I braved the crazy crowds and hideous parking of the KTown Night Market on Friday at the Robert F. Kennedy school in KTown. Luckily, we went early enough before the crowds got worse. I was doing photo coverage for the event for the LA Times Daily Dish. You can see my slide show of photos here.

The nice thing about taking photos for the paper was that I could cut through all the lines and sneak around the back to talk to the chefs and all the people prepping the food. Some of the highlights were:

– Smokey grilled pork ribs from the pork restaurant Hamjipark. They make a delicious spicy gamja tang (pork neck stew with potatoes), which is a stick-to-your ribs kind of Korean hot pot.

– Brian Huskey of Top Chef fame made a chicken sandwich so tall that he had to put a shishkabob skewer through it to keep it all in place!

– The okonomiyaki from Gaja, a Japanese joint in Lomita. At the restaurant proper, you can customize your own okonomiyaki or monjayaki (a modern version) on a tabletop griddle.

– Strawberry snow from I-Sweet. a dessert gem in the City of Industry, just outside the Puente Hils mall. They use only fresh fruit in all their desserts, and you can taste the difference.

– Takoyaki from Tanota in bite-sized balls of dough cooked golden brown and hot from the specially shaped griddles.

There was also delicious Chinese-style ramen made by a couple of Japanese guys, La Sriracha Macha, Mexican-Asian hot sauce blended by Lincoln Lee, and food trucks galore!

I hope they do a night market in KTown again. Maybe next year, it’ll be better organized with fewer crowds and better parking.