Lunar New Year - Temple Street

Temple Street Night Market
庙街

Markets in Asia are like cathedrals in Europe: If you've seen 2, you've seen them all. But, unlike cathedrals, markets always offer a delicious selection of street food, so we generally don't hesitate to add them to our itineraries. Usually, our main grievance with markets is the scorching afternoon temperatures, so a night market was a welcomed change.

After lubing up at Busy Suzy, and getting kicked off of the fire engine, we hopped into a cab and headed to Temple Street. We were expecting the standard market stalls offering tons of junk we didn't want and carts selling tasty treats, but we were more than pleasantly surprised by what we found. The part of the market where our driver dropped us off was unlike any market we've ever seen. It was mostly food, and not meat or produce, but kitchen after kitchen serving up awesome looking (and smelling) feasts.

Checking things out

During the day, cars probably drive down this street!

Mmmmeats!

The first open table we could find. And we had to hover for quite some time to snag this filthy picnic table...

It's not our mess

Everyone knows wealthy, educated prawns taste better!

Ahhh, the girl from The Ring!

Mmmm, garlic mussels

Man, were they tasty!

They're gone :(

The entire area was like this: crowded and chaotic

Razor clams in black bean sauce

After licking every shell clean of sauce, and before starting in on the plates, we decided a restaurant change would be a smarter decision. We wandered around a bit, checking out people's tables and taking wafts from kitchens so that we could make the most informed decision possible.

Smoked meats

Dippin' sauce

What you really come to a night market for!

Feast Round 2

Our wandering and sniffing led us to a crowded, tiny restaurant down an alley. It was really just a door between some large air conditioning units that had a crowd of smoking, drunk men around it. It smelled like heaven and looked super sketchy, so we knew we had made the right choice!

Garlic sauteed broccoli

More clams
(in a spicy black bean sauce this time)


An amazing eating opportunity!