I never would have known this market was here unless Andi's mother took us there. It's off the main road, somewhat hidden behind buildings. The place consists of small stalls where vender's setup there goods. The day we went there, the entire place was dirty and muddy because it had just rained. I just called it ambiance!
This stall had many different spices and herbs. There were at least half a dozen different peppercorns and chili's.
A huge basket of quail eggs. In America, we keep all of our eggs, whether they are from hens, quails, etc. cold in one form or another. Over here, eggs are left out at room temperature, never put in the fridge.
Pork and chicken are plentiful in the Chinese markets but you have to get there very early in the morning to get beef before it's all gone. There was a little old lady at this stall who was butchering the meat. We pointed to the section we wanted, told her roughly the weigh we were looking for and she hacked it off for us. The only problem with beef here is they submerge it in water to make it weigh more. The piece we had wasn't very red but once we got home and let it sit, the water bled out and it slowly regained some of it's color. However, when I tried to give it a hard sear in the pan it was next to impossible.
Next we went hunting for chicken. The stall had many chickens out for display, allowing you to pick and choose which one you liked.
Once you find the chicken you want, the woman cuts it open, removes some of the innards, and asks you which of the others you would like to keep.
Then we went looking for shrimp. You can hear in this video Andi and I discussing how her mom didn't like one guy's shrimp as he had many dead ones. They have just about everything you can think of here and some stuff you never thought of! You'll also notice that a couple of the fishes were "sleeping!" :p
Hello "Mr. Turtle"
Bucket O' Frogs
All the vegetables in the market are super fresh, most being picked just the day before. They had many different types of greens, Chinese celery, lotus root, Chinese string beans, all types of peppers, etc. What they don't have here in China are white onions, only red and others from the onion family: leeks, green scallions, etc.
The fruit here is also amazing! Everything is so fresh that once you get it home, by the next day it's already ripe. In America, we can get dragon fruit but it's very expensive, small, and has almost no flavor. Here they are the size of a small Nerf football and quite juicy. All the stands, like the one above, carry local fruit from around the city.
Large globe grapes.
Giant peaches. Somewhat similar to ours but with the texture more like an apple.
This photo I had to pull from online. These little guys I haven't found in the market yet but they are called Mei Mei or Chinese Plum. They turn them into juice which I have had several times whenever we have a spicy meal. The flavor is tart with a hint of sweetness and has the same color as coca-cola. I really wish we had this in the US as it's quite refreshing.
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