- Food Variety
- Wide range of Activities
- Media Passes included great options
- Wait times and lines
- Card vs cash preference
- Additional seating
We were invited to attend FoodieLand Night Market as media, thanks to our friend @SouthSacramento. We’ve mentioned this before, but Asian-inspired street festivals are kind of our thing – we’re huge 626 Night Market fans. When we had the opportunity to attend FoodieLand for free, we didn’t mind making the drive out to Berkeley to indulge in some new to us foods.
FoodieLand Night Market is the perfect outdoor evening event for everyone. A must-attend for foodies, this exclusive festival overlooking the San Francisco Bay is inspired by the night markets of Asia.
– FoodieLand team
This was our first experience with this particular event but we are not new to food festivals – see our 10 tips for visiting a food festival
We planned to get to the event at the opening but ended up hitting some major traffic between Sacramento and Berkeley. We ended up getting there right at the doors were opening, the parking was fine but the lines were already long. Thankfully we had our tickets at will call, so the wait was minimal but if you want to miss the lines we highly stress get there EARLY!
The event organizers did a great job in our opinions—like other large events the lines were long and it was crowded but that’s to be expected. For everyone who complains about waiting, maybe just wait for the food truck at a smaller event or head to the restaurant. For the rest of us food lovers, if you are in East Bay and prefer to stay close (rather than make the trek to Pleasanton) then this is your night market! Just make sure you wear layers because Golden Gate Fields is right on the Bay and it gets windy.
With over 150 vendors there is something for everyone. We planned ahead because we knew we wanted to get specific items, so once we were in the event we split up to get our top items from Pinx Catering and Samara Southern Creations.
At Pinx Catering we got the Lobster Mac-n-Cheese, which came with a full lobster tail. The portions were generous and it cost $25-which seems reasonable for a full lobster tail over mac-n-cheese. It was delicious, only thing we would say is the lobster was a little more cooked than we were used to because it was BBQed but overall we thought it was the best item we had that night.
At Samara Southern Creations we got the Deep Fried Mac-n-Cheese Balls and the Chicken ‘n Waffle skewers. We liked both items but think the waffles could have been sweeter or needed a sweet component to go with it. The mac-n-cheese ball was really tasty. We ended up even sharing it with a couple of folks near us because at that point we were getting full and we had several other items we wanted to try.
We both love mixing sweet with savory so we went with a S’mores Brookie which is a cookie/brownie mash-up from Level Up Pastries. We thought it was really tasty and small enough that we could fit more so we did! At the NorCal Night Market we weren’t able to try the Musubi Bar, so it was must try this event. I had to get their Supreme Musubi which was very yummy, I liked the sauce and the Lechon Kawali Musubi, which we both thought was a bit too fatty & salty but very good if you like Lechon Kawali because that’s what it’s known for.
There was a lot to see with all the food vendors, retail, and performances so we did plenty of walking. Plus we managed to fit in a Fruity Pebbles Ice Cream sandwich from Marley’s Treats out of Hayward—they also had an ube option and the Ube Madness Treat looked so good but we were too stuffed to eat all those sweets. We even creeped on a few other people’s foods to see what it looked like (the gold foil matcha cone & Cacao fried chicken & cupcake were not ours but they both looked really good).
With both FoodieLand and NorCal Night Market, there are now two options for Bay Area food lovers hunting for their next food fix primarily focused on Asian and Asian-inspired food vendors, especially for those of us who haven’t experienced a night market in Asia this is a fun way to pretend. We think both night markets are solid and have now worked out most of the kinks of a big event – whichever you choose don’t forget to plan ahead and bring cash! For the #TLDR version check out our latest video:
The next FoodieLand Night Market events take place Aug. 2-4 and Oct. 4-6. at Golden Gate Fields North Lot.
ABOUT FOODIELAND NM:
Location: Golden Gate Fields, 1100 Eastshore Hwy, Berkeley, CA, 94710
Web: https://www.foodielandnm.com/
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/foodielandnm/
Hours of operation: 3 PM – 12 AM (Friday-Saturday) | 3 PM – 11 PM (Sunday)
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