14 Must Eat Foods at The Richmond Night Market

Visiting the Richmond Night Market soon? This guide will give some important things to know before you go and some of the best foods you must try!

A couple years ago, shortly after we moved to Seattle, Adam came across photos on Instagram of hundreds of tents, colorful lights, and delicious food at the The Richmond Night Market, which is the largest night market in North America with over 1 million visitors between May and October (when it is open). “We HAVE to go here!” he said to me, but for some reason, the timing was just never right and we didn’t go.

Fast forward to this past weekend and we finally did it! We planned a weekend trip to Vancouver, mostly centered around going to the night market, which is located south of the city. We tried to prepare our stomachs throughout the day for what it would endure that evening, arrived to the market early, waited in a long line, paid the entrance fee, and then STUFFED OUR FACES!

It was a crazy busy, but glorious evening trying different foods from all over the world. We left with stomach aches from all of the food we ate (and we didn’t even try everything we wanted to!), but we have #noragrets because it was worth every single bite!

Check out our vlog below to see all of the spots we ate at and keep scrolling to see our tips to surviving the market, see which spots we loved, and see the spots we wished we could’ve tried!

Note: We went May 2019 and noticed that some vendors from last year were not there this year, so we can’t promise that all of these spots will be around in future years!

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Things to Know

When visiting the Richmond Night Market there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure your visit is a success!

Arrive early: We got to the market about 20 minutes before it opened at 7 PM and ended up getting inside an hour later at 7:40 PM.
Parking is free: There is free parking right by the market’s entrance, which was a huge perk!
Ticket prices: You do have to pay to enter, on top of paying for food. It is $8 CAD per person, but seniors and anyone under 8 are free! They also sell a skip the line pass for $35 that covers 5 entries.
Bring cash: We made sure to get a bunch of Canadian money out before we went and ended up using cash the entire night. There may have been some spots that took card, but we got the vibe that most were cash only.
Be patient: It is a madhouse at the night market, but if you go into it knowing that it’ll be busy and embracing the energetic vibe, you’ll have a blast! We waited in lines for some spots (Rotato, Chef James, Fries and Things, Pork Hoc), but for other spots we just walked up and ordered.

So without further ado, here are our must-eat items at the 2019 Richmond Night Market!

Teppan Bossam Pork Belly

This was my (Kathryn’s) favorite savory spot of the night! We have been on a pork belly kick lately, so stopping at Teppan Bossam was a no brainer. There are four different kinds to choose from: garlic, spicy, barbecue, and teriyaki. We went with the spicy, which wasn’t really spicy, but just had awesome flavor. It comes with kimchi as well!

Roasted Pork Hocks

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This was Adam’s favorite savory spot of the night! We had no idea what pork hocks were before this, but they sure are delicious! We went towards the end of our eating extravaganza and didn’t even want more food, but seeing the pork hocks spinning on the rotisserie was too tempting and we caved.

The meat had a nice crunch on the outside and was so soft on the inside. Bonus: you get to add BBQ sauce and mustard to your pork hocks with utters, which made us laugh!

Icy Bar Shaved Ice

We both agreed that this was our favorite sweet treat at the Richmond Night Market! Icy Bar serves up Taiwanese shaved ice, which has ice, fruit juice, fresh fruit, and ice cream on top. We got the strawberry and mango flavor and it was the BOMB! The ice isn’t as fluffy as Hawaiian shave ice, but the flavor combos + the ice cream was so delicious.

Asomi Mochi Strawberry Filled Mochi

Asomi Mochi was one of the spots we were most excited to try because I (Kathryn) had never had mochi and wanted to try something new! The strawberries have red bean paste on them and then are wrapped in the mochi of your choice. We got the chocolate and the purple yam mochi, but they also had a cheesecake one that sounded amazing. Both flavors were super tasty and the texture of the mochi with the strawberry was unlike anything we have had before. This was definitely one of our top spots!

Fries and Things

We discovered Fries and Things about an hour before leaving for the market while Adam was researching where to eat. And we love fries, especially ones loaded with stuff on them, and these were really good! We got the Pho fries, which is their signature dish (they have a couple other kinds as well), and to be honest we aren’t sure what all was on them, but the flavors did resemble pho!

Rotato

Potato on a stick? Count us in! The line for this spot was very long, but for good reason–it was so dang good! The potatoes are essentially spiraled onto a stick and then fried and topped with the seasoning of your choice. We got sour cream and onion and a garlic one and both were amazing. The potato stays soft on the inside, so it’s less of a chip and more like a very thin french fry. Now we are drooling just thinking about it!

Chef James Meat Skewers

There are quite a few meat skewer spots in the market, but we had read good things about this one. The line was crazy long, but it was definitely worth it! We got 5 skewers total–steak, lamb, chicken, and prawns and they were all extremely flavorful. It’s also very fun to watch Chef James make them!

Sushi Nori Tacos

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Adam loves sushi and loves tacos, so getting a combo of the two was extremely exciting! I didn’t try this one because I am still working on the whole seafood thing, but Adam loved it! It was a fried seaweed shell that was super crispy, with rice inside, sauce, and salmon. Definitely a must-try if you love sushi!

Yummy Yogurt

This was our final stop of the night and was a spontaneous decision. We actually aren’t sure if Yummy Yogurt is the real name, but that’s what the cup said so we are rollin’ with it. We had wanted this bagged sippy tea we saw online from last year, but we couldn’t find them in the market, so we settled for this yogurt spot instead!

Since we had seen lots of people walking around with the cup in their hand, we figured it had to be decent. They had a handful of different flavors, but the guy working there said the purple rice was the best, so we got that one. And it was really good!

The best way to describe this is that it’s a yogurt smoothie with chewy little chunks inside (the rice). It wasn’t overly sweet, which was much needed after the sugar we had already, but it still ended the night on a sweet note!

The next 5 spots are places we did NOT get the chance to try unfortunately (which is why we don’t have photos), but definitely want to next time!

Senbei Seafood Cracker

We really wanted to try this (even I was willing to give it a taste!), but we were just too full by the time we got to the stand. These crackers are MASSIVE and basically are just compressed prawns. Crazy!

Roti Mac and Cheese

By the time we made it to this stand they were all sold out 🙁 But that’s probably a sign that they are as good as they sound! As the name implies, this is mac and cheese inside of a roti, which is like an Indian flatbread. Yum!

Big G Fried Chicken Steaks

Fried chicken as big as yo face! Adam would’ve had to partake in this one alone (gluten free life is the worst!), so he skipped it because he wasn’t sure he could eat a whole one by himself + everything else we wanted to eat. But it sure looked good!

Churros in Ice Cream or Pancho’s bakery

There are two different churro spots to check out–Churros in Ice Cream and Pancho’s Bakery. Churros in Ice Cream come in a blow up unicorn floaty and look super fun, while Pancho’s Bakery has ice cream inside of churro cones. Both look amazing and we’d definitely try these next time!

Say Cheeeese Rainbow Grilled Cheese

We have no idea if this is actually good or not, but if you want something super unique and Instagrammable, get the rainbow grilled cheese from Say Cheeeese. We saw so many people eating this and snapping pics as they pulled it apart. It looked fun!

Are you hungry yet?

Pin this guide to plan your trip to the Richmond Night Market!