For inflation-ravaged New Yorkers, the Queens Night Market has long been a lush oasis in an affordable food desert — offering a global array of gut-busting gourmet dishes for less than the cost of a sad skinny latte in Midtown.
Back for a milestone 10th summer season, the Flushing Meadows feeding ground has once again declined to raise prices, meaning visitors will pay $5 to $6 max for any item — from Ukrainian-style knishes to sweet and savory Khmer fish curry.
These bazaar-ely good deals are particularly notable considering the clamor over the nocturnal noshing mecca — which has managed to attract more than 3 million visitors since its 2015 inception.
And this year, organizers have added dozens more vendors into the mix — to further reflect the culinary diversity of the borough, one of the most multicultural zones in the known world.
Following a sneak preview on April 19 (which cost $8 at the door), the Queens Night Market was slated to hold its first free admission event last Saturday, but the opening was pushed back due to a less-than-favorable weather forecast.
Now, it will run every Saturday starting May 3 until October 25 — with a short break from August 23-September 26 for the US Open — from 4 p.m. to midnight.
New Yorkers are likely willing to wait a couple weeks for such a big “deal.”
Queens Night Market founder John Wang said that the price cap, which has been in place since 2017, is a credit to the vendors “who overwhelmingly voted to keep the status quo, despite major inflationary pressures.”
The founder put in a call to companies and philanthropists alike in the hopes of waiving vendor fees, but when he failed to secure sponsorship, 80% of participating hawkers voted to maintain the bargain prices for another year.
“What the vendors decided upon was a tremendous gift to NYC,” Wang told The Post. “At a time when we seem to be consistently paying $5 to $6 for even a cup of coffee, the vendors have helped create an oasis — right when our wallets need it most.”
He acknowledged that most of the fare could go from $10 to $20 elsewhere, but that the mom-and-pop hawkers prioritize their food and the stories behind it over mere profits.
Holding the line is doubly impressive considering that inflation has spiked by 30% in the last eight years, forcing wallet-weary diners to fork out a fortune for so-called cheap eats.
To wit, Big Apple diners now pay $13.99 for a Whopper meal at certain Burger King branches — and $6 for a standard Starbucks espresso beverage.
And unlike at your typical alfresco grease depots, market visitors can go around the world in 80 bites here — the vibrant venue features 100 vendors representing 95 countries through its hawkers and their food.
Spots of note include Jiutoiniao, serving Cambodian fish amok, a rich coconut seafood curry; Caribbean Street Eats for a Trinidadian deep-fried shark sandwich served with coleslaw, tomatoes, cucumbers and more on a fried flatbread; and Alexis Caribbean Cuisine’s Guyanese metemgee — a stew with root vegetables simmered in a creamy coconut milk broth with dumplings that’s typically eaten with fried fish.
All told, Queens Night Market has welcomed 600 vendors since its inception, 450 of whom started their businesses at the bazaar.
Meet the first-timers
Miriam Hunte, 30, who runs first-time night market vendor Alexis Caribbean Cuisine with her aunt Alexis, espoused the virtues of metemgee to The Post.
“When that all is combined, it’s [the metemgee’s] just [a] salt and sweet mixture,” she said. “Then the fish is like, you like salty spicy, the fish gives you that. Guyanese food is very sweet, tangy, salty, it has all things combined.”
Christian Cassagnol, 46, the proprietor of Haitian hot spot Cassa, was born in the US but moved to Haiti when he was a child. After his father’s restaurant went under following the Haiti earthquake of 2010, he moved back to the US and got a job in city government before eventually continuing his father’s culinary legacy at the Queens Night Market.
“I told him, ‘Pa, let’s do it in New York,’ and so here we are,” he told The Post. Among other dishes, Cassagnol specializes in salted herring and salted cod that has been marinated in lime, Scotch parsley, different herbs and blistering Scotch bonnet peppers that Cassagnol grows himself when in season.
The Knish’s Sheila Kushner, 57, is a psychologist by trade but decided to bring her special Ukrainian-Jewish round potato knishes — a deep-fried dough pocket the recipe of which she learned from her grandmother — to the market for the first time.
“I’m super excited for people to try this and to see the kind of knish I grew up with,” said Kushner, who has been in the US since 1976, when Ukraine was under Soviet rule.
Despite being in America for so long, she didn’t think to bring her native cuisine to the market until Wang prodded her this year.
“I know your food,” Kushner recalled him saying to her. “Just do it.”
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