G. Snyder

Thai Snacks

If your spirits were damped after leaving Pasadena's 626 Night Market this weekend without so much as a pancake roll in hand, a good way to curb any lingering craving for Asian street food might have been to head for the Wat Thai temple in North Hollywood the next morning, where the annual Songkran festival, a celebration of the Thai new year, took place over the weekend.

Granted, at Wat Thai you'll often find food vendors selling things like papaya salad and skewers of barbecued meat at weekend festivals interspersed throughout the year, but it's only during Songkran when L.A.'s Thai community can enjoy the fruits of its most devoted home cooks in full force.

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626 Night Market

So it won't look exactly like this, but we imagine it to be pretty close.

​Debuting on April 14th in Pasadena, the 626 Night Market will be Southern California's first Asian night market. And with more than 2,000 fans on Facebook, the event is slated to be a huge San Gabriel Valley hit. Founders Jonny Hwang and his wife Janet come from Taiwan, where the night market, or ye shi, is a cultural commodity.

"Over in Taiwan the night markets are a staple of daily society," Hwang, who had operated a restaurant and lounge during his time in Taiwan said. "My wife came to the
States several years ago; it's hard for her to adapt here. It's different from Taipei. In here, especially in the suburbs it's a lot more quiet. We wanted something for people to do on the weekend besides clubbing and bar hopping."

Though the team is not making a profit from the event, the two hope to eventually turn the event into a regular experience. "The event has attracted a lot of attention and our website is pretty healthy. But the donations are not turning. We also really lowered our vendor fee to the point that we're not going to cover our cost. But we're going to continue this venture in the future and see what happens," Hwang said. In addition to planning and juggling vendor requests, Hwang works full-time in the entertainment industry. But he found the time to talk to us about the concept, challenges, and of course -- the food.

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Jim Thurman

Pig Blood Cake, Old Country Café, Alhambra

Let's talk blood, specifically pigs blood. The use of pigs blood is somewhat common in Chinese and other Asian cuisines, where it usually takes the form of congealed cubes added to soups, stews and hot pots. However, the most interesting form is the pig blood cake, a street food item popular at Night Markets in Taiwan.

Made by congealing the blood with sticky rice, the concoction is steamed before being covered with a sweet soy sauce, sprinkled with peanut powder, topped with coriander and served on a stick. Think of a blood sausage without the casing. The item was also the center of controversy last year.

When newspapers and television outlets in Taiwan widely reported that the USDA had banned the sale of pig blood cake in the U.S., the outcry came swiftly. A man described as a Taiwanese "internet celebrity" made a video defending the beloved snack and terms like "cultural discrimination" were bandied about.

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Foodforfel/Flickr

Bacon wrapped hot dogs on the grill

There is so much fuss over new baconized products (bazookas, salt, alphabets) that we sometimes forget that street vendors were outfitting hot dogs with bacon long before anyone knew how to tweet or Instagram. The vendors wheel out their carts like clockwork, punching in just as you're punching out, leaving a concert or staggering out of a bar. For this version of Food Fight, we set out to see whether the street hot dog can hold its own against a slightly more refined version at The Stand.

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Anne Fishbein

Pla Pao with Japanese sea bass at Night and Market

In which Jonathan Gold ventures down Sunset Boulevard to Night and Market, the Thai market attached to Talesai, to find -- in a rather unlikely place -- street food.

Pork belly? Of course, flavored with fish sauce; sweet, fried ribs with garlic; and a huge pork hock braised in soy. The fried pig tails are as hard to leave alone as popcorn -- an 8-year-old of my acquaintance paused only briefly when he was informed that they weren't spareribs.

Read the complete story in Gold's Counter Intelligence, "Street Eats on Sunset," and check out Anne Fishbein's photo gallery. Then maybe get in your car.

