Old-Time Vietnam – The Tay Loc Market and Other Good Food

I like visiting the local wet markets of Vietnam.  The colors and smells of fresh produce in the markets are always so stimulating.  Busy scenes of vendors selling food to morning shoppers are the best show of Vietnam’s vibrant street life.  So on this free day I decided to see the Tay Loc Market (Cho Tay Loc) in Hue.

As the second-largest food market in Hue after the Dong Ba Market, the Tay Loc market sells all kinds of things, but of course I am first and foremost drawn to the fresh produce.  Needless to say, at this type of market no one spoke English.  They still invited me to look and buy the goods, and this was the local flavor that I was looking for.

I was hoping for a cheap meal and so I headed over to the cooked food stalls.  To a foreigner, the wet markets would certainly look a bit filthy.  But as Asian, I was also quite accustomed to these scenes.  To me, the dirt in the wet markets is what makes it real.  And there are clear efforts to keep it hygienic, such as keeping the tables and the dining ware dry and wrapped.

It was still rather early in the morning so the food that I was looking for, a local dish called Banh Bot Loc, probably did not open.  I sat down at a noodle stall and had a wonderful mi quang bowl.  The owner spoke some English, and usually the least that most Vietnamese can do is “where you from.”  In their language they pronounce China as “Cheena,” so I said, “Hong Kong, Cheena” to her.

I told myself that one day, I will be able to speak enough Vietnamese to make these interactions meaningful.

There was a coffee house outside of the Tay Loc Market.  This was the day after the DMZ and I told myself that I would have to relax a bit.  I savored a leisurely “ca phe sua da” (iced coffee with milk) for a half hour.  Life really was very good.

I figured that, to catch a grab bike, I would have to head on over to the Citadel.  Close to the Citadel I came across another very local restaurant and ordered some loc tran.  There were two kinds of clear-wrapped dumplings in the dish.  One was a paste with a hint of sweetness.  It might have been mung bean paste.  The other was a dried sausage, clearly savory.  The fish sauce beneath really augmented the flavors of the dumplings.  The chewy and gluey texture reminded me a lot of the crystal dumplings in the restaurants of Hong Kong, but with a Southeast Asian character.   I did like these much more so than the crystal dumplings in Hong Kong.

The grab bike driver argued with me on the fare, but he did finally take me back to the hostel for đ 50k.  I could have taken a taxi with this price, but the grab bikes were always more fun.  The initial fear I had for getting on the back of a motorbike has, by then, fully disappeared.