Needing some fresh vegetables when I arrived into the city, my first stop was a market that was reasonably close to walk back from with a heavy load. From my google search, I settled on one outside of the Old City, but only a 20-minute walk from my Airbnb. I found the unique eats & treats at Siri-Wattana market in Chiang Mai to be just what I was looking for.
Raw Fruits & Veg
This is a huge market that I will put a google link to here. It is covered too which is nice if the weather is not cooperating. Once under the roof, the space is divided quite nicely into sections of raw produce, a room for raw meats and the largest portion is cooked food. In addition, an open aired restaurant with individual stalls is located just next door.
The vegetables are separate from the fruits in fact they are at opposite ends of the market. The veg is bright, fresh and a lot of it is foreign to me. 😂 Tons of greens of all varieties, root vegetables, mushrooms and the familiar ones such as broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes etc.
Fruits are always a delight to me. I found beautiful ripe mangoes, pomelo, jack fruit, mandarins and bananas. I’ll keep an eye out each time I go and pick up something new to me. I really enjoy being able to purchase fruit already sliced up for a fraction of the cost at home. What a special treat this is. 😊
Raw Meat
The single room for raw meat is such a great idea. It saves people from entering who accidentally bump into this area and are really not interested or cannot stomach it. Because of this, the room was virtually empty when I was there. Table upon table showcased their pork products and poultry. I saw no beef what-so-ever. A single fish monger was using the back wall of the meat room to clean his fish.
Cooked Food
This is where the Siri-Wattana market really shines. All around the exterior and for much of the main space, are cooked foods. All things Thai are within this area and many of which are snack like to be eaten right away.
There is no shortage of interesting things to be had, from deep fried chicken heads, to quail egg in a wanton wrapper. Sticky rice and taro wrapped in banana leaves to chicken heart satays. Have a look at these pictures and see if your taste buds don’t start singing!
Sweets
Ohhhh I have a hunch the Thai’s like their sweets as much as I do! There are a lot of different goodies for sale at this market. Beautiful freshly fried donuts 🫠🤤that just have me drooling, all sorts of sweet jellies and things covered with coconut shavings. I’ll admit that most of these I have absolutely no idea what they are, but if I have to work my way through them, for science of course, well then I guess I’ll take that job. 🤣
I will return to this market a few more times while I am here. So far, I have tried at least five of these wonderful snacks, most have been interesting and delicious. 😁 There is so much left for me to discover and I can’t wait from day to day to try new and fun things.
