Queens Night Market: International cuisines in Long Island's backyard 

A food court it isn’t. 

For some, the road to the Queens Night Market is longer than others. “I was like that girl who ate Burger King in Paris,” said the woman in front of me to her friend. Mind you, the three of us were in line for Sudanese sambuxas, triangles of pastry stuffed with meat or cheese and served with a lovely selection of sauces. “You know those ladies at Panda Express who hand out samples of orange chicken with toothpicks?” continued the woman. “I was, like, No — till I was practically out of college.” The friend was surprised, as was I, surrounded as we were by booths hawking Ecuadorian bolones and Malaysian Ramly burgers, even as the aroma from Gladys Shahtou’s Sambuxa NYC was beginning to have a hypnotic effect. 

“I was always afraid of getting sick … One day I just decided that I was letting my stomach control my life. I’m like, you’ve traveled to all these places, but you’ve never really been anywhere.”

First tastes

Since 2015, the Queens Night Market has taken 20,000 stomachs on journeys into the unknown almost every Saturday night from April to October, doing so from a parking lot behind the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. And until your stomach’s traveled there, well, you haven’t really been anywhere.

“We order the fresh leaves from our country,” said Hnin Wai, stirring a mixture of fermented green tea leaves and olive oil, the pesto-appearing sauce for which Burmese tea leaf salad is named. Her De’Rangoon was just one of more than 70 fledgling food companies — most operating out of 10-by-10 booths topped with blue awning — doing a brisk business on April 13, the first day of the Night Market’s ninth season. The dish was already interesting, composed as it was of tomatoes, shredded greens, bits of fried garlic, shrimp powder and an assortment of roasted nuts, but the fermented tea launched the salad into the flavor stratosphere. Wai thrilled when quizzical looks from skeptical patrons melted into expressions of delight, sometimes seizing the moment and stumping for tourism in her homeland of Myanmar, especially the ancient city of Bagan. “You should see it. There are more than 2,000 temples and pagodas,” she said.

I left promising to do just that, even as scents both unfamiliar and enticing pulled me in a dozen directions at once. No sooner had I thrilled to De’Rangoon’s salad than the smell of fried oysters lured us to adjacent MuahChee Alley, whose stated mission is to introduce New Yorkers to food from China’s Fujian province. Then it was the sweet smell of Venezuelan corn cakes on a griddle (Ay Cachapas!), the esfihas — mounds of spicy ground beef on Brazilian flatbreads (Mister Bocadillos) — and on and on. Gastronomic dilettantism? Of course, but of the best and most economical sort. John Wang, the market’s founder, mandates that vendors charge $5 or $6 for all dishes.

A culinary Noah

“It’s not not busy,” admitted Wang, who was dealing with last-minute preparations and a broken tailgate on his truck when I  phoned him a few days before the market’s opening day. OK, we’ll make this quick, I said.  Did you ever think that —

“I would have bet money that we would fail in the first year and I’d go on to something else.” Instead, Wang has spent most of the last decade growing his market into a foodie paradise that has served more than 3 million patrons, helped launch 400-plus fledgling food businesses and earned media accolades for being one of the city’s top 100 dining destinations (The New York Times) and the nation’s best food festival (USA Today).

How did he do it? Wang credits his naiveté (“I think it was a blessing I had no event-organizing experience”), his concept (“it’s a testament to what diversity and affordability really mean to people”) and especially his tenants. “You ride on the shoulders of the vendors and their backbreaking work. The last time I looked at the numbers, they were serving 70 to 80 customers an hour, which is insanity!”

Strategic advantages

Insanity is a good word for the market, particularly as evenings wear on, crowds swell, and lines for everything from Trinidadian shark sandwiches (Caribbean Street Eats) to Transylvanian chimney cakes (TwisterCake) grow longer and longer. It’s a problem Wang has tried to address this year by opening the gates at 4 p.m., an hour earlier. Indeed, the market, which stays open until midnight, has partly been a victim of its own success, spawning multiple Internet threads devoted to maximizing enjoyment and minimizing frustration. “Get there right when the market opens,” advises Reddit; take the train, because “parking is absolutely insane” adds Yelp; “bring cash!” warns Google, because many vendors don’t accept credit cards. But no suggestions are better than Wang’s. “Go with a bunch of people, spread out, get as much as you can, reconvene and share the food amongst yourselves,” he said. Divide and conquer, Queens-style.

Adjust your mindset

China’s Tang Dynasty, known these days for having inspired much of the material performed by those ever-proliferating Shen Yun dance troupes,  also played host to the world’s first night markets, which remained popular throughout the country’s medieval period. But it was in post-WWII Taiwan that the night market truly came into its own, embracing an ambience that separated it from other open-air bazaars around the world. Many visitors to the Queens Night Market who disdain its crowds, chaos and seemingly random collection of merchants and performers — dozens of artisans hawk their wares, and live music is as much a part of the scene as the nearby smorgasbord — are unaware that those are the very things that make it so authentic. Indeed, they’re part of the genius of the night market, a place where wandering aimlessly is the point, as is strolling from booth to booth never knowing what you’ll see next and being surrounded by hordes of people, all with no particular goal in mind. Such are the markets that Wang, a Taiwanese-American who grew up in Texas, fell in love with when he visited the island as a child. And capturing their special vibe may be his market’s greatest achievement.

Field of Dreams

“We’d love to, but we need capital,” said Nigel Sielegar, when asked why he hasn’t yet gone bricks and mortar, given the long lines that often form at his stall, Moon Man, thanks to its terrific Indonesian kue pancong — sort of a cross between a coconut pancake and creme brulee. Sokhita Sok at Cambodia Now gave a similar answer — “we will, if we ever get the money” — even as she prepared plates of Khmer fish amok, steamed fish curry seasoned with lemongrass and turmeric. Syed Jafri’s KarachiKababBoiz has just bought its first food truck in hopes of growing the market for Pakistani barbecue, including its Bihari rolls boosted by a masala marinade.

But at Bstro — a perennially popular stall specializing in Taiwanese popcorn chicken, golden cuttlefish balls and fried oyster mushrooms, all scrumptious — Johnson Hu seemed content to travel from market to market for now, working the circuit. Being Taiwanese, he’s not only used to the craziness, he thrives on it. As proof, he turned to show us Bstro’s slogan on the back of his hoodie.

“I don’t need more therapy, I just need more chickens,” it read.

The Queens Night Market is in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, in the parking lot behind the New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th St. The market is open Saturdays between April and October from 4 p.m. to midnight except for a few weeks during the U.S. Open, which takes place nearby. Admission is free. Parking, which is severely limited, costs $15. A better option is to take the train: the Mets-Willets Point Station on the Port Washington line is within walking distance, as is the same stop on the #7 train. For more information, including an updated list of vendors and performers, visit queensnightmarket.com.

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.