626 Night Market

I visited the the 626 Night Market recently on Saturday, June 8, 2013, the largest Asian night market in America, which located at the front Paddock Gardens of Santa Anita Park, Arcadia. It was quite a smooth driving from my place to the location. Although this is their second year hosting the event, it was my first time visiting them. After much rave and review, I certainly want to check out this place.

As we enter, we saw this gigantic box with the 626 sign as their trademark welcoming us. It was a long line to enter but it was moving and pretty fast. A lot of people taking picture for memory at this trademark signboard. It’s pretty cool the organizer of the event putting this at the entrance.  We line up to pay for the admission fee and here is how it is when we were there. It’s pretty long but they manage to get the line in fast. Quite a good job by the organizer so that people don't have to wait longer just to enter. As soon as we enter, I can see the craziness and how crowded it is.

The 626 board at the entrance

Line at the entrance

The first store I saw and I see how long the line just to place an order. A disappointment on my part as I don't like to wait in long line to get my food with my stomach growling and wanting something to eat. This is just the beginning and I am wondering how it is going to be when I explore more of the food vendors further in.

As am scrolling down the venue looking for food, I saw more and more long line. What a disappointment. I am wondering why is this happening. Well, this probably a sign of good business, where people really come to check out the food and they want to buy to eat and they also probably want to experience hawker style food that is very popular in Asian country. We hardly get this kind of night market here in America. I totally understand that. But to my curiosity, can’t the vendors provide us, customers, service that doesn't have to make us wait in long line? Does all this vendors know how to serve their customer? Or they are not ready to serve a lot of customer at this kind of big event? It's just a curiosity, I don't mean any harm or disrespectful.

I am pretty sure there's something they(the organizer and vendor) can do about the long line. Maybe all those vendors have to be more efficient and more organize while delegating their task in their booth and have more preparation ahead of time before their booth is cramp with people/customers? It's just an opinion. Not only that I think they have more than enough staff that helps them in their booth, but I see them very slow in their service when dealing with their customer. Most of the long lines is food stall vendors, but if you want to eat Banzai Jerky, you can see there's no line, but who wants to eat jerky when they came hungry and almost at dinner time? duhhhh!!!

Apart from the place crowded with people, we discover a very bad smell all over the place we walk. At first we thought that it must be the stinky tofu smell, but the more we walk around the venue the smell is getting stronger and stronger. I and my family couldn't figure out what smell is that. The smell is so bad that it literally turn off our appetite to eat. My husband told me that it is probably the smell of horse dung. It does make sense because the Paddock Arena is near the race horse area. I really wish the organizer won't do the event at this area anymore because of that bad smell. It is really un-appetizing.

Well, that's it for this episode of 626 Night Market. I will be posting more on this topic. Drop a comments for your brilliant opinion and thoughts.