Top 10 tastes you need to try at Dandenong Market
There’s nowhere quite like Dandenong and given it’s Melbourne’s multicultural heart, it’s no surprise its vibrant market is a melting pot of great food you need to try.
Eating Out
Don't miss out on the headlines from Eating Out. Followed categories will be added to My News.
There’s nowhere quite like Dandenong.
Melbourne’s multicultural heart is our most diverse municipality, with more than two-thirds of residents also speaking languages other than English and more than 80 per cent with at least one parent born overseas.
And its market, unsurprisingly, is the vibrant melting point of this global village. First opening its doors in 1866, today the market is visited by more than 5.6 million people each year and with 156 nationalities working side-by-side, there’s no better place to get a taste of lands from afar right here.
Food is often the gateway into different worlds, giving insight into a other ways of living and can bridge distances both geographical and cultural by bringing people together to enjoy the one given we all have in common: eating.
With food retailers peddling the wares and cuisines of countries as diverse as Vietnam and Iran, Pakistan and Poland, Dandenong Market is a multiethnic smorgasbord upon which to feast.
As part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival next month, the World Fare returns to the market, where more than 50 street traders will offer some of the world’s most unique dishes.
But to get a taste of some of the diversity that is on offer during market days each week, chef and all-round good food guy Tim Hollands hosts street food tours at the market that take in the bustling hawker hall.
“The market is definitely getting busier. On Fridays, it can get like you can’t move. It’s great fun shopping, and affordable,” he says.
While the majority of trolley-wielding shoppers are locals picking up fresh food for the family fridge, Hollands says more people from further afield are discovering the market’s diverse charms.
“The tours are introducing people the market. One couple took a tour, they’d never been here before, then I saw them here week after, and they’ve been telling all their friends.”
For the first-time visitor, a street food tour with Hollands is the perfect introduction into the food and must-try tastes on offer.
“It’s traditional food and the people who eat it expect it to be traditional,” he says. “There’s no sweet and sour pork here.”
Here are 10 top tastes to get you started.
HANGI at NZ STREET FOOD
“Sure, we get lots of homesick New Zealanders, but also other people keen to try hangi,” says Haunui Te Arihi at NZ Street Food.
Hangi is a traditional Maori cooking method, where meat and vegetables are cooked for hours in an underground pit with hot stones. Here at the market, they’ve designed an above-ground hangi oven, in which chicken, lamb, pumpkin, potato and cabbage are cooked for 3 hours and 15 minutes – at least – before being served with fried bread the hungry hordes.
“Other cultures love to try the hangi. And they love it. People come back. I’d have one a few times a week. You’d think I’d be sick of it, but no,” Te Arihi says.
They also serve KFP – a Kiwi Fried Bread plate – where $12 gets you a choice of steak with mushrooms, beef or pork with gravy and coleslaw or seafood chowder served on a bed of fried bread.
There’s also mussel fritter burgers and cans of L&P – but no paua (abalone) fritters beloved of the kiwi fish and chip shop. Milkshake flavours – perky nana, hokey pokey – will make any homesick Kiwi smile.
CHEESE PIE at WHY NOT
Lebanese bakeries are famous for being fab spots for a feed for a few bucks and so it is at this perennially busy bakery. Four dollars will get you a cheese pie or a spinach and haloumi triangle hot from the oven, but with nothing more than $6 on the extensive menu, there’s sure to be a feed to please.
KASHMIRI CHAI at KADAK CHAI
Shabbir Kanchwala does a roaring trade from his chai cart at the front of market square. And while cardamom, masala and kadak versions of the spiced tea drink are popular, it’s the unique Kashmiri chai he offers that brings fans from afar.
“This is a traditional chai served at Pakistani weddings, it’s not your everyday drink,” he explains.
Tea leaves are brewed with milk, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, baking powder, salt and a little rosewater for 90 minutes until the drink is a vibrant pink. This is then served in a traditional kulhad (clay pot) sprinkled with crushed pistachios and almonds.
