. Trackwork again and the M40 had ceased service after 7 pm on a Sunday night therefore the only way home was to catch the infrequent 343 bus from Elizabeth Street across the road from Hyde Park and everone was waiting for it - miss it and you have to wait another half an hour at least.
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