Late last fall I heard talk about a new Mexican market that had opened in Apple Valley. Before I could investigate, we went away for three months to Bombay and Seoul and I forgot all about it. And so when my friend Ben P. alerted me last week to the presence of Bodega 42, raving about everything they had bought there, it was only going to be a matter of time before I got there. Checking out their website, I discovered that they also have a restaurant right next to the market, named Homshuk. Accordingly, earlier this week the missus and I drove up to Apple Valley for lunch and a bit of shopping. This is what we found. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Urban Markets
At Noryangjin Fish Market (Seoul, February 2024)
I’ll stay in Seoul to close out the week but instead of a restaurant report I have for you a look at the city’s premier fish market: the massive Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market. I made two visits to the market. The first was on a weekend early on our trip, with the family and a large group of students; and then towards the end I took a smaller group of students there as well for a birthday-related outing on a weeknight. As it happens, both visits involved eating as well—a major feature of the market is the large number of seafood restaurants where you can have things you buy fresh at the market cooked up for you. However to keep things manageable, I am focussing in this first report only on the market as market. I’ll post my report on the two meals—one a lunch, the other a dinner—next weekend. Continue reading
Eating at Tongin Market (Seoul, February 2024)
Of all the markets we visited in Seoul in February and March, Tongin Market was the closest to where we were living. It also turned out to be the one least like the others. Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market, Cheongnyangni Market, Mangwon Market and the Noryangjin Fish Market are all markets first. Cheongnyangni and Mangwon markets are neighbourhood markets that include some food vendors. Namdaemun Market has famous food alleys but they’re really secondary to the real business of the market which is retail sales. Even Gwangjang Market with its prominent food alley is dominated by shopping during the day. And Norynangjin is a massive wholesale and retail seafood market with restaurants attached. Tongin Market, however, is different: it’s almost entirely about food vendors. It ended up therefore being a very different experience than all the other markets, feeling more like walking through an extended food court. We visited towards the end of February with a large group of students. This is what we found. Continue reading
At the Sassoon Dock Fish Market (Bombay, January-February 2024)
As my reports from Bombay wind down, I finally have for you a look at the place I went back to more often than any other: the Sassoon Dock fish market in Colaba. At the time that I booked the flat in Colaba in which we lived for five and a half weeks I had not realized that it was so close to one of the city’s premier fish markets. But when I did I was very excited. As it turned out, it was just about a 7 minute walk from our building. Reading up on it, I learned that it’s best to go very early in the day. Thanks to jet lag this was not going to be a problem and so I was there before sunrise on our first morning in the flat. Over the next few weeks I went there a bit later each time, but never very far past sunrise. Predictably, I took a lot of pictures on each visit—both of what I bought each time (we ate a lot of excellent fish and shellfish over our stay) and other things at the market that caught my eye. As being a blogger means being able to inflict your excesses on the world, you too can look at almost all the pictures I took across those visits. You’re welcome! Continue reading
Mercato Sant’Ambrogio (Florence, June 2023)
We spent most of our last full day in Florence not in Florence but in Pisa. It’s a fairly quick train ride and we decided to use up on one of our days in Florence on that visit and keep our upcoming days in the Tuscan countryside a little more relaxed. A good decision, on the whole, even if it meant punting on a few museum visits in Florence. Truth be told, with the kids, there’s a limit to how much museuming we can do on a trip anyway, and the previous day negotiating the crowds at the Uffizi and the Accademia had pretty much exhausted the adults’ energies and patience as well.