It’s the prettiest $5 drink around.
CURRY ROLL at PIQNIQ
At this spicy Sri Lankan hot spot you’ll find pots filled with various curries – a mild butter chicken, a punchy goat curry, devilled chicken or dal – and a great way to enjoy them for a lunch-on-the-go is with the $10.90 curry roll. A 9-inch roll is filled with your choice of curry and dressed with squiggles of mint yoghurt.
LEBANESE SAMOSA at KING OF FALAFEL
Say samosa and most minds will drift to India, but these little curry-flavoured fried triangles are found, in various guises, from Myanmar through Malaysia, Iran through Ethiopia.
The Lebanese version you’ll find here is terrific – mildly spiced minced meat and onion in a sturdy pastry parcel – especially when swiped through even better hummos that’s thick, creamy and with a nice lemon bite.
HOPIA at SI-KAT PINOY EATSCETERA
Hopia is a popular Philippine mooncake like pastry that usually comes filled with mung beans but here is flavoured with winter melon. Dense and sticky and not particularly sweet, it’s a $1.50 treat that’s certainly unique.
Other Filipino fare to be found includes suman halaya – a traditional Filipino rice cake made from glutinous rice – beef caldereta (a stew of meat and potatoes), pork adobo and sago’t gulaman, a drink of brown sugar-sweetened water with gelatine and tapioca.
SUGAR CANE JUICE at SACCHA
Sweet but refreshing, sugar cane juice on ice slakes a hot, humid thirst with 10 times less sugar than orange juice. Drunk throughout south East Asia, here you can add herbs and spices such as ginger and mint to your freshly pressed juice.
DOSA at DOWNTOWN PUNJAB
Originating in south India, Dosa are crepes made from fermented rice batter. They come with various fillings – from ghee masala ($10) through butter chicken or chilli beef ($14 each).
You’ll also find utthapam – which are like a dosa, but thicker - and a range of chaat, which are streetside snacks, such as samosa.
This is a top spot for a quick breakfast, whether it’s a $5 omelette in toasted wrap, or the $7 gobi paratha, which is bread stuffed with cauliflower and veg and usually eaten spread with butter.
AFGHANI BOLANI at KABUL KITCHEN
Bread is baked throughout the day at this bustling Afghani bakery and eatery, and the bolani – at $5 for one or $8 for two – are hard to beat. A baked flatbread filled with potato and onion, it’s served with a mint yoghurt sauce and is fabulously tasty and equally filling.
A steady stream of people – trolley wheeling nonnas through bike-riding 10-year-olds - pick up a sheet or two of Afghani flatbread from the streetside window for loose change.
GOZLEME at DOUGH WORKS
Rolled to order by the some of the hardest working women in the market, the gozleme at Dough Works are some of the best you’ll find anywhere in Melbourne. For $10 you’ll get a freshly cooked mound of charry flatbread generously filled with chicken, feta and spinach; chicken and mushroom; or our pick – the lamb, spinach and feta. With a spritz of fresh lemon, you have a real meal deal that’ll see you through the day.
FRESH PRODUCE
Once you’ve tasted the globe, pick up some food for home from the fresh produce section.
Whether it’s flappingly fresh fish from Schwarze Seafood that’s been here since 1930, every part of a pig from TC Quality Meats, a huge array of hard-to-find spices and mixes – a Kentucky seasoning for fancy fried chicken or a gyros seasoning - from Sam’s Spice, or a tub of local red gum honey from Hart’s Honey, there’s literally nothing you can’t find here.
DO THIS: Street food tours run on various Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. For bookings: dandenongmarket.com.au
THE WORLD FARE AS PART OF THE MELBOURNE FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL IS ON MARCH 22. Entry is FREE.
READ MORE:
IS THIS THE PERFECT PENINSULA MEAL?