The first Twilight Hawker Market was held last night in Forrest Place in the city as part of the Eat Drink Perth festival. The market will be on every Friday night in March, 5pm to 8pm.
It was a hot, sticky evening but the small market of ten or so stalls created a fantastic atmosphere, serving up home-style street food with international flavours to entice and delight the crowd of enthusiastic food lovers and curious onlookers.
Our first stop was at Marcelita’s Colombian empanadas, where Matt was busy taking orders, with his wife Marcela (head empanada chef), dad and friends hard at work making and frying the empanadas to order.
Matt the empanada man hard at work with the orders
The empanadas are made with masa (maize flour), which is gluten-free, and filled with either: smoked beef brisket with potato and capsicum; pulled pork with lime and coriander; or potato with paprika and spring onion. They are AU$3 each or for $10 you get three empanadas with a sauce. Personally, I don’t think it’s possible to stop at one!
We chose the pork and lime empanadas with fresh guacamole. You have the choice of two sauces – fresh guacamole or romesco (roasted capsicum sauce). The sauces are $1.50 if purchased separately.
Marcelita’s pork and lime empanadas with fresh guacamole (AU$3 each or $10 for 3 pcs with sauce)
Marcelita’s pork and lime empanadas with fresh guacamole
Freshly deep-fried and piping hot, this isn’t finger food, it’s fingertip food! The pork inside was moist and tender, the corn pastry pillow light and deliciously chewy. The creamy fresh guacamole tasted strongly of lime and was finger-sucking good. In the great tradition of corny movie lines, I’d say to the pork and lime empanada: “you complete me.” And then I’d eat another one.
Marcelita’s pork and lime empanada – innards
The empanadas are made to order, ensuring that the masa dough/pastry doesn’t dry out and they are at their freshest and best. As the crowd grew, the waiting time got longer, but the empanadas were well worth the wait. Matt assured us next time they plan to have more fryers on the go.
Empanada production – the third cardboard box says “TFP”
Next stop: satay. The aroma of chicken satay cooking on the charcoal fire was mouthwatering! I watched the cook basting the satay using the traditional brush made of sticks of fresh lemongrass dipped in oil, flipping sticks on the grill and using a rattan fan to control the smoke and flames.
Satay man basting chicken satay with a stick of lemon grass dipped in oil
Satay man fanning the flames at the satay grill – hot, thirsty work!
The satay stall probably had the best aroma as well as the longest queue. As quickly as the satay sticks were pulled fresh off the grill, they were placed into cups and topped with chunky peanut sauce. AU$7 for five sticks and sauce.
Serving up satay with peanut sauce
Chicken satay with chunky peanut sauce, AU$7 for 5 sticks
The satay had a delicious authentic charry flavour. We found a spot to sit by the fountain opposite the GPO building where we ate, stalked by hungry seagulls.
Chicken satay with peanut sauce – close-up (seagulls watching in the background)
The paella stall drew a crowd too, with its enormous paella pan loaded with rice, chicken and seafood, bubbling away and smelling wonderful. Many pairs of hungry eyes watched greedily as raw king prawns were added to the pan, followed by mussels.
Adding the mussels to the paella – are those paella cooking goggles?
Paella is almost ready! AU$10 a serving
The pan of cooked paella was lifted off the burner to be served to the hungry masses for AU$10 a bowl, while a second pan of paella was immediately put on to cook.
Serving up the first batch of paella, preparing the second batch
Preparing the second batch of paella – in goes the arborio rice
We missed out on the first batch of paella, but Juji waited patiently in the line for the second batch. Alas – by the time she got to the front of the line, they had just about run out. She must’ve looked devastated (I know I was, when she got back to tell us what had happened), because the woman serving took pity on her and gave her “sampler” serve of scrapings of the paella pan for $5. No mussels, clams, crab or prawn, but we got a piece of chicken, squid and a bit of pork. The rice was perfectly cooked, rich and flavoursome, and after demolishing the sampler, we were all devastated to have missed out on the real thing! I hope next time they’ll come prepared to cook up more than two pans.