What was definitely a good decision was picking up a picnic lunch before departure for Pisa at the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio. Continue reading
Shopping at Mercato Centrale
Last week I posted about our lunch at Mercato Centrale in Florence. That report was focused on the food options at the large market: some of which are located downstairs—where we ate—and most of which are located upstairs. Of course, Mercato Centrale is not just a food hall. The food counters, and especially the formal food hall upstairs, may be what attracts the tourists, but the ground floor houses a large and active market. At the front of the market are the salumi and cheese and pasta and dry goods sellers; but if you go a bit further in you’ll find the butchers, the fishmongers and the fruit and vegetable sellers. We wandered the market for a while after eating our sandwiches and pizza and here now is a look at that part of Mercato Centrale. Continue reading
Mercato Testaccio (Rome, June 2023)
Lunch on our third full day in Rome also featured pizza but it was not eaten at a restaurant; it also featured more than pizza. We took the bus out of of the tourist center to check out and eat at Mercato Testaccio. As the name indicates, Mercato Testaccio (or Mercato di Testaccio, if you want to be more grammatically correct—though the market’s own signage clearly doesn’t) is located in the Testaccio neighbourhood. Unlike a market like Campo di Fiori—where we had fruit juice earlier in the day—Mercato Testaccio is located indoors, in a modern building that lets in a lot of air and light. It is filled with stalls (or boxes in the market’s parlance) that range from clothing and shoe stores to butchers and fishmongers to fruit and veg sellers to a range of food purveyors. In the center is a seating area where most people vie for tables to eat. In other words, it’s along the lines of similar markets found in many large cities around the world, including Minneapolis’ own Midtown Global Market. Continue reading
Eating at Gwangjang Market, Pt. 2 (Seoul, March 2023)
Here, only about four months after my return, is my last dining report from my trip to Seoul in March. It features the third and fourth of four dinners in a row eaten at Gwangjang Market, my absolute favourite place to visit on this trip. As you may recall from my first dining report from the market, at my first visit I ate dumpling soup; and on my second, I ate yukhoe tangtangi (seasoned raw beef with the chopped tentacles of a recently dispatched octopus). By the time of my third visit my overeating had been catching up with me. I’d eaten a deep-fried lunch at Namdaemun Market that day and so was in the mood for something light and fresh. Accordingly, I honed in on the stalls selling hwe or sliced raw fish and sat down at the first one that had empty seats. The following night I happened on the stall of an international celebrity but passed on the dish she is most famous for, in favour, once again, of something light and fresh. Details follow. Continue reading
Eating at Gwangjang Market, Pt. 1 (Seoul, March 2023)
Back to my favourite place eat when I was in Seoul in March: Gwangjang Market. I have already posted a look at the market’s evening food scene, replete with a truly excessive gallery of images. That report did not, however, take in any of the four dinners I ate at Gwangjang Market on four successive evenings. Here now is the first of those reports, which covers the first and second dinner. The first dinner comprised two courses eaten across two establishments: first, dumpling soup eaten sitting down at an establishment on the main drag; and then, for dessert, as it were, fried chicken picked up from a vendor on one of the side alleys who did not offer seating. The next night I went back specifically for yukhoe, or seasoned beef tartare, and repaired to one of a few establishments that specialize in it: Changshin Yukhoe. (A video from this second dinner got some people very angry with me on Instagram—but more on that later.) Continue reading
At Namdaemun Market, Part 1
Back to Seoul, back to Namdaemun Market. My first report from the market was of an excellent lunch in the market’s famous Kalguksu Alley. I ate there on the day of my second visit to the market. I visited the market on three consecutive days and ate lunch there on three consecutive days. Why didn’t I eat at Kalguksu Alley on the first day? Well, I couldn’t find it. On that first visit I was also unable to find the market’s other famous food “alley”: Hairtail Alley; the specialty here is galchi jorim or braised/stewed hairtail fish. The main reason I was unable to find these alleys is that I didn’t know what I was looking for. I’d not really done any research on the market and had lazily assumed that everything would be very visible. Well, the market itself is quite obviously visible but there’s no signage for the food alleys—you kind of have to know where you’re going and what you’re looking for. In my post on that Kalguksu Alley lunch, I told you how to find it; in this post I offer a broader look at the market and finally a look at Hairtail Alley, which I more or less accidentally found myself in while wandering around after lunch in Kalguksu Alley. Continue reading
Margao Fish Market (Goa, January 2023)
Almost exactly three years after our trip to Goa in 2020, we went back again for a week. Once again, we were staying at the home of friends in south Goa (they don’t live there but very kindly make their lovely house available to close friends and family). One of the highlights of that trip was buying fish and shellfish at the local fish market and having the cook we’d hired in the village we were staying in cook it up for us. I’d posted a look at that market—the Thursday market in the town of Assolna—not long after getting back to the US in 2020. This time I have a look at a fish market for you before getting back to the US (we’re in Delhi for a few more days), but it’s not the same fish market. We arrived this time on a Sunday and didn’t want to wait till Thursday to get the local fish and seafood dinners going. Accordingly, the first thing we did after landing at Dabolim airport was make a beeline for the big fish market in Margao, before heading to our home base in Velim. Herewith a look at that market. Continue reading
Eating At Mercado Central (Minneapolis)
