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| - I'm surprised. I'm a huge fan of open air markets, especially where street food is involved. I've attended Night It Up regularly for years. My other go-to street festivals are Taste of Asia and Taste of Lawrence. I've gotten accustomed to seeing very similar vendors each time I go. What surprised me about Night It Up this year was that there were a lot of vendors here that weren't here last year. They also weren't at this year's Taste of Asia. I quite enjoyed seeing all the new stuff.
What I'm not so fond of is that the food is increasingly becoming more and more fusion, but in a very mainstream way. Asian Poutines, Baos, and Mini Egg Waffles are nice and all, but where's all the authentic Asian Street food? There are increasingly fewer lamb skewers and bbq squid stalls. I could be wrong, but stinky tofu stores are also decreasing. Also Takoyaki, but that could be because Naniwa-Taro has a fairly good monopoly on those, like Wei's seems to dominate in the stinky tofu category. It would be nice if we could have a better mix of traditional Asian street foods and fusion food. I would be thrilled to see a fish paste stuffed everything stall, or a noodles in plastic baggies stall, or tripe, or more kinds of skewers. A few Korean street food stalls would be cool too. I'm fantasizing right now, if you can't tell. Fantasy over. What also irks me is the exorbitant prices. I don't know how much they charge a vendor to put up a stand, but one of the wonderful things about street food is that it's supposed to be cheap. This is anything but cheap. I want to be able to try everything without emptying out my wallet. What happened to $2, $3, $4, $5 items? I miss my cheap, Asian street food. Do I really need to be in Asia to get it back?
I didn't end up buying anything last night. The one place I considered buying something was all sold out. That was kinda sad. Oh well. On the upside, there was a stall that had a prize wheel where I got a free face mask! No purchase or personal information necessary. It took all of ten seconds. That was nice.
If you enjoy bumping into all your Asian friends and perhaps grabbing some food, this is the place for you.
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