Paella sampler
Dracula Catering served up Romanian cuisine, something we don’t see a lot of around Perth. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it back in time to try the mici (grilled mince roll with mustard).
Dracula Catering (Romanian Cuisine)
I tried a sampler of their zacusca relish with cheese on a piece of bread. It was very good, sweet and spicy but not hot. They sell it by the jar for $7. Next time, Twilight Hawker Market, I have a date with Dracula. I just realised – Twilight, vampire…haw haw!
Dracula’s zacusca relish and cheese sampler
Catering company Red Hot Spatula served up a selection of Asian-inspired street food.
The Red Hot Spatula crew
They had beef curry with roti prata, hoisin glazed chicken (inspired by Peking duck) served in a crispy wantan cup with coriander and cucumber, and vegetarian fried spring rolls with a choice of sweet chilli, caramelised soy or tangy plum sauce. Sadly, we didn’t get there quickly enough and missed out!
Red Hot Spatula – beef curry and hoisin chicken and wantans
Next to Red Hot Spatula was Smokey Jack’s, serving up Bedouin cuisine, featuring Marrakesh pizza bread, chickpea tajin served with bread wedges and chicken tajin with cous cous. There was another stall called Diablo’s Oven, serving up Spanish pintxo. Next time, next time. What’s pintxo?
Red Hot Spatula menu and Smokey Jack’s menu
I used to eat gozleme regularly when I worked in Subiaco a few years ago. This photo was taken before the hoards of hungry people swarmed the stall.
Gozleme stall – before it got super busy
The Spiral Spud – deep-fried spiral-cut potato on a stick (AU$4) was very popular. I guess even when there are other more interesting foods available, many people can’t go past the allure of deep-fried potato! The display spiral potato on a stick made me laugh.
Spiral spud on a stick
For those in need of something refreshing and cooling, the Waikika Moocow frozen yoghurt and dessert stand served up fresh fruit yoghurt, smoothies and slushies.
Waikika Moocow (frozen yoghurt stand)
This jolly accordion player wandered around belting out accordion’s greatest hits.
Accordion player
The Bizircus stilt chefs and a juggler on a unicycle entertained the crowd.
Bizircus stilt chefs and a man on a unicycle entertain the crowd
Bizircus stilt chefs and a man on a unicycle entertain the crowd
Around the corner on the west end of the Murray Street mall there was a City Food Fair, where city food retailers set up stalls too – but for me, the atmosphere and food was nowhere as enticing and exciting as the Twilight Hawker Market.
Stalls at the City Food Fair included: Edo Shiki, Reef & Beef, Satay Spot, Jaws Sushi, Acropolis Now, Thali, Burger Edge, Jean Pierre Sancho, Jaws Sushi, Pasta House and Delisio. While we waited for empanadas and satay, Jac sneaked off and grabbed dumplings at the Edo Shiki stall. First, har gow (steamed prawn dumplings)…
Prawn dumplings, Edo Shiki, City Food Fair
…and later on, siew mai (steamed pork dumplings). They were very hot, juicy and porky!
Siew mai, Edo Shiki, City Food Fair
Since the stalls we wanted to try had run out of food, we went back to the empanada stall, which was still pumping out the orders to a crowd that had not diminished. We got beef empanadas with guacamole and more pork and lime empanadas, this time with romesco sauce.
Beef empanadas with guacamole
Pork and lime empanadas with romesco (red capsicum sauce)
By the time I took the photo below, just after 7.30pm, there was still a good crowd and lots of people queuing up for food, both in Forrest Place and on the mall, but food stalls were running noticeably low on food. A few little birdies told me the empanada stall kept on going, after an emergency run for more avocado and lime!
Murray Street mall, 7:31pm
Congratulations to the City of Perth for putting on this great event. If the crowd was any indication, Perth is ready with a voracious appetite for more regular hawker-style food markets! I think the number of people that turned up to the Twilight Hawker Market took some of the stall holders by surprise.
