At the Centennial Campground, you will find a hidden gem, the Pena Park Market. With a small…read morecommunity of Hmong living in Anchorage, there is a farmers market here that meets every weekend (but only during the summer) that sell cooked food and home grown produce.
Not realizing that there was a Hmong farmers market that meets here, my husband and I just happened to see it when we were driving Glenn Highway and decided to exit and check it out.
We arrived on a Saturday late morning in August, around 11:35 am. We were able to find parking and browsed all the vendor tables with our little girl dog. Some of the food items (that seems to be commonly sold at most of the vendor tables) include pork belly, naab vaam (sweetened coconut dessert drink that consist of tapioca pearls, cendol, and other toppings mixed in that is very colorful), papaya salad, spring rolls, sticky rice and various skewers of meat.
After looking at all the vendors that were selling food, we ended up just deciding to choose the very last one we saw and purchased:
Naab vaam, $5- Both my husband and I enjoyed this drink and thought the price was fair.
Chicken Rice Noodle Soup, $5- Because it was quite windy on the day we came and also raining (August is quite a wet month here in Anchorage), we ended up deciding to purchase this nice and hot soup. This reminded me of congee, even though this is made with noodle instead of rice (it had the same taste as congee). This was served in a tall styrofoam cup which was a good size for the 2 of us.
Spring Rolls, $6- This came in an order of 3 (and was the same price as other vendors). The spring rolls we picked up were made with imitation crab, some kind of pork (which I think is that Vietnamese pork loaf that I have had in other spring rolls back at home), slices of cucumber and rice noodle. Honestly, I thought these rolls were okay but probably would not pick this filling again.
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(Total= $16)
The vendor we purchased from had an option to pay either by cash or by Venmo. I paid via Venmo (I did see that some of the other vendor tables had a "Cash Only" sign, just so you know if you come by).
Unfortunately this Hmong farmers market is done for the season (check out https://www.facebook.com/PenaParkMarket/ for updates) but highly recommend checking it out next summer for those that live in this area.
Overall, we had a great experience and would come back if we lived here.