G. Snyder

Loose Burger

It's fair to say that the 2 a.m. crowd of Los Angeles has never truly been in want of suitable venues for late night noshing. Yet, even with this vast selection: the ham-fisted mutant burritos at Oki Dog, the artery-straining Tommy Burger spackled with brown roux, the endless trucks and carts slinging tacos a su gusto or foil-grilled bacon hot dogs, there remains a stubborn contingent that bemoans the city's lack of "proper drunk food." It's these nostalgic east coast expats who, over the past few years, have championed the city's necessity for a proper Philly cheesesteak, an authentic Chicago red hot, and various nebulous interpretations of the New York slice. Granted, this push is by no means a bad thing, even if it amounts to the gustatory equivalent of shoring up the Dodger's pitching roster by raiding half of the National League bullpens (an appealing prospect this season).

The latest of these domestic imports is West Hollywood's Coney Dog, opened a month ago inside a revamped diner across from the Whiskey a Go-Go. As you may guess, the specialty here is the Coney Dog, a heavily spiced chili-soaked hot dog universally beloved by Michiganders and widely touted as both hangover cure and cause.

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J. Ritz

Playdate foods for adults and kids typically involve carrot sticks, graham crackers, chips, juice and the like. Things in Yosr Daoud's household, however, are more exciting than that. It was over a plate of traditional Tunisian brik that Daoud prepared for fellow mom and friend Lisa McLaughlin that the seeds for a new food business were sown.

"Our kids went to the same preschool, so we had a playdate and the first time I went to her house, she cooked brik," McLaughlin says. Their regular family after school get-togethers became ritual of feeding the kids a snack, and then retreating to the kitchen so that Daoud, a native of Tunis, could prepare McLaughlin, who is from Ireland, the Tunisian foods McLaughlin came to love in Daoud's home. Eventually McLaughlin decided "we have to do this!"

After a test run of renting a truck and joining the mobile food row at First Fridays at Abbot Kinney last year, Daoud and McLaughlin are gradually expanding their plans for A Taste of Tunisia. At the center of this venture is the brik. With its self-contained and hearty qualities, brik has the best hallmarks of comfort and street food. That also helps explain why it's traditional in Tunisia to break the Ramadan fast with brik, and why this dish figures into a superstition involving potential mothers- and sons-in-law.

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The Home Depot Center's Street Fusion Cart

Even major league sports are cashing in on the street food trend. This Saturday, May 26th, the Home Depot Center debuts its new Street Fusion food cart at the LA Galaxy vs. Chivas USA game. "Fusion" is the operative word, with a menu that spans half-a-dozen cultures and multiple continents. After all, soccer is the most international of sports. Why shouldn't its concessions reflect that?

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Guzzle & Nosh

Crowds wait in fron of the Nom Nom Truck (left); a taco from Mariscos Jalisco (right).

If you've been to some of the apallingly oversold food truck festivals of the past couple years, the sight of lines snaking around food trucks outside the Broad Stage on Sunday morning should have sparked a PTSD flashback. No need to worry. These lines moved fast (comparatively speaking) and most of the food was actually worth the wait.

But before all that, before the deep-fried shrimp tacos of Mariscos Jalisco, the coconut curry of India Jones or the caprese empanadas of Piaggio on Wheels, there were words. For KCRW's Global Street Food discussion, Good Food host Evan Kleiman was joined on stage by Jonathan Gold, Gustavo Arellano, chef Jet Tila and, through the magic of the internet, street food connoisseurs and writers Lesley Tellez (in Mexico) and Robyn Eckhardt (in Malaysia).

The topics ranged from asam laksa to Kogi imitators, from the death knell that is letter grades for food trucks to the shadow economy of Mexican street food vendors, from the orderly street hawker scene of Singapore to the Wild West of Vietnamese street food.

The upshot: Almost everywhere else in the world has a richer, broader, more diverse street food scene than anywhere in the U.S. Weep for what you do not know you have lost.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Hong Kong Waffle, Tasty Garden, Monterey Park.

One of the most popular snacks on the streets of Hong Kong is the Gai Daan Jai, or "egg waffle." Made from simple ingredients: flour, eggs, baking powder, evaporated milk, starch, sugar and water, the thin batter is cooked in a distinctive iron that provides a signature shape.

Its origins are cloudy at best, with even the reason for the name being in dispute. Some claim it came from the egg shape of the dimples, some for the amount of eggs used in the batter. What is certain, is that they have been one of Hong Kong's favorite street foods for decades. Traditionally prepared over charcoal, health concerns and convenience have led to electricity becoming the common cooking method.

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