Everyone's abuzz about Eastwood's Saturday night markets with a delicious range of street foods on offer. From cute egg burgers, stretchy mochi donuts, crispy pot stickers and enormous squid skewers I'll share with you the most delicious things that we ate and what you shouldn't miss out on!
"Where are you?" says Laura. We've both made the long drive to Eastwood, a suburb that everyone seems to be talking about for food and we can't find each other. I'm standing in the line for Song Hainanese Chicken in the Eastwood Market while Laura is wandering in the shopping mall. After having a chat to someone in the queue I find out that there are two night markets: the permanent one just off the main shopping mall with the neon signs and the blue van with a singer crooning. Then on Saturday nights from 4pm there's temporary stalls set up in the shopping mall area - this is where all of the famous TikTok items are located.
But back to the chicken rice. There's a sign that says that they have sold out and are making more for 5pm dinner. I'm fifth in the queue and I look back and the queue trails all the way around the other shops. Hesitant to give up my spot Laura comes to me. I don't quite understand how and why the queue is moving so slowly. The chicken is in the display and they're busy chopping it up but it's around 10 maddening minutes per transaction. "Is there a Q&A?" asks Laura.
After 35 frustrating minutes waiting we reach the front of the queue. The woman is apologetic and it seems like everyone is ordering 20-40 serves of chicken rice at a time and most of them are pre-ordered. We buy a chicken rice, I ask for extra ginger and garlic sauce and we take the box to a table to eat. The chicken is silky texture, tender and luscious, the rice is good. There's no soup to accompany it (and there's no way we are going back in that line that seems to have grown exponentially now that it's edging closer to dinner time). It benefits from the extra ginger and garlic sauce and a bit of the chilli sauce too. I mean it's damn good but by the same token I've never been so frustrated waiting in a queue before. All I hear is Meryl Streep as Anna Wintour saying drolly, "By all means, move at a glacial pace."
Leaving the permanent market area we go into the main shopping mall and the first stand we see is Egg Burger. These are little egg pancakes filled with egg and pork sausage. An egg is cracked into the concave pan and fried before adding a pork sausage patty and then batter. It is then flipped over and more batter poured on top of the egg to seal it up and make it into a cute little burger sandwich.
Then there's an array of sprinkles from chilli powder to a furikake like spice dust and they hand the hot little bun over. We had read that some people thought that these were too saucy. Maybe they've heard that feedback because there was no sauce at all (there is also another stand that we later see selling these) but these are delicious and a wonderful little snacky way to start the night.
Right next to this stand is the mochi donut stand that everyone is talking about. Yautou of long Chinese donuts are sandwiches with mochi and comes in four flavour combinations. A lot of people tried the black sesame and peanut for $11 and that's ok but the real deal is the salted egg yolk and pork floss $13 which is just about the most addictively tasty thing ever.
It's the perfect snack balancing salty and sweet as well as crunchy and chewy/stretchy. We also tried one of the fried sweet potato noodles and that was just a bit uninspiring with a few stray tinned corn kernels and sausage.
The big question at the squid stand is tentacle or whole squid? The tentacles are cheaper by a few dollars but the whole squid is more spectacular and has tentacles for comparison so we go for the latter. They lay the squid out on skewers, cut the sides so that it lays flat and doesn't curl up and then place heavy irons on top and let them cook on the grill while basting.
I take a bite of the tentacles at the top and they're the best as they've gathered and soaked up all of that delicious sauce with chilli, sesame seeds and cumin. I actually would recommend the tentacles because they really soak up a lot of that delectable sauce.
There's one stand on the other side where we spot a man pulling out metal drawers of steamed rice noodles and the rolling them up to get those lovely layered semi translucent rice noodle rolls. There's a few different fillings but we try the prawn one with juicy, well cooked prawns and egg. There could be a bit more sauce to these and after the flavour packed squid this is quite mild in comparison and it's more about textures than flavour.
Drinks-wise there aren't that many options. We did try a sugarcane juice but I prefer it with a lot of passion fruit and they only added a couple of tablespoons so it wasn't to my taste as it was just sweet more than that heavenly balance of sweet and tangy that you get with more passion fruit.
Still it helps us hydrate for a wait at the most popular stand at the market (and by now I'm sure you all know, the longest line often means great food). Jiang Xiang Bing is a vegetarian pancake that is thin, rippled and brushed with a chilli bean garlic sauce, green onions and sesame seeds and then chopped up and served as a snack. We watch them roll out the dough into a very large round, fry it on the enormous round pan in plenty of oil and then turn it over.
You can get either a small or large size and we figure if we are going to wait this long we may as well get a large. It's around 10 minutes wait where they yell out all numbers from 30-55 in no order at all until we ask "54?" and then they just hand us a packet of them. We skewer a piece and it's really good especially when you eat it hot and fresh. Not all of the pieces have the sauce and these are obviously the tastiest.
There are desserts available like tiramisu and a large stand selling Thai desserts and kanom lukchup or those cute mini mung bean fruit but as two savoury gals we decide to end on a savoury note. The crispy edged dumplings at Lin Lin Potstickers come in a variety of filling from beef, pork and prawn and we go for the latter. The pot stickers are crisp with a flavoursome prawn filling inside and that chilli oil makes these so moreish.
Eastwood Night Market tips:
There are two night market locations right next to each other. There is a permanent night market where the stalls look more permanent (see the first couple of pics in this story) and then there are the temporary stalls along the shopping mall that are only on Saturday nights (above pic).
Parking on Rowe Street can be tricky. On one side there's a 30 minute limit until 6pm and on the other it's 1 hour until 6pm. I arrived at 4:30pm and found an unlimited spot in the residential area further up Rowe Street and five minutes walk away from the market. There are also a few car parks available too.
Most stalls accept credit card or PayID. There are a couple that are cash only.
There is very little to no seating at the Saturday night market while there is more seating at the permanent night market.
So tell me Dear Reader, which food item did you like the sound of the most? Do you usually look for the stands with the longest lines and join them?
All food was independently paid for.
Eastwood Night Markets
Rowe St, Eastwood Plaza, Eastwood NSW 2122
Open: Saturday 4-10pm
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