North Vancouver Twilight Market

On a somewhat tumultuous looking night, veggie girl and reuben met up at Waterfront Station with the intention to take the Seabus to Londsdale Quay and try the North Shore Night Market.  Even though it is a Vancouver faux-pas, Reuben felt pressured to bring his $4 Daiso Umbrella (he used to live in Richmond) to fend off what appeared to be certain rain.  Despite the rain, Reuben was excited, as this would be his first time on the Seabus in nearly 20 years.

The 15 minute Seabus ride was uneventful, as transit trips should be, but it did get us to beautiful Lonsdale Quay.  After a bit of exploring in the mall itself, we headed to the night market.  One notable feature about this night market is that there is no admission fee to get in.  Also, there was a much smaller crowd, and as such, a lot more room to walk between the different stalls.  Also, there were 10-15 food trucks at the event.  These included: Le Tigre, Kaboombox, Feastro, Dougie Dog, Aussie Pie Guys, and more.

We were both hungry, especially Reuben (as always), but when we saw Le Tigre, we knew we wanted to get in on that action.  You see this truck was featured on Eat Street, which we used to watch during our Food Network Addiction.

At Le Tigre, we ordered a serving of their Beet Fries ($5).  These came out super fresh, and not over battered, or oily.  There was actually a mix of beets, and artichokes, which was good, but not what we were expecting.  The dish came with a spiced mayo sauce, and it was a great accompaniment to the sweet and salty fries.  The fries came tossed green onions and cilantro.  The staff was very energetic, and adorned in their hello kitty glasses which were also available for $10.  After this meal, we both regretted not also trying the famous "Kick Ass Rice", as we were under the assumption it would be a fairly routine dish of fried rice (this does not appear to be the case at all).  These fries were very good, in fact veggie girl even preferred the artichokes to the beets.  The were very soft on the inside, and crispy on the outside, and very very hot.  The beets also retained a lot of their natural flavour.

Next up was the Haitian Vendor, who didn't have a name, but was very friendly and helpful.  This is the only Haitian Vendor, and they are right next to a Jamaican food stand, so it should be easy to find.

The very friendly man that helped us offered a suggestion of the Pulled Pork Griots combo with a side of Fried Plantains and a pickled coleslaw ($10.95).  This also came with a choice of pop, or water.

 The pulled pork griots are a fried, glazed pork.  They were almost like a medium sized, unbreaded nugget of pork.  They were soft, and not too dry, but may  have benefited from a bit of sauce.  The meat had some fattiness to it, and seemed similar to pork belly in some ways.  The star of the show for both of us, and our favorite food of the night was definitely the plantains.

These plantains were very crunchy, and quite large.  There were 5 or 6 plantains in our meal, which served as a great side to the pork.  We also asked for some hot sauce to accompany them (Frank's Red Hot).  The meal also came with a pickled coleslaw that had thinly sliced green peppers.  This was a good, but not overly strong salad that provided a little bit of much needed moisture to an otherwise dry plate.  The dryness was likely due to our choice of meat, and sides, and if we were to return we would likely try the Stewed Okra in addition to the plantains.  Overall we were pleased with the food, and impressed with the service.

Our last snack for the night was meant to be a less heavy, middle eastern dish.  We chose Bandoura and Co. Lebanese Cuisine.  This was advertised as home-made, fresh and healthy.

The friendly staff went to work on our requested Veggie Big Box meal ($7.95).  This came with a salad, rice with raisins, and hummus.  We were given the option to have the largest component of the dish be rice, or salad; we chose salad.

The rice was not that exciting.  Reuben enjoyed the salad, and it came with two types of sauce, one cucumber (tzatziki?) sauce, and a hot sauce.  The hummus was very good, but as you can see there was not a whole lot of it.  We liked it because of the depth of flavour, and generous amount of olive oil  (we seemed to have been on an oil binge at this event).  Overall we feel that we would've been more happy with one of the other options (chicken, or beef), assuming that the larger of the three portions is the meat.

The north shore twilight market was a nice, comfortable change from the chaotic Richmond Night Markets, and also offered up an opportunity to try food trucks that not all of us get the opportunity to try during the week.  It should be noted that this night market is only open on Fridays from 5-10pm.  There was plenty of live music, and places to sit and eat your food while you gaze towards the beautiful view of downtown and the burrard inlet.  Definitely worth checking out.