Unfortunately for us, the glorious night markets that grace cities as delicious as Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Chengdu do not happen in the U.S. at all. But for New York City, we’ve come to address that by creating our own version of a night market right in Queens in Corona Park. It happens annually and runs from the summer months through the end of October and seeks to offer diverse foods from around the world. Tonight, we met up some friends and enjoyed some Burmese tea salad, Taiwanese pork belly buns, lamb skewers, among other tasty things.

It is actually a bit frustrating that as diverse as Queens and all of New York City are that there aren’t more and better Burmese, Cambodian, and Malaysian options. There are a number of Malaysian spots that just haven’t lived up to their hype. Burmese restaurants are pretty much nonexistent outside of pop-ups and night market stalls. And Cambodian… they are mostly pseudo-Cambodian that have mostly Thai or semi-Vietnamese menus. The best Cambodian food we’ve had to date in the U.S. has been in Cleveland, Ohio, of all places. I still think fondly about that meal and how delicious it was, with herbs and fermented fish pastes that I’d never quite had before.