The Summer Night Market in Richmond opened a couple weekends ago. Scott and I went with Victor and his gf on the Sunday night of the May long weekend. It wasn’t too crowded when we first got there but crowds increased steadily as the evening went on. I recommend going right at 7PM if you’re planning on checking it out sometime this summer!

These little fish only cost $1 and are filled with chocolate, custard or red bean paste. I like the custard one the most. Warning: they are lava hot on the inside!!

Rotato is a night market classic. They are cheaper at the Summer Night Market ($4) compared to everywhere else. We got salt and vinegar this time but I didn’t like it as much as the flavours I tried last year.

I liked Parmesan Garic (lol) and Sour Cream & Onion last year. They must use the exact same type of flavour powders as they do on chips because they taste identical to bags of potato chips. If I have another one I will probably try White Cheese… maybe it will taste like Smartfood popcorn, which I am addicted to.

We also had a kiwi bubble tea with pearls ($5), shrimp lamb and crispy bun skewers (3 for $7), and a duck pocket and dumplings ($5.75). The skewers were excellent and the dumplings were tasty. The duck pocket was dumb because it only had like two tiny strands of duck in the whole thing.

Victor and his gf had all the traditional night market things like bubble waffles, okonomiyaki (japanese pancake) and takoyaki (octopus ball thingies).

I really like the Summer Night Market because it is cheaper than the Richmond Night Market, but now that I’ve been to it twice I think that’s enough. We’ve tried almost all the food there that I would want to try now. Next time I think we’ll go to the Richmond Night Market because even though it is more pricey they have way more interesting food choices.

Prepare to drool cuz I’m finally ready to blog about Eat! Vancouver 2013!! I feel awful for taking so long. Bad timing with the move and everything.

Anyway Eat! Vancouver is a food convention held in BC Place with booths from tons and tons of companies and restaurants. Nearly every booth gives out samples of their products. There is no need to be tentative, they are super generous with the samples and often encourage you to try every single thing they have!

I took pictures of some of my very favourite things I tried…

This Albert’s Leap blue goat cheese brie was incredibly delicious and I really really regret not buying a wheel. Can someone please get me this for my birthday?? Seriously.

Pistachios are awesome. I definitely went by this booth a few times. :D

This coconut ice cream was reallllllllllllly nice. It had the texture and flavours of normal ice cream with a hit of coconut flavour as well. I loved the salted caramel and Scott loved the strawberry. This is one of the products that got added to our list of “actually want to buy in real life”. So good.

Plenty o’ chocolate samples!

This Oikos truck was giving out really big cups of Greek yogurt with a separate package of topping. You could choose any combination you want. The first day I tried fig yogurt with granola which was very tasty. The next day I got strawberry yogurt with granola and tucked it into my bag to have for breakfast later that week.

Non-artificial ginger ale! These were so spicy in the way ginger can burn. They were delicious and I got a poster with a bunch of alcoholic drink recipes that I totally want to try. I would have bought some at the convention but they weren’t selling! Now I have to track them down in Vancouver.

This booth was for a tea subscription service. The service is pretty expensive but I will definitely say the tea was great. That flapjack one smelled exactly like a pancake breakfast! Lauren and I tried the green tea tropical tea and decided it would taste awesome as a cold drink.

This year Scott and I bought a few tickets so we could try the alcohol section. This is me with a blueberry whiskey drink. Yum. I also tried Fruli (strawberry beer) and Scott tried a few different types of beer. He liked Delirium quite a bit.

I used the rest of the tickets on the chilled avocado soup from Tacofino. It was smooth and spicy and tasty.

Last year Rosemarie and I were really bummed that we missed out on all the cheese seminars. This year we set ALARMS so we wouldn’t miss it! I went once with Lauren and once with Scott! :D

The seminars are super awesome. They give you seven different types of cheeses to try and the dude walks you through tasting each one. He might get you to taste the inside of the brie before the outside, or to smell the cheese etc etc. Super fun.

PS I love cheese.

It’s pretty unfortunate that I don’t have internet access this particular weekend because it’s the food convention weekend. I have a press pass and should really be showing you lots of drool-worthy photos of food and drink to convince you to go if you are in Vancouver. instead I’m blogging from my phone with no pictures.

You’re just going to have to trust me and get your butt to BC Place tomorrow or Sunday because when I DO show you what we ate you are going to wish you were there. The tickets are $14 if you buy them online and are well worth it because there are enough free samples to stuff you. Plus extra things from Vancouver restaurants and breweries and wineries to buy if you want.

Lauren and I went today and had a great time. Some of the best things i ate were coconut milk ice cream, maple spread, sabra guacamole, and strawberry lemonade. Scott and I will go again tomorrow morning. See you there! I will post pics as soon as I can next week.