Talad Nut - Part 1

Having reviewed so many nice restaurants lately, I think it's time to visit something a bit more basic - the local market, well, more precisely, the "Talad Nut". "Talad Nut" are local markets that are held in the evenings and sell everything from clothing, shoes, accessories, and plenty of...food! "Talad Nuts" are usually held once or twice a week in an area. Vendors typically move to different "Talad Nuts" each day of the week. For example, the Somtum (papaya salad) vendor might be at Meechok Plaza (a local shopping centre) on Mondays and Tuesdays, the rest of the week might be spent at other "Talad Nuts", and on Sundays, the Sunday Walking Street (the ultimate "Talad Nut"!).

Here are a few samplings of what you might find to eat at Talad Nuts:

My favourite - Moo Kham Wan - Spicy grilled pork (nice and tender) served with fresh vegies and this super amazing chilli and lime dip. We often keep the dip for use during the week on other dishes like grilled fish.

"Talad Nut" is also the place to buy your dinner! This lady sells various dishes that you can take home in plastic bags.

Here is something that looks rather nicely presented - sausage wrap in bread. Good size for eating on the go while you look around the market.

You can even get sushi! The weather has been pretty cool, but may not be so good in the heat in summer! It's pretty popular though and turn over is pretty quick.

Delicious grilled pork sticks!

Hope you're not too hungry yet! More coming up soon in Part 2!

Sunday Walking Street

Whist not a restaurant as such, Sunday Walking Street (Sunday evening street market) is a great place to go to sample local street food and delicacies, and the prices are dirt cheap too!

It's a lot of fun browsing the hundreds (may be thousands?) of stalls selling all manners of goods and handicrafts, often handmade by the person selling themselves, and to sample some of Chiang Mai's local food as you go.

If you need a "proper" meal, you can always drop into one of the temples on the main street of the market. There, you'll not only find the buddha, but food nirvana as well - Ok, I might be exaggerating a little. I mean, you'll be able to find hundreds of stalls selling food! Think of food court in a temple. Cost starts from 15 baht or so for a small Pad Thai, so why not try a few new things?

Here are some of the food found on Sunday Walking Street:

Deep fried tofu with sweet peanut sauce.

Gyoza - deep fried dumplings

I forgot the name of this one, but it's like a type of rice and pork salad. Very nice, actually.

This is the stall selling oyster and various seafood omelette. Looks great, but unfortunately, the omelette itself wasn't. I've had better. It was fun trying though!

Other things to try - "Ancient Ice-cream" - they are little blocks of ice-cream in various "exotic" flavours, or you can go for coconut. You can't go wrong at 10 baht per piece. Go on, try something different!

On every Sunday evenings, Rachadamnoen Rd, starting from Thapae Gate.