I had a good time and thought it was worth going, though you needed patience and perseverance to deal with the crowd and queues. I shall remember this as the night I fell in love with pork and lime empanadas – they are pretty special. We met up with a few food blogger and Twitter friends too.
Things I hope the organisers/stall holders address for the next Twilight Hawker Market:
- Spread the stalls out a bit more in Forrest Place to make more room for food stall queues and allow better flow of market traffic.
- City of Perth should consider setting up some tables and chairs for diners in the large empty space between GPO and fountain (the entertainers could perform there too) so the busiest areas of the market will be less congested. Eating at markets is very social, so it would be good to have places set up for people to hang out and catch up with their friends – where they can be close to the action yet not in the way of food stall traffic.
- Some of the stalls barely made it to twilight before running out of food! We’d have stayed longer at the Twilight Market and kept on eating if stalls hadn’t run out of food.
Update: Check out the reader comments at my Facebook page, and Matt’s (Marcelita’s Empanadas) response, as one of the stall holders. The organiser of the event, Sally Lewis, has also sent me an email, assuring me that they will work on making the market even better this week. They had no idea how popular the market would be and the stallholders all wished they’d brought more supplies/staff to feed all the hungry people who came along. Sally’s also posted on my page wall. Thanks, Matt and Sally!
Read my post about the final Twilight Hawker Market – there were improvements!
Did you go to the Twilight Hawker Market? I’d love to hear what you thought. What was your favourite food? What stall/food wasn’t at the market that you wish had been there?
The Twilight Hawker Market is part of the City of Perth’s Eat Drink Perth festival. The market is on every Friday in March, 5pm to 8pm in Forrest Place (at the intersection with Murray Street mall) in Perth city. The City Food Fair was on 4 March only.
My Eat Drink Perth posts
- Eat Drink Perth 2011
- Twilight Hawker Market
- Amusé Project
- The final Twilight Hawker Market… or was it?
- Claisebrook Carnivale, East Perth
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
I turned up at 6.30 and could barely get through the crowd and it was nearly impossible with a stroller – next week I will be there at 5pm. I totally agree with the stalls being more spread out and some seating to be provided. It had so many people there that they will not loose any atmosphere and you can see alot more of the produce :)
Sarah-Jane,
I saw a couple of women struggling with strollers in the crowd, maybe one of them was you. One minute it was kind of ho-hum, nothing much happening, and then VOOOOM, all these people just rocked up. The crowds were another reason I couldn’t take photos of all the stalls – by the time some of them were ready and had food on display it was just too busy to squeeze in to try and take pics. Didn’t really want to incite hawker market rage upon myself!
We got there quite early, around 5:15pm.
I thought there was a lot of opportunity for it to be better organised, a bit more space would have been helpful, and I didn’t see much CoP presence to help with the flow of foot traffic around stalls.
That said, the food we tasted was great. I had Marcelita’s empanadas (so glad that they are gluten free!) with guacamole, it was worth the wait to have the empanadas and guacamole made fresh to order. I loved all three flavours on offer, I don’t think I can choose a favourite.
My partner also had the hoisin chicken in wanton cup, she said it was delicious.
The paella looked amazing, it was the other dish that I wanted to try but the empanadas won my business for week 1.
Jo,
I wanted to try the hoisin chicken and roti prata with curry. It looked good. It was a combination of bad timing on our part and stalls underestimating the demand. Whenever we were ready for paella it wasn’t ready – and when we went back we were too late. D’oh!
We got there at 5.30pm & it was already incredibly busy! I can’t believe they didn’t spread out the stalls a bit more, they had so much more room they could have used! Especially since it was such a hot, sticky night. I had the satay sticks & would have gone back for something else but it was just way too crowded!
Lily,
Jac hates crowds and refused to wait in line, let alone just to catch a glimpse of what stalls had on offer. That’s why she kept nicking off to the City Food Fair, as the queues there weren’t as long. She probably won’t go again, but I think I’ll be back so I can try the stuff I missed out on this time.
I totally forgot abt the hawker my market. Oh wow, so many food to try. Real satay too. They should keep this market forever. Perth need something like this.
flower,
Luckily you have three more chances to get there! :D It would be awesome to have night markets in town more regularly. We would go to the city for dinner more often!
