date night at the night market

Grilling satay at Bangsar pasar malam (night market)

Living in a foreign city, we’ve had to balance exploring our new home with actually trying to make a home in it. For the past few weeks, I’ve been busy supervising painters, running errands between hardware stores, and doing all the other various little tasks it takes to settle into a new life. It was a rare treat over the weekend to finally finish off the last of our big household chores, and with newly-found free time on Sunday evening, we hit a night market in Bangsar, a part of town in the southwest corner of the city.

As always, amid the random stacks of fake leather wallets, athletic jerseys and scarves, we sussed out the best there was to offer in terms of street food.

The Bangsar night market is a busy one. We arrived relatively early, just after the vendors begin setting up at 5:30 in the evening, and within the hour, the market was a hotbed of activity. People elbowed each other to buy the freshest vegetables, and we watched everyone carefully to see what snacks they were choosing as they shopped for their weekly produce.

I can’t tell a ripe mangosteen from an unripe one, so I’ll just roll the dice

Near the top of everyone’s list were mangosteens, which are just coming in season right now. One of my friends accurately described it as tasting like a cross between a white peach and a lychee. She’s spot on, and the mangosteen also apparently makes a great cocktail ingredient, although I’ve never seen mangosteen juice in the States.

At the top of my list, however, is the apon, a spongy pancake/crepe filled with sweet ground nut paste, or what we affectionately refer to in the United States as peanut butter. At USD $0.02 (yes, you read that right, 2 cents) for a pizza slice-shaped wedge, it’s a real bargain to nab one of these hot off the burner and snack on it while you’re doing your other shopping. I like to think of apon as the movie theater popcorn of night markets — it’s something you can brainlessly gnaw on as you watch whatever action passes in front of you. If that were the case, then the Bangsar night market would be the equivalent of a date movie — the perfect place to go on a night where you and your sweetheart might be going for different reasons (me: the street food made right in front of you; him: ready-made crunchy snacks sold in giant 10-gallon bins), but you’ll both find something to entertain you, in the end.

Pasar Malam (Night Market) | next to Bangsar Village between Jalan Maarof and Jalan Telawi 2 in Bangsar | Kuala Lumpur | Sunday evenings starting at 5:30 PM