Into the night: Shedding light on four after-sunset markets in Orange County
In many places outside of the United States, eating street food is a part of everyday life.
When I was growing up in Indonesia, street food was the best food. We knew that when it comes to our favorite dishes and snacks, the tastiest came from a seller who specialized in only that thing. And the best place to sample it all was at the night markets at the center of town.
There was a hawker who fanned a coal hibachi to roast chicken satays as its sweet white smoke billowed into the night air. There was the buttery smell that snaked out of the cart frying martabak, a thick Indonesian pancake filled with chocolate and peanuts.
These kinds of wistful memories of night markets aren’t unique to me. Anyone from Latin America to the Middle East to Europe, where laws don’t prohibit the gathering of vendors on public streets, would tell you the same thing: Night markets are great. They’re cheap, fun, and most importantly, you can smell and see the food you’re about to eat being prepared in front of you. But for a long time, save for county fairs and the occasional festival, the night market concept barely existed in the U.S.
Enter 626 Night Market, which began in 2012 in the San Gabriel Valley. It recognized the pent-up demand and quickly became huge. These days the ticketed event brings in 100,000 attendees with more than 250 participating food, merchandise and craft vendors. Others like FoodieLand and Smorgasburg, both in multiple cities, have also tapped into the yearning for night markets.
But there are alternatives throughout O.C. And better yet, ones that eschew the cost of admission, parking fees and the exorbitantly high food prices often found at those ticketed events.
What follows is a roundup of four outdoor night markets in Orange County readers can experience this summer and beyond, encompassing Latin American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Southern California food cultures.
Santa Ana de Noche
Of the four night markets on this list, Santa Ana de Noche’s origin is the most mysterious. The Instagram account @santaanadenoche has been dormant for more than a year. Messages I sent remain unanswered, but the first posted photo gives a clue to when it started. It announced an event held at the intersection of South Broadway and Central Avenue in September 2021 to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. Part of the original lineup included six vendors who offered churros, crepes, bacon-wrapped dogs and, of course, tacos.
But these days, if you looked up that address on Google maps, you’d notice a location marker labeled “El Centro,” with several customer testimonials that attest the spot is now ground zero of a weekly night market to rival those in Latin America.
It’s easy to imagine how the event might have evolved naturally in this habitat. Not far from its epicenter is a food truck parking lot where owners store their vehicles at night. And since the block — a secluded industrial area — has the perfect conditions for a night market to take root, it’s conceivable that more and more trucks joined in until it became what it is today, with some even setting up tented dining areas.
Since Santa Ana de Noche is not a walled-off event, the more-than-a-dozen vendors that now line the edges of the thoroughfare do so while it’s still kept open to vehicle traffic. The result is a careful but chaotic ballet of pedestrians, cars blaring music and the occasional vendor pushing a cart of Mexican-style gelatin desserts.
One of the most popular vendors, and an original participant of the 2021 event, is a truck called Cachanilla. It holds court prominently at the T-intersection. Under a tent, its taquero, the pastor of al pastor, conducts his street-side sermon over a sputtering hot griddle to an enraptured congregation. He flips his marinated meats, blesses them with sprinkles of a fiery seasoning blend, then chops them to bits with a cleaver. In a flurry of movement, he assembles his $3 Tijuana-style tacos with a baptizing splash of salsa and smear of guacamole.
His are not the only tacos to be found. On another corner you hear the thwacking sounds of a cleaver chopping more carne asada. Next to that, you smell the steam escaping the griddle of another taco stand mixing with the cinnamon sugar aromas of at least two churro trucks. But most importantly, everywhere you turn, you see everything you’ll eat being cooked in front of you: from sopes, whose masa shells are fried fresh, to tortas oozing cheese. Eat your heart out, Taco Tuesday.
Where: At the intersection of South Broadway and Central Avenue in Santa Ana
When: Every evening from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., with the biggest attendance of vendors on weekend nights
Instagram: @santaanadenoche
Little Saigon Night Market
As Orange County Fair goers look forward to another summer consuming their yearly allowance of funnel cakes and deep-fried Oreos, those who go to Little Saigon Night Market look forward to eating banh trang nuong, a sort of Vietnamese pizza made with grilled rice paper and dried shrimp, washing it down with freshly pressed sugar cane juice.
Held in the parking area in front of Asian Garden Mall in Westminster since its debut in 2011, with only 10 food vendors, Little Saigon Night Market has become an indelible part of the summer months for Orange County’s Vietnamese community. There was a hiatus during the pandemic, but otherwise it has been held consistently every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. starting in mid-June to the first weekend in September.
Those new to the experience will find a visual, olfactory and aural overload. Enticing smells don’t just emanate from the smoke-shrouded stalls grilling marinated pork skewers but also from vendors frying tiny pancakes called banh khot in dimpled pans and rows of shellfish roasting over flames on the half shell. Throughout the venue, the competing cacophonies of a Vietnamese cover band and kids setting off firecrackers are inescapable. And this season, it’s only gotten busier.
According to organizers, the event typically attracts around 2,000 people per night. But this year, they’re seeing even more attendees, some of whom may or may not have been made aware of the event from an uptick of attention by TikTok and Instagram influencers.
Regardless of whether you are new to it or have been coming since the beginning, there’s something for everyone to eat. A vegetarian can munch on a potato tornado or roasted corn while the hardcore foodventurer can crack into hot vin lon, fetal duck egg eaten with salt, pepper and lime juice. But even an Anthony Bourdain-wannabe might encounter unfamiliar delicacies here. What are those things steaming in the upright metal pipes? They’re banh ong, fluffy, green-colored cylinders of cake made with rice flour and pandan. What’s that sausage on a stick made of? It’s called nem nuong, cured pork flavor-packed with garlic and lemongrass.
