Ottawa's Parkdale Public Market has opened a new covered communal dining area this season, and one of its three anchor vendors is serving up Cantonese street food from a familiar face on the city's market circuit.
Chef Tin-lont Chan, known since 2021 for his TL Chocolates bonbons in flavours like Hong Kong milk tea and miso caramel, has expanded into savoury fare with Sik Fan Lah, a menu of Cantonese staples named after the phrase his mother would call out to bring the kids home for dinner.
"She would just scream into the street: Sik fan lah! And it just felt like it was very suited to the market, where it's like: come and eat, come dine!" Chan told Edible Ottawa. Sik Fan Lah translates roughly as "time to eat (rice)."
The menu includes rice bowls topped with braised brisket, crispy pork belly or grilled duck, alongside vegetarian options such as chow mein, Chinese long beans and salt-and-pepper mushrooms. Morning shoppers can grab bolo bao breakfast sandwiches built on pineapple buns baked by Louay Ben Messaoud of House of Pain, with pork sausage, beef curry and everything bagel fillings.
A first for the 102-year-old market
According to Edible Ottawa, the new dining area features three compact open kitchens surrounding 20 tables — a setup that lets visitors linger over their meals rather than perch on curbs or drift to the neighbouring park. Chan shares the space with two other vendors: the Jerk Stop, serving jerk chicken, Jamaican patties, plantains and vegetarian sides, and Milpa and Maple, which pairs Mexican cuisine with local ingredients.
"I've seen what visitors to the market do when they're invited to stay a little longer," market manager Tina Barton told Edible Ottawa. "When people come and enjoy the street food, they stay and shop at the market and vice-versa. I really see it as one hand washing the other."
Barton stepped into the manager role in 2024 and was a vendor during the market's first Night Market season, which began during the pandemic and returns each Wednesday until Thanksgiving from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. "It feels like home to people now," she said.
Chan said the vendors aren't competing with one another. "We're all working together towards a shared goal, activating the market space," Barton said, echoing what Chan described as an atmosphere of mutual support. The open-kitchen bar seating also changes the experience for the chef: "You're not just ordering food, you're interacting. There's a story," Chan said.
The extra kitchen space has given Chan room to plan. He intends to add clay pot rice, whole sea bass, shrimp and eel dishes, occasional dim sum service and popups featuring industry friends. His smaller team will continue at the Westboro, Lansdowne and 613 Flea markets with a compact Sik Fan Lah menu plus TL Chocolate favourites including sponge toffee and caramels. The chocolates return in full force come fall.
The Parkdale Public Market, at 366 Parkdale Ave., is open daily from May to October. The three food vendors operate Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The market is in its 102nd season, and Barton notes the spot has long been a gathering place — once a live animal market where farmers shared a single scale — and it still is. "We're still here gathering over local food in the same spot. And I think that means something to this neighbourhood," she said.
