626 Night Market 2014

I cannot wait for this weekend's OC Night Market, so I decided to celebrate by sharing my adventures from last month's 626 Night Market. I went last year and blogged about it, but this year was even more fun!

My mother decided to join me for a night, and I really enjoyed it. It's always nice to go to an event like this with someone new, because they will invariably try something completely different than you would normally. My mother especially is adventurous, and there's the added bonus of her being a much better photographer than me, especially for crowd shots.

I also went with the same buddy from the DTLA Night Market post, as well as Mr. Mochi on a different day. I have way too much fun at these events, sometimes when I'm full I just like sitting there and people-watching. Nearly everyone is having a blast, and watching people get excited over a special food is fun to watch.

DTLA Night Market 2014

Summer has been crazy. June, July, and now August are gone in a blur! I went to the OC Night Market, the DTLA Night Market, Anime Expo, Comic Con, the K-Town Night Market, and the original 626 Night Market. I'm happy to say that I managed not to gain any weight in July, and actually lost weight in June!

DLTA Night Market definitely was a cheat day for me. I went with one of my friends (Incidentally, she is a damn cool chick and introduced me to Shin-Sen-Gumi back in the day) and Mr. Mochi to brave the summer heat and see what downtown Los Angeles had to offer.

DLTA Night Market was much smaller than the other two night markets I've been to, there wasn't as much real estate for them to work with. A lot of the same vendors from the OC Night Market were there, so I am going to focus my post on the different things we tried!

OC Night Market 2014

Last year, my favorite event I went to was 626 Night Market. I practically wassailed through the stalls, sampling foods from all over the world: Japanese takoyaki, Chinese bing tang hulu, Taiwanese bubble tea, and more hapa fusion food than you can imagine.

This year, the team behind the 626 Night Market got even more ambitious and brought the night market experience to Orange County in May.

I wanted to share my experience with you, because I am excited that their next stop in their smorgasbord is downtown Los Angeles this weekend, June 20th and 21st.

Since undoubtedly I talk way too much, I'll be doing small captions and mostly photos for this post, with a short bit at the end about my overall experience at the OC Night Market. All of the food posted was so good, I'm almost glad that the OC Night Market was only one weekend because I would get huge if they were regularly available all in one spot.

O.C. Buddhist Church Obon 2013!

Obon season is upon us! Dancing, drumming, food and festival games, let me paint a picture for you:

Japanese lanterns sway gently above us, silhouetted by a beautiful sunset: fiery red that roars across the horizon before extinguishing into a riot of pink and purple.

 Gold and silver, glitter and sparkle.

Nothing is as beautiful as a woman in a colorful kimono. In the sweltering heat, the thin cotton yukata allows one to stay above it all and the women here are glamorous despite the temperature. An elderly woman in a purple one patterned with white and silver epitomizes grace and refinement as she dances. Swirling and twirling to the steady beat of a taiko drum, these dancers circle around a center tower strung with lanterns, people watching and clapping along on the sidelines.

A little girl darts out amid the dancers, giggling madly in her flip flops and waving a clacking noise-maker gleefully. Soon enough, an older gentleman in a colorful orange happi coat scoops her up and brings her back to family. Little girls in their first yukata rush toward each other to compare obi, then break apart to have a furious war of waving uchiwa fans at each other.

People are shouting over the heads of others, recognizing friends from church. Backs are clapped, a bite of dango is offered, and then both parties swivel to smile at a child walking by with a precious bag of water containing one goldfish sparkling like a jewel at the bottom.


Above the beat of the drum, winding its way around the happy chatter, is the unmistakable aroma of Japanese festival food. It smells like coming home.

And then there's me, the perennial wallflower.

Not dancing, not talking, just watching this happy spectacle. There must have been skinned knees, lost fans, dead goldfish--but I never saw it.

Yuen Yeung

Yuen yeung, also known as yuanyang, yinyong, or yinyeung, is a super tasty and easy to make drink. Yuen yeung, named after the opposites-attract nature of Mandarin ducks, is milk tea and coffee mixed together, and can be served either hot or cold. This drink hails from Hong Kong, where it was originally served with street food, then at cafes. This drink has become so popular that Starbucks in Hong Kong had a Yuen Yeung Frappuccino!

To me, nothing is better before class than grabbing my favorite pineapple bun warm and toasty from the Chinese bakery next to my college and swiping a yuen yeung milk tea from the boba cafe next door. Fortunately for my waistline, I don't indulge in that combination as often as I'd like, but it is one that I suggest everyone try at least once.

Starbucks Ad!

I've made milk tea for this blog before, but traditionally yuen yeung is made with Hong Kong style milk tea, which is made with evaporated milk and sugar. This obviously will make the milk tea even creamier, so for this recipe I made it with condensed milk. There is some contention on using condensed milk versus evaporated milk and sugar, but I happen to have condensed milk in my cupboard so that's what I always use and I'm not too ruffled if I am not completely authentic.

Bubble Tea

I cannot write a post about milk toast without a follow up on how to make its partner in crime, bubble tea. Bubble tea, also known as pearl tea or boba tea, is traditionally a frothy cold drink made with large tapioca balls at the bottom. A large straw is usually used to be able to suck up the boba tapioca balls at the bottom of the drink, which are a pleasant chewy addition to the drinks. The drinks themselves are usually variants of sweetened milk tea, such as black, green, Earl Grey, and even Thai.

That doesn't mean that you are limited to tea! Boba tea shops usually have tons of flavors: taro, honeydew, strawberry, and other fruits are all fair game. One of my favorite boba drinks at my fave high school hang was actually a sour green apple slushie with boba!

Dry boba

I'd have to say that boba tea shops are a pretty important part of growing up Asian American for a certain generation in America, a place to socialize and sip. I certainly went to a lot of them in high school! Originally Taiwanese, this class of drinks have been embraced by the Asian community and beyond here in the States.

Boba isn't exactly the fastest drink to whip up at home, but if you store the tapioca pearls in simple syrup, you can refrigerate them for a couple days. However once they lose their chewiness and get brittle, they are done for.

The tea itself is easy. You can make it from a powdered mix, or for better tea flavor, make it by mixing sweetened tea and milk. In my pictures, I have milk tea as well as Thai iced tea that is from a mix.

My City and Milk Toast

One memory from my childhood that sticks out is driving home from my grandparent's house. Since my parents both worked full time, my mother's parents took care of my brother and I during the day. We had to be around six or seven. On this particular drive, I don't remember what possessed us to do this, but we said,

"Look Dad! We're Asian!"

And we put our palms to our temples and pushed back to make our eyes extra squinty.

I don't know who was more shocked, my dad, whose children were doing rather inappropriate racially insensitive things; or us, when he told us that we actually were Asian, in part.

"Look at your grandma, she's 100% Asian American and her eyes don't look like that! Besides guys: your eyes are already almond-shaped, you inherited that from her. You eat mochi, dried squid and nori for after-school snacks, you're both Japanese American."

Talk about floored.