City of Perth needs to make this a regular seasonal (say Oct-Mar) event. Finally something a bit to liven up even further on a Friday night, considering all the shops are open anyway. The retailers would have loved what would have been a heavy increase in foot traffic last night. Looks like many interesting things to try too!
Squee,
Agreed. Something for spring/summer months would be fantastic. If City of Perth is looking to make the city more vibrant to attract more punters, this would be a very effective way. As you’ve pointed out, Friday night markets would be ideal as the shops are open late anyway. There’s so much dead space in town, this is a great way to use it.
The food looks fantastic. Food street markets are always interesting and fun to have a taste of different varieties of food. Kind of like the ‘eat streets’ in Asia. I love the sign by Dracula – I thought the Vegetarian was ironic.
Charmaine,
Haha, yeah, vegetarian Dracula! :D I love food markets. If they can sort out the space/layout/traffic issues and the stall holders come prepared to feed more people than they did this week, the next three Fridays will be even better and will attract and be able to cater for more people.
Hi! Just want to thank you for sharing all the pictures. I knnow it takes time to get everything posted so nicely for all of us. I love visiting other parts of the world without leaving the sofa!
My pleasure, Kim. I’m proud that I can share my images with people from all over. :)
I was really looking forward to checking it all out on Friday night after work, but couldn’t make it. I will definitely be there next week – thanks for the early bird review! Love street markets – imagine if it became a more regular event?!
food sponge,
It would be fantastic to have a regular street food market. I’m not so interested in markets with arts and crafts and inedible things, but food being cooked in front of me – YES! :D I hope people will continue to support the markets. See my update above re: feedback I’ve received from the organiser.
If CoP’s plan was to get more people into the city on a Friday night, their plan succeeded. I unfortunately didn’t get into town until 7pm on account of the 1 hour drive through traffic from Midland, and the usual fight for parking so almost all of the stalls had either started packing up or were out of food when I go to them.
The crowds were ludicrous, a lot of the patrons were incredibly rude or inconsiderate, and the lighting was really bad – especially around Matt and Marcelita’s stall. I was actually pretty disappointed and left thinking, I could have just gone to the vendor’s actual shops instead.
I”ll try again next Friday and hopefully this time get in for the 5pm start.
Orpheus,
Check out my update above re: feedback received from the organiser. I’m sure it will get better following this first experience. You could see the turnout exceeded all expectations – they definitely underestimated the interest from the people of Perth. I always find markets terribly crowded though, even when there’s enough food, even with a well thought-out layout. Hope you have a better experience at the next one.
Yes that’s good news. CoP could easily assist in the setup a regular central market reminiscent of the great weekend markets of London and Paris. The desire is clearly there from the producers and the customers, and with less restrictions on trading hours it’s very doable.
Great photo’s by the way.
Love food fairs! What with the churros last week, the empanadas and paella, I MUST have some Spanish food! I have been good and lost four pounds. Alot of deprivation was involved for that paltry amount! I’m glad you’re having fun and think it’s great that you are sharing with us.
kathy,
It was the third Market last night and I was hoping to get my full serving of paella at last but I got stuck at work till late and didn’t make it. I reckon we will just have to buy our own paella pan and cook it at home. :)
I got there at 5.10 and was served quickly with satay and empanadas. On my second attempt at 5.40 it seemed too busy, the attempts at 6.30 were successful if an arduous wait.
All worth it. the Waikikamoocow slushies were to-die-for and the empanadas were the best i have tasted
Meggy,
I am keen to eat empanadas from elsewhere to do a comparison as I have not eaten any other empanadas (I was an empanada virgin!)
Looks like a lot of fun, and all the food looks delectable! We have similar street festivals in Los Angeles, with “food trucks” (catering trucks with kitchens inside) selling upscale street food (lots of fusion and ethnic foods). We have the same problem here, that once a truck gets really popular the line can be over an hour wait, and then it gets sort of questionable whether or not it’s worth it when there are so many other tasty options around.