Something that a lot of people in other parts of the US don’t know about Minnesota is that we have a large Hispanic population here—and following that, a pretty good Hispanic food scene. Mexican food dominates this scene, predictably, but there’s also good food to be had from elsewhere in Latin America. Hell, I’m not sure that a lot of people who live in Minnesota are as aware of this as they should be. Sadly, the local professional food press barely highlights any of this, just as they barely highlight any restaurants serving the food of recent immigrant communities. Their attention seems to be almost entirely taken up by p.r-driven restaurants of the kind that get nominated for James Beard awards. Now, I like eating at some of those restaurants too but they’re only a small part of the larger food scene in the Twin Cities metro. Those who have anxieties about the Twin Cities not being seen as cosmopolitan enough by coastal observers might consider that cosmopolitanism is not experienced only at the high end. Continue reading
A Lot of Fish and Some Vegetables at Chittaranjan Park Market (Delhi, March 2022)
I have been in Delhi for just over a week now (and will be here for just under another week). If you’ve been following my gluttony on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been eating rather a lot. Well, I suppose that wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who reads this blog, even if you don’t follow me on Twitter. Most of my meals have been eaten at home and many of them feature a genre not easily replicable in the US: Bengali fish dishes. Yes, Bengali fish (mostly from Bangladesh) can be found frozen in desi stores but I stopped buying them a long time ago over concerns about sustainability etc. When in Delhi though I partake freely. Now, you may be wondering how I partake freely of Bengali fish in Delhi but you shouldn’t. There’s been a large Bengali population in the city for a long time (part of the larger Bengali diaspora). Bengalis are spread over the city but it is the neighbourhood of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi that is the most iconic locus of Bengali life in the city. And it is in the Chittaranjan Park market that the best Bengali fish can be found. Or so my mother insists, anyway, having shopped here for several decades. Today I accompanied her to the market to buy some fish. We also bought some veg. Here is the pictorial evidence. Continue reading
A Quick Lunch at Moroccan Flavors at the Midtown Global Market (Minneapolis)
I was up in Minneapolis for some annual medical appointments earlier this week. Due to some scheduling complications what was supposed to have been a few appointments in the mid-morning became appointments before and after lunch. I wasn’t sure where I could go for an outdoor bite in the area and so rolled the dice and decided to walk to the Midtown Global Market. Early lunch on a weekday, I reasoned, was not likely to find the market crowded and thankfully this proved to be true (well, the vendors at the market would probably prefer it otherwise). There were other people there eating but there was plenty of space and most people seemed to be masked when not eating. I knew where I was headed: to Moroccan Flavors. I last reported on a meal there in early 2017 (they’d opened the previous year). We really enjoyed that meal and I cannot explain to you why we haven’t been back. Well, I went back on Tuesday and had another excellent meal. After the meal I wandered the market a little, noting some changes. Here is a quick look at it all. Continue reading
The City Market and Lunch at Pigwich (Kansas City)
I do very much enjoy walking around urban markets in cities I visit. Accordingly, a stop at Kansas City’s City Market was on our itinerary. Originally, this was supposed to be our last stop on the Thursday of our trip. It’s located in the north of the city, right by Highway 35 and the plan had been to go for a walk by the river, browse the market, eat a quick lunch at Pigwich and hit the road. All of this got thrown for a loop by my lame trip planning. I’d put a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on the agenda for Wednesday (preceded by lunch at Gates-Bar-B-Q). Of course, since I only bothered to look at the museum’s website closely on Wednesday morning I discovered rather late in the game that the Nelson-Atkins is closed on Tuesday and Wednesdays. (Isn’t all this detail fascinating?!) So we went to the Nelson-Atkins and Gates on our last day and on Wednesday started out with a walk by the river, a stroll through the City Market and lunch at Pigwich. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Scenes from the Thursday Market in Assolna (Goa, January 2020)
I still have a few restaurant reports to post from our two weeks in Delhi in the first half of January but I cannot resist first posting this gallery of images from what was one of my favourite outings during the following week we spent in Goa: shopping for fish/seafood at the local village market in Assolna in South Goa. We spent a week in the lovely home of old friends in the even smaller* village of Velim. We spent most of almost every single day there on the beach and ate lunches out. We hired a cook from the village to prepare our breakfasts and dinners (we were the only ones in the house). Quite apart from not wanting to spend too much of the day on cooking, this allowed us to eat Goan food twice a day, and in particular it allowed us to eat a lot of local fish and shellfish. Continue reading
Wandering and Eating at Chelsea Market (New York, August 2019)
This was actually our second full day in New York, and our first Sunday. The major plans for the day involved a walk on the High Line followed by a production of Puffs (a Harry Potter parody/tribute we took the boys too and which they loved). After that we were scheduled for early dinner with an old friend at Bombay Bread Bar. Those dinner plans changed later—we ended up at Ippudo Ramen instead and ate at Bombay Bread Bar the following weekend—but we needed to grab an early lunch before getting on the High Line. Looking around on Google Maps, Chelsea Market looked like a good place to get a range of things we might all like. Continue reading
Mangal Bazar (Delhi, December 2018)
In Minnesota, in Montreal, in London, in Hong Kong I’ve taken pictures of green markets and posted them in slideshows on the blog. But though I’d been back home to Delhi three times between starting the blog and my most recent trip in December, I had not done the same from there. In some places you’re a traveler and in some places you’re just at home. Going to the market when I’m back home is no more remarkable an affair than going to Cub Foods here. But on this trip, perhaps because I’d made two market reports from Hong Kong, I took my camera with me on a visit to the weekly haat (or open-air market) by my parents’ neighbourhood of Sector 25, NOIDA (a suburb of Delhi). Here are most of the photos I took. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 