Siriwattana Market

It’s amazing the diverse types of housing we’ve lived in over the last few months.  Our new home in Chiang Mai has very little in common with our last home in Bali.  Rather than living in a villa in the countryside, we’re spending this month living in a high rise serviced apartment building in the heart of the city.  It’s kind of like living at a hotel, really.  We have a nice one bedroom apartment on the 7th floor with a very small kitchen and a view of the city and surrounding mountains.  The building has a fitness center, coffee shop, restaurant, and front desk staff.  While the other tenants appear to mostly be retired expats, it’s generally at pretty good setup for us for the month.

A huge perk to our building is the proximity to one of the best markets in town, the Siriwattana Market.  Just a three minute walk from our front door is a wealth of food stalls and vendors serving up amazing, fresh Thai food.  (I’ll mention in advance that I am aware of the excessive number of images in this post.  This is mostly because food has been at the forefront of my brain.  If you spent over a week eating virtually nothing and were then throw into Thai food heaven, you’d think about food a lot, too.)

Much of the market is comprised of stalls like these – bowl after bowl of fantastic, ready to eat foods.  Curries, stews, stir fried veggies, noodles, meats…everything.  Just point to what you want and the nice person behind the counter will fill a plastic baggie with a serving size for you.  Portions usually cost under US$1 and are enough for two meals.There are also loads of pre-made baggies just waiting to be grabbed.  Salads, soups, entrees, you name it.  With this many options, John and I find ourselves a little overwhelmed.  We’ve thought about finding a local and somehow bribing them into wandering the market and educating us so we have a better sense of what to try.  I’m still working on how to make that happen.

The bags on the right are like DIY soup kits.  You buy this bag, (which has a whole fish, noodles, cabbage and garnishes) and the accompanying bag of broth (made in a huge cauldron and scooped fresh into a plastic baggie for you), and then take it home to make your own fresh noodle soup.  It’s like the Thai version of the deli counter at Whole Foods, but much, much cooler.Once you’ve gotten your main dish, you go to one of the ladies selling freshly cooked rice in single size portions.  A bag for two people runs about US$.025.

Huge cauldrons like this one are all over the market, bubbling with huge portions of food.There are separate counters for all of your fried food needs.  I’ve only been able to identify the spring rolls and fried squid, but I’m sure there are numerous surprises underneath all that batter.If it’s meat you’re after, there is plenty of it here.  This woman sells whole chickens Giant wood burning ovens roast whole fish, which is available all day long.And of course there are sausages and grilled meats of all types.

One stall has tubs of pickled vegetables.  On the right is the snack corner, for all of your dried fruit, nut and chip needs.  They have chips made out of things I cannot identify.  We’re slowly sampling out way through this stand.I’ve learned from many different people that its common for people in Asia to eat out most of their meals rather than cook.  This is because it’s so inexpensive to eat out, and the quality of food is so good.  When I say ‘eat out’ I don’t mean at fancy restaurants, of course, I mean at market stalls or from the above take away stands.  Since our kitchen isn’t very large or well stocked, we’ve been functioning along with this model as well.  This market has a huge section that is basically a food hall, and we’ve had several meals here.  Practically each table represents a different ‘restaurant’ where someone will cook you something out of the makeshift kitchen in their food cart.  There is very little English here, so we tend to point at the photos of stuff that looks good when we order.  Some things are better than others, but we’ve yet to have anything that wasn’t good.Of course, if you have a better kitchen to work with and are looking to cook for yourself, you can buy anything you need at the market as well.  I love a good produce market, and this has to be one of the cleanest, most organized ones I’ve seen anywhere.Look how everything is lined up and the prices are well marked?  I haven’t seen marked prices at a produce market since…the US.  Ok, maybe Australia.  Still, it’s rare.Posted prices means no haggling or bargaining required.  It’s a much easier shopping experience, to say the least.
Even the butcher section of this market is amazing.  It’s set off into its own little side area, which is air conditioned to keep everything cool and fresh.  I didn’t go inside the area because it’s too intense for me, but from outside the doors you can see how the meat is well organized and kept very clean.  This market is night and day from the meat stalls of Central America.I prefer the tofu, which is also readily available in huge slabs.Local fresh fruit sits beside apples, pears and grapes imported from the US.  I suppose for the expats it must be nice to be able to get fruits from home, but we’re sticking to things like mangosteens and dragon fruit while we can get them.

There’s also a bakery, stands selling fresh flowers, vendors making fruit shakes, a lady who makes fresh donuts…too much to photograph.  I’m glad we have an entire month to explore all the intricacies of this market – it’s going to take us that long to taste everything!