On the Table

Cooking up smashburgers at the Food with Hoy stall during the Friday Night Market

Photo by Jennifer Fumiko Cahill

What’s Good at Friday Night Market

By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill

jennifer@northcoastjournal.com

It’s a genuine pleasure holding a paper tray of street stall food aloft as you weave through Old Town’s blocked off streets during the Friday Night Market, the singer from a local band crooning along. It’s feels downright neighborly, combing through the art and handiwork of the vendors, saying hello to familiar faces. Then one of those faces sails past with something that looks and smells amazing and where did they get that? Humboldt Made’s weekly get togethers continue through the end of this month, which is plenty of time to sample all you want, especially if you have some advance intel.

There are a number of reliable street corner and farmers market standbys in regular attendance. Nicaraguan Food (“History of a Nacatamal,” Sept. 2, 2021) and Pupuseria San Miguel (“The Pupusa Hustle,” April 21) offer dueling takes on the soft, filled and grilled pupusa, while the black Los Giles taco truck looms with its objectively perfect tortas and burritos. The Oyster Lady stall is in attendance with dill and garlic buttered Pacifics off the grill, and there are Kumamotos to be had with miso or Champagne garlic butter from North Bay Shellfish.

If you haven’t been able to catch them elsewhere, the ladies of Frybread Love are a worthy stop with their Indian tacos and whatever sweet specials move them that day (“Sharing the Frybread Love,” May 6, 2021). Pizza Gago’s oven is furiously turning out pies with toppings like lobster mushrooms, sausage, mozzarella, Manchego cheese and Calabrian chile oil. If you’ve just come from chopping wood or childcare and are truly famished, the Taste of Bim truck has a two-hander of a Caribbean chicken curry bowl that will satisfy.

But there are some new and newish