Food at the Surat Night Market

"Sooo, what do you eat over there?" is a question a get a lot from friends and family.  After two years, I'm finally leaving my Thai town, Surat Thani, to try my luck in the north of Thailand.  The food in the north is very different from the southern Thai cuisine I've grown to love so much.  In an effort to help capture some memories of the south's amazing tastes and smells before I leave, I decided to put together a blog dedicated to my favorite Thai eats in Surat.  This way, everyone back home can get an idea of what kind of food I've been eating and I can have an excuse for visiting all of my favorite restaurants one more time.  Instead, of taking pictures of food and scribbling a few boring sentences about what it's ingredients are and what it tastes like, I figured I'd give video blogging a shot (now all my friends that can't read can follow along too!).

photo credit to chungkingdiary

In the first installment of my food-based mini-series, I take you to one of my favorite places to eat... (talad senjao) The Night Market.  Just like every other Thai town, Surat Thani has an evening market where hundreds or even thousands of residents flock to buy and sell.  Whatever you're looking for the night market has: clothes, jewelry, puppies, DVD's, but most of all... delicious FOOD.

Thai people love food and the night market is recognized as a prominent aspect of Thai culture.  In Surat, we have four main markets: (1) the day market- where you can find all your raw meat and sea food for sale early in the day; (2) the Saturday night market-- only open on Saturday nights, mostly consisting of clothing, knockoff goods, and handicraft vendors; (3) the Sunday night market-- only opens Sunday nights on the far end of the pier and is mostly food vendors; and finally, (4) talad senjao, which is the common night market, located near the Tapee River.  It's smaller than the other markets, but open every night of the week to sell a variety of merchandise and food.  Take a look at the quick video I shot at talad senjao to see some of my favorite night market grub.  I tried to keep it short and sweet  spicy!  Enjoy!

*Featured: Pad Thai (Thailand's most famous stir-fried noodle dish) and som tam (shredded green papaya salad, muddled with lime, seafood, Thai chili, palm sugar, and other veggies)... Check it out!

In my next post, I'll take you around town to some of my favorite restaurants in Surat!