This was our view walking down Keen St. to get to Dusk drive...
Penn Athletic Field was once again, the venue for the 2nd Paradise Hills Night Market (PHNM). With us was TC. We would be meeting up with KD and her family later (her daughter is one of TC's friends since birth).
Admission was free but donations were accepted. The event started at 3 pm (last year I think it was 4). We got there pretty early. We saw a lot of folks walking from the neighborhood. The streets were also getting filled.
The committee learned from last year's experience. As a result from that plus feedback, they decided to up the number of food booth to twice as many. This made a huge difference in terms of wait time for the food booths. Last year, the lines were hella long and some booths even ran out of food. This year, there were so many different choices but pretty much something for everyone (except vegetarians, ha ha. No, there was actually an African food booth that had many vegetarian friendly items). Another change was the layout of the tables in the middle of the field which made it easier for people to get around.
My first stop was here - Po's Cambodian Street Food was what I was most excited about.
Bamboo rice ($5) - sticky rice with red beans steamed in a bamboo tube. The girl pre-cracked it for us so it would be easier to peel.
Grilled beef skewer ($4 for 1; there was a $10 option for 2 skewers with rice) served with pickled vegetables. Flavor was really nice, we could taste the lemongrass.
We also ordered wings ($7 - ouch). There were three types of sauces. This was the sweet one (didn't want to get the spicy). Wished we had more napkins and I had forgotten my wet wipes. Wings were delicious but wished there were more.
My favorite was the beef skewer followed by the bamboo rice. Here's what it looked like peeled.
TC and her friends met up shortly after this and ended up having fries from another booth.
Bert and I went off on our own to Rafikiz Foodz (love the use of the "Z") which was Kenyan food. This was the vegetarian friendly booth. We didn't want to get filled up so we didn't get a combo (may have to try it next time if we see them at a farmers market). Instead, we got the samosas which were supposed to be three for $5; the cool dude working there gave us four, so yay! Flavors we chose were beef, chicken, and spinach with an extra spinach.
Gone in 60 seconds. Delicious.
The cookie booth next to Rafikiz was Sarap Asian Fusion. They are from the OC but some of the owners grew up in San Diego. We ended up going back here later and got three out of their four flavors. My favorite flavor, ube, was gone by the night time, but they did have, literally, crumb samples. They had four jars had broken bits and were giving samples. I would have loved that ube the most. The miso milo was interesting. I could barely taste the miso flavor but it did give a slight saltiness. The milo they refer to is a chocolate milk powder that is popular in Asia. I remember drinking Milk when my family visited the Philippines in the late 70's.
Here were the three flavors we tried later at home.
Like last year, there was a car show and contest. They didn't have a bike show like before though. Many of these classic cars were in amazing condition.
I was excited to see and finally meet some of vendors. One of them was the Eastside Collective, a group of artists who grew up in Paradise Hills. I met Ron Recaido (aka @thekwentothesis), whose work I really admire. I own a few of his pieces, both of which are related to Filipio American History.
I also bumped into a friend of my brother's (@phiskam) who is also part of the collective. I hadn't realized he was part of the group. Check out the skate deck that proclaims "East Side only" below. I chided him for not having a "South Side only" art piece (he actually had one but wasn't on display since Paradise Hills is East Side). I am considering getting his South Side one which has the "5" freeway symbol instead.
Calligraphy by @ethosone - His work was so cool. He was doing calligraphy which blends elements of graffiti. He did our last name later that evening. We need to find a spot in our home to frame and hang it.
Another vendor I was excited to meet was Illa Manila which has a lot of cool streetwear designs. TC ended up getting a banana leaf patterned deck tape from them. I bought a black shirt for Bert (not pictured) which has a butterfly knife on the front. The back of the shirt says, "Bali Song Social Club" which, according to TC (who is way more hip than me) was a play on a popular street brand's logo, "Anti Social Social Club". Man, I wouldn't have known that. We later saw a young teen wearing one of those Anti Social Social Club shirts too. She said they are a hype beast brand and that shirts go for $60 and up. WTF. Glad this one was $20! One more thing - the "balisong" is a butterfly knife, a hinged weapon that originated from Bert's family's province, Batangas.
This shirt is funny for those who have experienced this. I guess you could call it corporal punishment nowadays, but this shit was very real for us as kids.
Translation - Belt (no translated needed here), Walis (broom), Kamay (hand) and Tsinelas (slippers). These are all ways to get hit. Yes they are. There is even a joke by Filipino American comedian Rex Navarrete where he imitates his father, "You want da belt or da slipper?"!
Another food booth we tried was Islander Grill - This was a bad decision because the Spam musubi was pretty skimpy. It wasn't even a full slice of Spam it seemed. :(
Bert chose a stuffed hash brown (with chicken and cheese) from the Brazilian Guys, which we visited earlier this year during my birthday crawl. Now THIS was worth it unlike that musubi. This was hefty, chock full of said ingredients and was quite tasty! The sauce that came with it was also pretty spicy!
I didn't take a lot of photos of the performers since I don't have a great camera and from where I was standing, was too far anyways. This was a local band Subtropics; their drummer is a former student (she is now 39!). The highlight
Here's a video that previewed the performers:
The lineup was diverse from hip hop, indie soul, rap, and even some that defy category.
They were all amazing, especially Andra Day (local to Paradise Hills and Chula Vista), who sang her inspirational hit, "Rise Up".
TC texted us that she tried the Raindrop Cake from this book. She wasn't impressed with it. Both KD and I tried it and I liked it! One thing that did suck was that they tried to charge me $6 for the small despite their sign, which clearly stated $5/small and $7/large. I told the girl, "Six dollars? Your signs say $5"; They looked and saw that it did say that (duh) and they would "honor" the price. Wow, really, WTF, ha ha.
See? $5!!!!!
Served in a thin bamboo boat - the raindrop cake is a clear blob of agar agar (a type of seaweed) based gelatin which has a brown sugar syrupe and is dusted with kinako (arrowroot powder) and matcha tea powder alonside fresh fruits. This was a really refreshing taste. It wasn't too sweet either.
Live art was back!
I didn't take pix of the art vendors, but MaryJhun Dandan was back, along with her art partner, Arturo. Dave Persue, the street artist best known for Bunny Kitty was also there. I bought a couple pairs of BK earrings from him.
Lots of folks were lining up to take photos with this "SD X 619" cutout.
Here are the two pairs I bought. I got a black pair last year (looks like the 2nd one) and he sold it for $5. This year, they were $10 each. They were a holdover from a stash that came out in 2007.
At the Project Reo Collective and Golondrina booth, I chatted with the owners and ended up getting the Educate and Empower tote ($10).
Made me feel good to support local businesses, especially those from down South.
The event, as far as I could see, was a success. There were a lot of local folks there - diversity was mainly Filipino, then Mexican, black and then white. Asians were there too but it was mainly Filipino American. The PHNM showcased so much talent not just with the performers but also with the vendors. There were also roped off kid friendly areas (arts and crafts, face painting and air jumpies). It was great to see such support in the local community which deserves more recognition. Sad to say, but some stereotype any community below the 8 freeway as "ghetto" when it's really not.
Here's a timelapse of the event (uploaded on 11/27/18):
We're probably in there somewhere, ha ha.
Info:
www.phnightmarket.com
All in all, a great event. We didn't stay as long as last year, but are definitely looking forward to next year's event. Who knows, they may even need a bigger venue!
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