A guide to Canberra's Enlighten Night Noodle Markets 2015
What is it?
The Enlighten Night Noodle Markets are coming to Canberra for the first time - they're a spinoff of the hugely successful Night Noodle Markets in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. This time they'll be part of the Enlighten festival and you'll be able to grab a bowl of noodles and sit down among the lanterns after checking out the vivid, colourful artwork projected onto Questacon, Old Parliament House and the galleries in the Parliamentary Triangle.
Where?
Reconciliation Place in Parkes - which translates to on the lawns between Questacon and the National Portrait Gallery, near the lakefront in front of Old Parliament House.
When?
February 27 to March 8 - the same time as Enlighten. The markets run every day for 10 days. They open Monday to Friday from 5pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 4pm. There will be 15 stalls serving up Asian street food from barbecue skewers to pancakes to gyoza, plus desserts. It'll be all about recreating the sights and sounds of a market filled with hawkers dishing up quick, easy and delicious street food. Here's everything you'll need to know to eat your way through the Enlighten Night Noodle Markets.
For the noodle fiends
There are at least half a dozen different noodle dishes to check out at the Enlighten Night Noodle Markets. There'll be teppanyaki noodles from the eponymous Teppanyaki Noodles and yakisoba from Canberra outfit Kiyamachi Tei, who are regulars at Japanese events such as the Nara Festival. And Morks is making boat noodle soup - a Thai dish that chef Mork Ratanakosol says is his dad's secret recipe. "As soon as we were contacted about the Noodle Markets I spoke to my dad and he said, "We have to do boat noodles because that's the kind of food I grew up with,'" he says. Adul Ratanakosol's boat noodles are filled with beef balls, brisket and tripe in a rich dark broth. Mork says when the family goes back to Thailand they eat bowl after bowlful - "you can't stop at one, they're huge but you can't stop at one. My dad usually has about four or five bowls." Jeff Piper at Thirst is making two noodle dishes - a lighter, summery fried pork and glass noodle salad with tamarind jam dressing. And a yellow curry with chicken, potato and rice noodles. "We thought it would be nice to have a salad dish - and this is a fairly popular dish that we have on our specials," he says. You might want to spread out the noodle eating over several visits.
Post-work drinks and dinner
There'll be a bar for all your post-work catch up drinks while Thatcher's Orchard will serve up a range of ciders to go with your noodle bowls, dumpling platters and skewers. Take a blanket and sit out on the picnic area to make a night of it.
Barbecue masters
Manly Beach eatery Daniel San is making waves with its Karate Kid inspired, California surf meets Ginza pop aesthetic and izakaya Japanese bites. They'll bring a range of skewers from the menu to Canberra. From Melbourne, try some Filipino barbecue from Hoy Pinoy. They're cooking traditional chicken and pork skewers over live coals. Inihaw na monok are chicken skewers with a cane sugar glaze while the pork belly skewers - inihaw na baboy - feature a banana ketchup glaze. Meanwhile Roti Road are a Malaysian outfit from Footscray who will be making a traditional street food dish of barbecued chicken wings with cucumber wedges and a home-made chilli sauce. Owner Matthew Quah says the dish is a Noodle Market special that's not served at their restaurant - "it's something new". Or pick up a couple of bamboo chicken skewers, flame grilled with a spicy edge.
Dumplings and more dumplings
"We'll be bringing down the bestsellers," says owner Rowan Bates from Let's Do Yum Cha, the popular Melbourne and Sydney food truck. This means prawn and chive dumplings, chicken dim sum, har gau, vegetarian dumplings and a barbecue pork bun. Bates has been doing yum cha catering since 2008 and two years ago launched the Let's Do Yum Cha food trucks, which bring yum cha dumplings to the street. Brisbane gyoza specialists Zagyoza will be dishing up six different Japanese dumplings - classic pork, chicken teriyaki, a "mild and fruity beef curry", pumpkin and fetta, seafood and a vegan black bean dumpling. They turned out 50,000 dumplings at the Brisbane Night Noodle Markets last year so they clearly know what they're doing.
Desserts
The stars of the sweets at the Night Noodle Markets are undoubtedly N2 Extreme Gelato, the very popular Sydney ice cream merchants who use liquid nitrogen to make their gelato from scratch in front of customers. You'll have a couple of flavours to choose from - the first is a Ferrero Rocher-inspired creation of Nutella gelato filled with rice bubbles, hazelnuts and a syringe of injectable chocolate ganache. The second is vanilla gelato with honeycomb and a syringe filled with caramel. Mini Pancakes will also serve up thousands of Dutch pancakes - for an Asian twist, top them with sticky red bean sauce or lychee. And there'll be plenty of waffles to get through at Waffleland.
The Enlighten Night Noodle Markets run from February 27 to March 8 at Reconciliation Place on the lawns between Questacon and the National Portrait Gallery. Markets open 5pm on weekdays and 4pm on weekends.
Here's a taste of the Night Noodle Markets in Sydney, coming to Canberra this year from February 27.