One time last year (that is 2013), when I had taken a day off work (because I had to work on a public holiday and I preferred the day off rather than the extra pay), I was out wondering around Melbourne with my friend who enjoys taking photos of himself in garden settings.
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| He was nice enough to let me use this photo. Source. |
Anyway, while we were walking back from the Botanic Gardens (with the intention of having a beer on Pony Fish Island) we passed this set up called ‘The Age Night Noodle Markets. A part of me simply wanted to throw the plans that I had that night into the bin and go inside, however at that time my desire to have a beer on Pony Fish Island was greater than my desire to eat noodles, so I crossed my fingers and prayed that it would come around next year (that is 2014). It turned out that my prayers were answered because when I was perusing The Age website at work (during my break, of course) I discovered that it was on again, so I scrapped my plans for Thursday night and went to check it out.
It turned out that the Night Noodle Markets are really popular:
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| Yep, they are all going to have a bite to eat. |
and they even had cookie monster playing the bagpipes, but that was outside the market and I suspect that he had nothing to do with the event itself but rather was positioning himself so that he could capitalise on the popularity of the markets (which isn’t a bad thing in a free-market society, which of course ours strictly isn’t, but that is another story which I won’t go into here).
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| I didn’t stay to listen |
The funny thing about the Night Noodle Markets is that I came here looking for Chinese food, but from what I could see there weren’t any stalls selling Chinese food. Maybe it is because if you really want Chinese food there are plenty of shops in and around Melbourne where you can gorge yourself to your heart’s content (I do exaggerate because there were a couple of Dim Sum stalls, however I could not find any place that had noodles and chopsticks – I love eating noodles with chopsticks).
However, despite the lack of stalls selling what I would consider Chinese food (excepting the Dim Sum of course) there was still plenty to be had here. From what I gathered though, this place was set up to allow us to sample food from places that we would not necessary visit (though considering the Pho soup is really cheap at I love Pho I had already sampled that previously). So, looking at all the options that were available, and considering that I have only a limited amount of space in my stomach, I decided that I would have one dish from a random stall and some mini pancakes (with which I still wonder where the Asian connection is).
So, looking around, my eyes came upon a stall selling Burmese food. I have never had Burmese food before, so I decided what I was going to eat, and since one of their dishes was beef, I knew I was going to have that (I love beef, though it can be a little expensive).
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| I’m not sure what it is called, so I will call it the ‘Burmese Beef Dish’ |
What was even better was that the bars had Coopers Pale as the headline beer, which for me, having grown up in South Australia, will never complain about.
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| And just to think they started off as a craft beer |
Mind you, what didn’t surprise me was that there were a number of other sponsors, including Harvey Norman:
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| Though I couldn’t see any plasma TVs inside |
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and Citibank:
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| With an option to open an account. |
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To really add to the flavour of the night they even threw on a dragon dance.
Or is it a lion dance? I can never be quite sure.
However, I am still trying to work out what the three women where doing on the top of the poles because, from where I was standing, it did not seem to be much at all.
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| Though they were waving fans around |
Sarkology Travels 