Richmond Night Market - Richmond

Enjoyed my visit. Definitely a place you want to go to early when the gates open to avoid the crowds. Go with a group as their are lots of options ideal for sharing especially for those who like fish and seafood.

Bought into the instagram hype that got created around it, made a mistake, that's on me. Man, where do I even start? First things first, how's this even a thing? It's basically 5 different stalls repeated after regular intervals. All anyone is selling there is skewers, squids, octopus and grill. It's more of the same, barely 4-5 dish to choose from at any counter, no variety at all. Food is overpriced and it's way too crowded to even stand and eat on weekends. Thirdly, how's the CRA not looking into this place? Every transaction is all cash, there's no way of tracking or tracing the origin of anything here. Starting from the tickets, to the food stalls, I was taken aback that nobody was accepting cards. There's long queues for everything. This is great for tiktok generation but for a regular human being, it makes absolutely no sense to go there. The only good thing in all this is, they have free parking.

MAKE SURE TO CARRY CASH!! It's 2022 and there are no contactless payments except for certain vendors and they use a certain app where you load money to pay at those vendors. They don't mention it anywhere. I had to wait in line for more than an hour to be told at the ticket booth that they don't accept cash. Return visitors might know about this but new visitors and tourists might not be ready for this as pretty anywhere else in GVR contactless payments can be made. There are some 3rd party ATMs on site, one outside the ticket booth and 2 inside the market, but be ready for extra fees from your bank and ATM. The ATM charges around $3.25 for every transaction on top of whatever your bank would charge. I heard a lot about the market and went to check it out. It's decent sized and with a good number of food stalls and some fair games and things to do for children, and a bunch of stalls selling goods. There is a stage as well, but I did not see anything going on when I was there. There is also a Vape corner on one end. The food stalls had all the usual Asian fares, BBQ, kebabs and Squid seems to be the theme for this season, with multiple stalls selling squids in various ways. The layout was set in a nice way, where all the sweet stalls were one side and all the main food stalls are on the side side. So you can go from section to section and finish your meal. The prices are decent for a night market and it is close to what you would usually pay in a fair. Be ready to spend at least $50-$60 per person if you want to sample some of the best food items. A budget of $100 pp should be more than enough for this market unless you want to really over the top. That is still a lot of money, but you come here mainly for the experience and atmosphere. The lineups are long to enter the market and there is a entry fee as well to get into the market. The beat thing the market has is that parking is free! If you get early, you will get a parking spot. If you come after 7 or so, the parking lot might be full and they will turn you back. So come by transit if it possible after 7 or 8. There were some people trying to upsell for the zoom pass or the multi visit pass. Those have their own benefit and I saw some groups take advantage of that. They do mention that if the market is getting full, then priority access is for people with those passes. The lines were moving fairly decently, and it took almost an hour to get to the ticket window. If you don't have CAD and pay by USD for the entrance, they will accept it as FACE VALUE only. All in all, a good spot to tryout once in a couple of years, that too if the food offerings had changed or something unique is coming for the season. Other than that for me personally it was a novelty factor thing that I had to try in Richmond. I guess I must have been spoilt by the yearly insane offerings in the Calgary Stampede. It will be good night out with friends to try something different.

We had a lot of fun. My husband pointed out that each of the lanterns has the name of a different dish on it. We really enjoyed the duck, the salt and pepper duck rack was our favourite dish. They were able to make the DanDan Mien vegetarian for me. It had a very subtle taste and wasn't too spicy.

Is a great experience, but you will need to be prepared that will be full and packed, waiting lines are very long. They just accept cash i recommend going to your ATM before getting there, the ATMs there charge 3.75 per withdrawal. The food is great but you will need to eat basically on the go while you look for your next place to eat. There are some tables to eat but they were full too.

Overall good experience. Too busy with so may people for the space provided. Get the Zoom pass to avoid long line up to get in. A lot of new foods to try. Some of them are good, some are not. But definitely worth a try. Its about the whole abiance and fun. Good vibes.

Line up is horrendously long, expensively if you don't have the VIP pass. If you're traveling to Vancouver and not staying long, don't get the VIP pass as it's not worth it. 1 hour passed 7pm opening time, parking lot is closed and new incoming visitors were asked to turn around instead of coming in. I suggest you be there 30 min before. Food was pretty good, at an affordable price. Great place for a date or a snack, but not for a full on dinner.

Worth trying. Look - if you have ever been to a fair, or carnival where more than enough people are packed into a small space, then this time isn't any different. Live bands, lots of food, never enough seats, etc etc. But, it's always a good time if you go with the right people. Overall there are 2-3 interesting food vendors worth trying, prices are quite high so be prepared to spend $40+ pp on food. Sushi Tacos - probably best thing that night for us. $9+ each Fried Chicken Skin - crispy, choose your own sauce, quite nice to snack on as you walk around. $10 Skewers - some are pretty meh, prices are $15 for 4 small skewers. Waited around 30minutes to enter on a Friday night around 6pm. Cash only.