And as the Little Saigon Night Market’s popularity grows, so has the number of food vendors, which doubled since 2011. You can even have pho from Pho Akaushi, which prides itself on using the pricey Wagyu beef in its soups. And if you’re wondering how practical a steaming container of pho would be while strolling a crowded night market, know that it’s still less awkward than O.C. Fair’s Maui chicken in a pineapple bowl.
Where: Asian Garden Mall at 9200 Bolsa Avenue in Westminster
When: Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. from June 16 through Sept. 3
Instagram: @asiangardenmall
Weekend Night Market
If you like the O.C. Fair but don’t like paying the O.C. Fair admission or fighting the O.C. Fair traffic, Weekend Night Market is for you. Compared to the others on this list, the food and music you’ll encounter are the most in tune with mainstream tastes. Think burgers. Think barbecue. Think funnel cakes while a live cover band belts out classic rock.
Weekend Night Market was started by organizer Christy Pardini, who had been running Bixby Knoll’s popular Uptown Village Market for years. She and her Long Beach-based all-female team began their inaugural Weekend Night Market event back in 2019. The Long Beach night market still occurs every Thursday at the Promenade, but they’ve since expanded by rotating the event to four Orange County cities every month this summer.
The Huntington Beach night market is held the first Friday of the month at Golden West College’s parking lot. The Mission Viejo night market occurs every third Saturday. The Los Alamitos event takes place every second Saturday. And the one in Tustin — mostly an arts-and-crafts event with games and a beer garden — happens every third Thursday.
What you find at all the Weekend Night Market events is the laid-back attitude of a tailgate party and an ever-changing theme. The one in Huntington Beach tends to be the most food-focused and is marketed as H.B. Foodie Friday. The last occurrence on July 7 featured barbecue from a vendor called S&E’s Food Team, which served ribs, pulled pork and brisket to an eager crowd.
At the food-truck-heavy gathering, at least two loncheras offered tacos of every kind, and another truck tendered Hawaiian shave ice. Other vendors set up their cooking equipment under tents, like the gentleman steaming his “best in town” tamales in huge pots. Next to him, a burger vendor sizzled his cheese-topped patties on a flat-top.
This isn’t to say you won’t find something exotic that will delight or beguile. A company called Aro Chili, which sells bottled Asian chili oil, set up shop at the July 7 event to offer a variety of dumplings crisped up in a pan. Flavors ranged from a Korean barbecue beef to an Indian-inspired dumpling filled with spiced potato. They charged $10 for six pieces, which were liberally dolloped with drips of chili oil as an enticement to buy a whole jar.
The next H.B. Foodie Friday event on Aug. 4 will highlight desserts. How sweet will that be?
Where: Various locations, including Huntington Beach at Golden West College; Mission Viejo at North Paseo; Los Alamitos at 10932 Pine Street and Tustin at the District
When: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., first Friday of the month for Huntington Beach; third Saturday of the month for Mission Viejo; second Saturday of the month for Los Alamitos; third Thursday of the month for Tustin
Instagram: @weekend_night_market
Islamic Night Market hosted by Muslim Youth of Orange County
The Muslim Youth of Orange County had an immediate hit on its hands when it hosted its first night market earlier this year for Ramadan. Held at the back of the Islamic Center of Anaheim, it attracted over 4,000 people from the community who came to break their fast with halal food, drinks and desserts from 14 different vendors. There were lines upon lines to enter the event, which started at 10 p.m. and went on to the wee hours of 4 in the morning.
In fact, Ramadan Night Market was so successful, the organizers realized that for their next night market — an Islamic New Year celebration — they needed to find a venue with more space than the Islamic Center’s tiny lot.
They decided on Portola Middle School in Orange. Its basketball courts would hold all the food vendors, which now ballooned to about 30 sellers. And its sports field would provide enough breathing room for all the rest they had planned, which included carnival games, a henna tattoo station, shopping tents, a supercar show, exhibits and a live concert at sunset.
Admission would be free for early registrants but $5 online a few days before the event and at the door.
And when it happened on Saturday, July 22, there were indeed space to spare and more food choices than the original Ramadan Night Market. A Chinese vendor offered bao buns with cute pig faces but without the pork filling (it was red bean). Mi Hibachi, a West Covina-based food truck specializing in 100% halal teppanyaki, slung fried rice with steak, chicken and shrimp.
There were tacos using halal meat and halal burgers. A Mexican Muslim woman sold tamales under a tent labeled “Halal Tamal.” Those who know and love the Indian snack called pani puri found a vendor who sold them under the name of “phuska.” But there was Middle Eastern fare, such as wraps with soujouk sausage, and Turkish sand coffee boiled in ornate vessels heated by hot sand.
The most popular vendor by far was Kababji Grill, a brick-and-mortar Lebanese restaurant from Anaheim’s Little Arabia District, which set up a coal pit to roast kafta (seasoned ground beef) and tawook (marinated chicken). Its heady smoke attracted attendees to buy a wrap for $9.99 or a plate for $17.99, which included two portions of the roasted tender meat, rice, onion, tomato and a swirl of hummus.
At sunset, groups bowed in prayer as a man sang over the loudspeaker. Later, when the darkness of night settled in, fireworks lit up the sky.
It remains to be seen whether the organizers will move ahead with plans to hold another night market on Sept. 16 to commemorate the birth of the prophet Muhammad. Or whether they will do just one night or four when Ramadan comes around again next year. In the meantime, you can follow @myoc4u on Instagram to be kept abreast of updates.
Where and when: Check Muslim Youth of Orange County’s Instagram for the location, date and time of its next night market.
Instagram: @myoc4u
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