Luna 1878 - Winter Night Market 2014

The Wednesday just passed (27^th August) concluded Luna 1878, the winter night market held at the Queen Victoria Market. During winter it’s hard to find the motivation to leave your warm heated house but with a range of winter comfort foods on offer it makes it easy to trade your warm blankie in for a night out.

There were lots of amazing foods available but being limited to the space of one stomach, I had to carefully decide which foods I wanted to try. Hammer and Tong had a stall where they were serving duck waffle, onion rings and crispy pork ears. We ordered the onion rings and they were fricken amazing! They were really crunchy on the outside, doughy in the middle and the onion melted in your mouth. They were like little onion ring crispy donuts they were so delicious! The guys at the stand let us try the crispy pork ears, they were little bite-sized pieces, you could eat them like chips. I was hesitant to try them but they were actually yum, they were bacony and a bit like pork crackle but chewier. It would definitely be a good beer snack. Max (the frenchie) would have definitely ordered these if he was here, it’s right up his alley.

I hadn’t tried mulled wine before so I decided to give it a go. Seemed like the perfect beverage for a warm winters night. It was served hot and had an interesting flavour. It sort of tasted like a Christmas pudding liquefied and transformed into a hot drink.

400 Gradi was recently voted the ‘world’s best margherita pizza’ at the pizza world championship. Now that is an impressive title - Best in the world! So on that basis we ordered one of the world-renowned margherita pizzas. It was delicious, the base was light, the sauce was yum, there was a good amount of cheese and the bites with fresh basil were incredibly tasty. Definitely a winner.

We ordered roti from the Mamak stall. They make the most amazing roti and it’s fun to watch them make it. It is so light and fluffy and you can see why. They stretch the dough out until its paper-thin and then trap large amounts of air inside (they look like little roti parachutes) and then they grill them to get them crispy on the outside. It’s so delicious. The roti canai came with Malaysian curry and a spicy sambal to dip it in which was delish!

At the Spanish Gourmet Caterers stall they had ginormous pans with couscous in a tomato based sauce with big pieces of assorted seafood. It looked fantastic. We ordered a bowl, which had a generous amount calamari, mussels and fish and the couscous soaked up the lovely flavours of the sauce.

We got a chicken skewer from Hoy Pinoy, which was juicy and delicious. They also had a lechon stall where they had meat on the spit roasting. I love lechon (roasted suckling pig) but I don’t know if I like to see five pigs rotating over a fire. For some it can be quite confronting. And it was right next to the vegetarian street food cart. What the? Right next to the vegetarian stall? I found it very odd to have the vegetarian stall positioned next to the spit roasts. Ah wells.

From the Crème Brulee Cart we ordered a…yep you guessed it, a crème brulee. It was deliciously creamy and not too eggy, it had a crunchy bruleed top and had a strong vanilla flavour throughout. It was delish! I wanted to buy the whole cart. Also the vanilla cannoli was really good too.

At this point our stomachs had reached capacity so we bought the homemade authentic Hungarian strudel from Country Delight in a takeaway box to eat later. They had all different flavours like cherry choc and custard, apricot and cream cheese and the timeless favourite, apple and custard. Surprisingly the strudel made it home in one piece. Max didn’t know what a strudel was but he did know that he wanted some.

They also had a Wonderbao stall where you could get warm steamed buns. Perfect for a winters night. Yum! These are absolutely delicious every time. Their baos are always top quality. The Gourmet Soup Factory had a stall too, there was a mountain of bread rolls on the table. They had a variety of hot hearty soups, which were served inside the big crusty buns.

There were so many stalls with lots of yummy food. This was the last market for winter but don’t be sad because the summer night market is just around the corner starting November 5^th.

I heart Luna 1878!

Olives x

Luna 1878 
Address: Queen Victoria Market - Corner of Victoria St and Elizabeth St, Melbourne
Website: http://www.qvm.com.au/event/luna-1878-2/
Event Dates: 9th July - 27th August 2014
Trading Hours: 5pm - 10pm