Street Food Tour @ Hoi An Night Market, Hoi An, Vietnam

 

Never in my wildest dreams that I thought I would finally write about another country besides Malaysia or Japan, but here I am! As I usually take my days off to go home and visit family and friends, international travel for me has becoming exceedingly rare. So I was pretty fortunate that the firm I am working for organised their yearly office trip to Vietnam. 

Hello Hoi An!

I have actually been to Vietnam before but that was before the blog ever existed. And if you have seen in past posts, I do enjoy Vietnamese food. I feel like it is the milder distant cousin of Thai cuisine. So when we finally stepped foot into Hoi An, getting some street food grub was an obvious choice. I was really looking forward to this as well, as it is my first time in this area. 

This is the time for some good eats. 

Located in the heart of Hoi An Ancient Town area , the Hoi An Night Market boasts a great array of gift stalls, utensil shops, and of course street food vendors. The only issue that we have here is that we already have a dinner booked at our hotel. As such, our visit was confined to the afternoon. A second lunch if you will. And even after having a pretty decent lunch in a nearby restaurant thanks to my boss, I was ready to gobble down into some street grub. 

Spicy!

And so the first plate of savoury goodness was a platter of grilled octopus and okra. Purchased by my Filipino colleague, this was an absolute bomb. Standing at 13000 dong, this packed so much punch. The fiery chilli sauce was just coating everything. However, at the same time had a sweet savouriness to it. The okra provided a nice crunch and help temper the heat of this very spicy sauce. It was still enjoyable though and would probably go well with some rice. 

Sitting on a stool, on a street. Literal street food!

If you need something cool and sweet to turn down the heat, then the dessert stand not far away did the job pretty well. I got myself a mix che, which is very similar to cendol but not at the same time. Standing at 20000 dong, this was pretty good bargain. The coconut milk base help temper the heat a lot. The bowl was also littered with sweet treats too. From grass jelly, sliced fruit, and mung bean, it has it all!

Zesty!

However, I do note that some people may not have an insatiable sweet tooth like myself. So if you would like to have a cool down or something to break your thirst, there was a tea stand that served pretty strong yet mildly sweet iced kumquat tea. I do suspect that they are calamansi limes instead, seeing that they have a green skin, and kumquats are generally golden. Still, standing at 15000 dong, this was quite nice as well. I was still eager to have more food to eat. And it being a night market, everything will only be in full effect once it is sundown. But seeing I already had lunch beforehand and that dinner will probably be quite heavy as well, I leaned on the side of caution and ended my food excursion with my colleagues for now. 

Another part of the market. Lucky we arrived once the rain subsided

Still, this was a great eating experience despite being such a short one. As the meals for the rest of the day have been covered, this short adventure was definitely welcomed. So if in the event that you are in this side of Vietnam, make sure you come over to the night market and have a good time chowing down into the street food it has to offer. Hopefully, I can come by again to enjoy it in its full glory. In the meantime, here is the address:

3 Nguyễn Hoàng, An Hội, Hội An, Quảng Nam, Vietnam