It's time for the Ramadan night markets in Sydney's Lakemba. This holy time involves fasting and spiritual contemplation during the day and at night is marked with breaking the fast with dates and meals. It is the most sacred month of the year in Islamic culture. Laura and I have visited every year for the last few years and this year we tried so many new things as well as the classic must trys. Find out what is new at the Ramadan night market and what favourites are back!
Usually for Ramadan nights we are bundled up in jumpers and coats but this year it's positively balmy as it is held from the 9th of March to the 8th of April. The Ramadan night markets are on every Thursday to Sunday from 6pm-3am (the stalls are also open from Monday to Wednesday for the local community). Laura and I arrive on a Sunday night. Usually breaking the fast is at sunset which is 7pm but we arrive just before 6pm. There are a total of 65 stalls spread across Haldon Street, the Boulevard and Railway Parade, Lakemba.
Laura and I always start our Ramadan market night at Island Dreams where they are busy grilling chicken satay skewers and making roti at the Malaysian restaurant. We order some roti, noodles and chicken satay and take a seat inside.
The roti are stretched and cooked fresh to order and come with a delicious chicken curry. You get 2 roti canai with curry and it's absolutely delicious. The chicken satay with peanut sauce are wonderfully tasty and tender with so much flavour. The noodles are nice but perhaps need a bit of extra seasoning to them.
We wander down Haldon street stopping at the stand outside Zam Zam restaurant and sweets where a seller has his banter down pat. "Try before you buy!" he says brightly. A black chickpea dish catches my eye and we order some along with a chicken samosa, zucchini strip and jalebi made with jaggery sugar so that it is a darker brown than the bright orange usually seen with the jalebi.
He tells us that the chickpea dish is called Shula and we take a spoonful and our eyes widen. It's absolutely divine, with such a depth of flavour from all of the spices used. "It's almost meaty!" says Laura. I have plans to recreate this at home it's so absolutely divine. The chicken samosa is delicious and the mawa or khoya jalebi and zucchini are pleasant but nothing really beats freshly fried jalebi.
By now it's around 6:20pm and it's getting busier and that means that we have to hurry to get our very favourite item at Ramadan nights: the chicken wraps from Shahi Dastarkhwan. We join the queue but then quickly notice that it has ground to a standstill and they are covering up the chicken with foil. There is also nobody making the wraps. They're going on a break for 25 minutes but Laura and I stay in the queue as we are the second in line.
We discuss potato chips on a stick and Laura divulges that she has never had one ever. "We have to fix that," I tell her and while we are waiting, she keeps our spot in the queue and I walk over to one of the many Chip on a Stick stands and order one. You can either add chicken salt or regular salt and I go for the chicken salt. It's crispy, delicious and absolutely moreish and I could easily have had one to myself.
After a wait of 25 minutes a man emerges from the restaurant carrying a tray with balls of dough. He rolls them out and flips them onto the hot domed pan called a Rumali Tawa and another man flips them over and then deftly tosses the freshly made bread into a bowl. It's an assembly line of deliciousness as one man takes the orders and scoops the chicken onto the wrap that another man has spread with a drizzle of spicy mayonnaise. He then wraps it up and hands it to us wrapped in foil.
There is a choice of four chicken fillings: malai or creamy chicken, Majestic chicken which is orange in colour, Chicken 65 which is red in colour and Hyali chicken that is green. They're all good but we especially love the malai, majestic and chicken 65. We order three of them, one Majestic, one malai and one mix of chicken 65 and Haryali. You can also get all four in one wrap although you'd probably only get a bite or two of each.
We take these inside and open them up. They're every bit as good as we remember them and the wrap is so thin and supple and the filling generous and saucy. My mouth is watering now even thinking about them. Our three favourites are the malai, majestic and chicken 65.
We're getting a bit thirsty so it's time to head to the Tebu stand along Railway Parade, perpendicular to Haldon Street to try a new item. There are always a lot of sugarcane drinks but this stand has sugarcane with one little bottle of Yakult added to it. We had to try it to see what it was like. It's remarkably creamy, not that Yakult itself is that creamy. The flavour and sweetness of Yakult completely overtakes the flavour of sugarcane.
As time is ticking away we head to the most popular stand at the Ramadan market: Yummy Yummy knafeh. "Yummmyyy yummmmyy" says the man scooping up portions of knafeh. This stand always has a long queue unless you get there first thing on the night. The queue does move and it's fast as the knafeh is already made. This time we take the knafeh and order a coffee on the sand and eat it inside the cafe.
The knafeh is so deliciously stretchy and cheesy with lots of crispy kataifi on top as well as a drenching of syrup that makes it utterly decadent. Laura also loves the hot sand coffee and sitting inside the cafe is a nice reprieve from the hustle and bustle of ramadan celebrations outside.
Sometimes there are new stands and this year it seems to be about strawberry cups with chocolate and pizza cones. It's time to confuse my tastebuds even further by going for a pizza cone. It comes in three flavours: meat lovers, peri peri chicken and knafeh. I go for the peri peri chicken and although it's a bit pricey at $16 it's very tasty with a cheese topped chicken filling and a thin, waffle style cone that is a touch dry and more a way to encase the saucy filling.
Another new item this year are the camel dumplings at Crescent Yum Cha. There are many ways to try camel including the camel burger which I've had previously and tastes very similar to beef. There's also a deer or venison burger along with beef or chicken. But I'm intrigued by the camel dumplings so we order some of those along with a bbq chicken bun. The camel dumplings are absolutely delicious, with a flavour similar to beef but even better because of the spices and seasonings that they used. Laura also loves the chicken bun that is saucier than she was expecting and with a lot of flavour to it.
It's time for our second and final dessert: we head back towards the northern end of Haldon Street down towards Island Dreams to a new shop called "Zabardast" By Durga Paan & Falooda House. They're a paan (a mouth refresher using betel leaves) and falooda (ice cream dessert) shop that sells fire paan ie. a paan that is alight when you put it in your mouth. Neither of us are game to do that so instead we get a mango kulfi stick ice cream that is absolutely delicious. We also want to try a falooda but can't decide which flavour to get.
Laura loves the rose one while I love the sound of the pistachio saffron one. So how we decide? Rock scissors paper of course! After two goes in which we choose the same thing (we're in sync that way) I call scissors and she calls rock so we get the pistachio and saffron falooda or the Royal Kesar falooda. It's rich and creamy and not overly sweet which I love with milk, basil seeds, noodles, jelly, three scoops of ice cream, nuts and tutti frutti.
We end off our Ramadan night with another new item this year: the lavashak from a stand just next to Shahi Dastarkhwan on Haldon Street. This is pomegranate fruit leather with a pomegranate molasses sauce. There are four pieces of rolled up fruit leather, lots of sauce and pomegranate arils. It's very tangy, you do have to love tart flavours for this and I watch as Laura tries it and her face distorts with the tart flavours as if she has had a lemon before I try it and do exactly the same.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever been to the Ramadan night markets?
All of this food was independently paid for.
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