Hawkers Market Comes to Edmonton
Hawkers Market is based in Vancouver, BC. They have most recently set their sites on Edmonton as a place to launch their event. A Hawker Centre or “Cooked Food Centre” is usually in an open-air market format. Thanks to our lovely Alberta weather, this particular version of the market was held indoors.
Hawkers Market’s Edmonton edition was held in the Mercer Warehouse basement. If you are a patron of the “Mercer Collective” popup events featuring local artists, then you are familiar with the space. The walls have some great graffiti art that gives the space that “underground” ambiance. The market’s intention is to introduce food makers to the consumers to help launch local businesses. All done with some great live DJ’s and some of the city’s best and future best eateries.
With Hawkers Market, you pay an admission fee to cover the rental of the venue and the entertainment. You need to bring cash for payment for the dishes and the wares from the vendors.
Hawkers Market is an experience unto itself. Alley Kat was on tap with a couple of choices to accompany your food. Alley Kat makes my favourite brews, so this foodie was very appreciative.
Looking around the room, there are several vendors to choose from:
Paper Bag Donuts
Parts and Service Food Truck
South Island Pie Company
Sailin’ On Food Truck
Casa 12 Doce
Bully Food Truck
XIXNineteen
Drift Food Truck
First up was Parts and Service Roasted Bone Marrow with Fennel Salsa.
Each portion expertly prepared. I like fire. Just sayin’.
I haven’t had bone marrow in years! I used to love it when I had the opportunity to eat it as a child. This dish brought back so many memories! The fennel salsa paired perfectly with the marrow.
From XIX Nineteen we tried the Curried Orzo with Blueberry Duck Sausage:
This one is hard to put into words. It was really, really good. The orzo was cooked perfectly, as was the duck sausage. The duck and the blueberry flavours went together perfectly as well. Very enjoyable dish!
Sailin’ On:
Firstly, I am a “Meatatarian”. I was graciously invited to the Sailin’ On preview many moons ago. I liked it. Shame on me!
For those of you that are not familiar with the gentlemen at Sailin’ On, this is a Vegan food truck. Yes, there, I said it – Vegan!
The above is their BLT wrap made with coconut bacon. Vegan Bacon; vegan bacon made from coconut even. It is good! This was another huge win for Sailin’ On versus the Meatatarian. Beautiful job gentlemen!
So last on the menu was Drift Food Truck. Why last? Because I love them and I used to eat there often when I worked in downtown Edmonton. I am going to miss not being able to go there for lunch all the time!
Above is Khao Swe (Cow Sway). This is a recipe passed onto Nevan from his great Aunt Doreen. It is a mild chicken coconut curry served on top of egg noodles. A variety of toppings were available according to individual taste. Mine was crunchy noodles and dried onion.
Tender chicken, mild curry, tender noodles. I added crunchy toppings to vary texture. It was a wonderful dish Nevan! I really enjoyed this.
Another thing I love about Drift is that they use organic/local/recyclable products whenever they can.
Wonderful effort for the first time around for the Hawkers Market. They seem to be people who will take this opportunity and fly with it.
Some minor feedback:
Around the time that we hit the third dish it was starting to get really crowded as far as eating spaces were concerned. It would have been nice to have some more tables.
I have gone to a lot of these events. I think the best one that I have been able to attend to date is where there were “sample sizes” available. I would have loved to have tried all of the vendors, but even with my husband along, there is only so much food one person can eat! It would be wonderful if there was a regular sized portion and then a sample sized portion for a lesser price point.
Hawkers has announced that they will be coming back to Edmonton on February 22nd, 2014 and I am very much looking forward to attending.