Cho Con Market - The Non-Touristy One @ Da Nang in Vietnam

In Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), there's the Ben Thanh Market and at Da Nang, we have the Han Market. Both are known to be popular among tourists and hence, said to be very touristy and not representative of a local market.

Well, there's also the Binh Tay Market at HCMC which met the local requirement and in Da Nang, an equivalent local market would be Cho Con, also known as Con Market. This piece of information can be found on the world wide web and confirmed by Mee, the tour guide for our day tour to Bana Hills! 

Honestly, I am unsure if I stepped into the correct entrance but from the sights ahead of me, I must say this was a very wide passage between stores, and this contrasted with the ones at the other Vietnamese markets I had been to.

Unlike Han Market, it didn't feel like there were many tourists, if any at all. For a foreigner though, it means that many of the hawkers are proficient only in Vietnamese, and it will be hard to drive a bargain! 

How to differentiate whether the market is for the locals? The prevalence of household products, including crockeries, containers, baking tools etc. Things tourists wouldn't typically buy although I am quite interested in the baking and jelly moulds.

And which tourists in their right mind would buy fresh produce and bring back to their home country?!  to be fair, tourists who are like my mom would. She actually hauled back two large yams from China once. 

It would be funny to see people carrying trays of eggs back to their home country on an airplane! Sometimes, I shouldn't be surprised as Singaporeans do go for grocery shopping when they are in Malaysia. 

Fruits and flowers; even though I love fruits, the chore of having to find out the pricing, the risk of getting the "bad apples" as a foreigner and the difficulty in bargaining, deter me from moving forward. And with just Alex and me, I am also limited in the how many I could buy.

Super curious about the above; they seemed to be salted or preserved meat and I am wondering if they would be eaten with porridge or can be have had as a snack, similar to like fish satay / dried cuttlefish. I need a local friend!

I am a tourist; therefore, I kept a lookout more for the above. While many would go for tea and coffee, my focus was on nuts / seeds; be it cashew nuts or lotus seeds! After travelling to all three regions in Vietnam, I concluded that nuts and seeds were cheaper in HCMC, specifically Binh Tay Market.

Random photographs for your reference.

An internal segment existed at Cho Con Market; bringing me back to the narrow passages typical of local markets in Vietnam! Cramped with space, filled to the brim with a wide variety of goods and/or products, and sometimes wide enough for only a one-pedestrian traffic, this kind of shopping stressed me up! 

And as with most Vietnamese markets; the food section. 

Surprisingly, there weren't that many stalls offering nuts and seeds; I eventually stopped by the above and requested for samples to try. No sample, no purchase is my philosophy. 

Bargained and was eventually charged with the following: lotus seeds were 280,000 dong per 500 grams, dried jackfruit was 200,000 dong per 500 grams and cashew nuts with skin at 220,000 dong per 500 grams. 

I wouldn't go back to the same store again. Instead of taking the cashew nuts from the large bag, she claimed it would be the same kind of nuts in the boxes, which turned out different from what I sampled. Sorry, no chance given. 

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Address

90 Hùng Vương, Hải Châu 1, 

Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Bánh Bèo Tâm - Vietnamese Steamed Rice Cakes @ Da Nang in Vietnam

My first trip to Vietnam, specifically Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), brought knowledge of a dish with the name, Bánh Bèo, that gave a fresh twist to the non-assuming chwee kueh that I have known my whole life. 

Fast forward to two years later, and here we were; seated on stools and low table in an eatery (Bánh Bèo Tâm) at Da Nang, recommended by the Greatest Kon. 

Problem we faced was ordering as the menu was only in Vietnamese, and it's stressful as both Alex and I aren't fans of non-conventional meat / animal parts, which can be very common in Vietnam. Well, I did recognise banh beo and that's definitely on the to order list.

It's a small eatery with a tiny "kitchen" right at the shopfront. However, the customers were never-ending and many were for takeaways. Mind you, our visit was almost past lunch hours.

Sugarcane Juice - weather was hot and a cold glass of sugarcane juice would do the trick of quenching the heatiness! It came with lime and boy was it satisfying! What made me happier was that it cost 10,000 dong! That's like 60 Singapore cents! 

Bánh Bèo - this would be the chwee kueh lookalike that I was introduced to back in HCMC, albeit a drier version sprinkled with meat floss and pieces of sausages. 

Accompanying sauce was the soul that we required; soak in the steamed rice cakes to soften and make them tastier! Together with the delicious sausages, every spoonful was a moment of pure bliss! p.s. ric cake was a tad sticky for the teeth.

  

Bánh Lọc - next dish we ordered was based on luck as I simply chose the more expensive one on the menu, which cost 25,000 dong (S$1.30) for ten pieces. And yes, those are the cute, little ones wrapped with banana leaves.

After unwrapping, what appeared within was a gelatinous, translucent material that encased small prawns, and they were totally out of the world! Once my teeth bit through the jelly material, which was made from potato starch, the savoury, sweetness of the prawns engulfed my palate! 

Alex found the material a bit hard to stomach but my love for the dish was so deep; I would have said this dish would be one of the main reasons I am going back to Da Nang for!

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Clean sweep! And I shall be back in May, with my mom!

Address

291 Nguyễn Chí Thanh, Phước Ninh, 

Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Pricing

Sugarcane Juice - 10,000 dong

Bánh Bèo - 20,000 dong

Bánh Lọc - 25,000 dong

Click here for my 8 Days' Itinerary to Danang (The City of Bridges) & Hoi An (The City of Lanterns) in Vietnam