Megan,
I don’t mind lining up if the food is really good, but then the problem is you need a very long time and stallholders need to cater for a LOT of people so you can get through it all and try everything (or at least most things). If I knew I could come down every week it wouldn’t be such a big deal as I could try stuff I’d missed out on next time, I guess. But then there’s also the problem of not getting enough to eat after all the lining up! It’s most unsatisfactory to leave a food market feeling hungry!
What a great idea…….or so I thought. When I heard about the twilight hawkers market, I thought finally, someone in Perth is actually trying to do something different for the city. Twilight Hawkers markets are always such a great attraction in different parts of the world. However, if any city in the world was going to organise something that was complete chaos and totally overpriced….of course it would be Perth! When we arrived at 7pm tonight, the whole market was crammed full of people. Why weren’t the markets spread out across the whole mall? Whilst lining up for the famous empanadas, our line was not moving at all, this was probably due to the fact that the empanadas were being hand made as they were odered. How ridiculous, I completely understand that fresh food is best but hawkers markets are mean’t to be “quick” street food. Due to frustration, we decided to try a different market. We ended up at the very overpriced turkish market where we forked over a crazy $12 for a gozleme. I was contemplating buying some baklava at the same time, then when I saw that it was $3.50 for one tiny little piece, I was immediately turned off and stuck with my expensive gozleme which was fairly tasty but certainly not worth $12. After finishing our gozleme I was tempted to try the churros but once again the length of the line turned me off and when I saw that one little churros was $4, I was horrified. Especially as I know that in Melbourne I could buy a whole bag of churros for $7! I would have thought that the price of the food at the market would turn people off but it didn’t seem to deter people, this really concerned me as I can now understand why places in Perth charge such high prices, simply because Perth people don’t know any different and will pay ridiculously high prices for food and drink.
I was very happy to see how well supported the markets were and it was great to see so many people out and about in the city. It would be a good idea to have something similar to the hawkers markets on a regular basis in the city, but let’s face it, why would I pay ridiculous amounts of money for market food when I can go to the vendors nice little restaurants that would be cheaper, better quality and I wouldn’t have to fight with loads of people.
We continue to support these types of things when they come up in Perth as we feel that Perth has some potential but following continuous disorganised and overpriced events, I hate to say that I think this will be the last time we give anything like this a chance.
Al,
The organisers have been reading the feedback here at the blog and on my Facebook page, so I am glad you’ve taken the time to write a detailed response. I agree with your suggestion for regular markets with cheaper prices and better layout/crowd management.
Just what the city centre needs!! We were so impressed with our first visit (by accident) to the Hawker Markets in Forest Place. Hadn’t heard any advertising about it previously!! We tried several of the stalls (about 20 stalls in total) and the food was fantastic!!! Haven’t been able to return due to commitments but will do so soon! It was very busy but we didn’t mind the wait…the aromas were fantastic and the atmosphere was great!!! Well done whoever came up with this idea…..breathing life into the City of Perth!
Just went there tonight for the first time, as a frequenter of hawker markets from coast to coast I found the fare a tad overpriced with small servings. I had some empanadas on your recommendation but found them quite bland, tasteless really, the chilli sauce was nice though, perhaps they should add some salt to the pork filling.
The Paella was smelling nice as well as the charcoal satay, but both stands were packed with ticket holders and they were busy serving them instead. My cousin bought some butter chicken from the 2 fat Indians stand, which was quite nice but a small serving for $12.
Im used to cheaper prices at markets , these markets seem to be priced for the overpaid Miner. Even Mindle Beach Markets in Darwin are much cheaper with more variety, with the best and cheapest food going, the Thai oysters are the best in the world.
I ended going to the food hall and getting a plate of garlic chicken and chicken wings, I needed to be filled for less than $15 and had already spent $10 at the empanadas stand.
I wanted to try the Brazilian doughnuts on a stick but at $4 a pop for nothing much I boycotted them.
Overall it was a dissappointing experience, bumped up pricing is whats letting it down
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