I don’t recall seeing the one near Stagg Hill, but I don’t get over that way often. Thanks for mentioning it to me. I will probably stop in and see what they have too.
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You can get fish sauce and korean pepper flakes through amazon. Last time I got this red pepper flake and it is quite good:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005G8IDTQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Red Boat fish sauce is great, and available through amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Boat-Premium-Fish-Sauce/dp/B00B617XK2/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=red+boat&dchild=1&keywords=red+boat&pd_rd_i=B00B617XK2&pd_rd_r=1d3ae191-d506-4abb-a028-8b56ae21c0aa&pd_rd_w=91MHH&pd_rd_wg=hwpWH&pf_rd_p=d027eaac-7531-45fe-a61e-20ae30db06de&pf_rd_r=BEQNT1KKFFYTFD3AGRMY&psc=1&qid=1590287470&sr=1-1-70f7c15d-07d8-466a-b325-4be35d7258cc
We used to get Three Crabs before switching to Red Boat and it was good too. Last year we got to visit Phu Quoc island in Vietnam, where many fish sauces are made including Red Boat. We had a brief tour of a fish sauce factory which was pretty cool.
Also got to check out the local open market, which was amazing, and a black pepper farm.
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Thank you @HollyGates for your recommendations! I saw that brand of red pepper on Amazon as well.
Your trip must have been fantastic! When you toured the fish sauce factory, did you learn how long they ferment their sauce?
The market must have been fun! looks like squash blossom and purple sweet potato in front of the woman in the blue shirt. Is it something more exotic?
The place we visited said they fermented for one year. That is a long time!
Actually at the market there were a lot of things I didn’t recognize. I wish I could have spent more time there and bought more things, but my younger kids hated it (noisy, crowded with people and scooters, strong smells, weird foods. Check out their expressions, ha ha). Plus we were only there for the weekend so I couldn’t but very much. Phu Quoc island was only a 2hr flight from where we were living near Kuala Lumpur and is the only place you don’t need a visa to visit in Vietnam.
There were probably more than 100 stalls and shop fronts like this - certainly the most impressive and varied open market I have ever been to. The freshness and selection of seafood and fruit in particular was incredible. Here are a few more pics from the market.
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I just realized after seeing the red pepper flakes that @HollyGates linked to that they are the ones I meant to link to in my original post.
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Wow!! Their markets are so very different from ours. I can’t wrap my mind around buying meat that has been hanging and sitting at air temp. The little squids kinda give me the willies!
Friends sent me pictures from open air markets in Israel showing all the spice vendors. It was beautiful. This reminds me of those pictures. There are some interesting looking things in your pictures!!! Definitely lots of fruits and vegetables I have never seen before. Wouldn’t it be fun to sample them all? Your kids may have been on sensory-overload! That would be a lot to take in all at once.
Thanks again for sharing your pictures and first hand experiences. It makes this all more interesting for me.
@speedster1, i watched Emmys video again and jotted down her recipe. I didn’t find it in type anywhere, but i think i got it all. Only thing i was unsure about is whether she used just half of the yellow onion or a whole one. How much do you use?
We stopped at our one and only local grocer after church today. I was hoping to grab some Napa cabbage, garlic, and ginger. Totally struck out. I have to wait on the peppers and fish sauce to get here anyway, so I will have time to get to the ‘big city’ to get the rest. I will post pictures when I finally do this!
I sure appreciate all the pictures, links, and helpful advice here. You are all so awesome!!
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Yes, you have to have a more flexible mindset about food safety and cleanliness I think. People survived a long time before refrigeration became widespread and in many places the supply chain is still largely unrefrigerated. One thing to consider is that refrigeration allows those supply chains to get way longer in distance and time than would otherwise be possible. So without refrigeration, you can be reasonably sure the food has not traveled super far or long before you buy it. One time I heard a radio story by a food safety researcher and her opinion was that assuming the food had not been colonized by a pathogenic bacteria, as long as you could stand to eat it it would be fine to eat. In other words it would be disgustingly rotten before it would be unsafe to eat for most people. If there has been pathogenic bacteria, then refrigeration and cooking help to reduce the chances you will get sick from it so there is that.
Another point is that in most of Asia, people don’t really eat fruits and veg without either peeling or cooking them. This helps a lot with food safety. Traditionally people don’t really eat stuff like salad - more like cooked greens and peeled fruit.
The kids had never been anywhere outside the US besides canada before we moved overseas. After our very first trip to the open market in Kuala Lumpur, my second daughter was so traumatized she became a vegetarian! She says it was all the raw yellow chickens hung up and the frogs (or little birds? dont know…) on skewers. It was a lot for them, and not at all what they expected when I said we were going to the “market”. We had just got to Malaysia so we were not used to the heat and it was mid day so sweltering hot and extremely crowded with sweaty locals - who looked a lot different than people you see at the farmers market in our hometown in america. We were also not used to the ever present smell of durian and tobacco smoke in a place like this, along with mystery putrid liquids flowing along the narrow street, getting nearly killed by motor scooters every couple minutes, stray cats eating mystery tidbits, cacophony of people haggling, etc. I personally love an open market like this, but my two little kids never really adjusted to going to them and eventually I stopped dragging them along since it was clear they were not into it. My middle daughter was much happier hanging out at an air conditioned high end mall, of which Malaysia has many! She has a sensitive sense of smell, a vivid imagination, and is a squeamish eater. Oh well, good life experience in any case, hopefully it won’t require years of therapy to draw the sting.
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I could be way off base, but it is my perception that a good majority of Americans do not appreciate our strict food safety laws here. People who don’t farm, ranch, garden, etc. seem to have a disconnect with their food!
Visiting other countries, such as you have done, may open people’s eyes to see how blessed we are here, rather than to complain about the quality of food we have available to us. The safety of our food supply, from grower to retailer and everything in between, is really quite amazing if you think about all the steps and processes it goes through to get from farm to our table. That being said, I realize a lot of us here are gardeners, as well as orchardists, because we like to grow what we eat.
I don’t consider myself squeamish really, but I would still do a double take at some of the open market practices. Not sure what I would or wouldn’t eat without asking a lot of questions first! Assuming I could speak the same language. 
Anyway, it looks really cool. Sounds like you had great experiences. Hopefully your kids will be able to look back and realize how exciting it all was and and laugh about the craziness of it all…
I really did laugh out loud! That’s an experience to remember for sure. 
I forgot to post my picture of pickled radish! I made these yesterday.
I realized how close the Chicken-mu recipe is to a pickled onion recipe I have. I added mustard seeds, as my recipe calls for and upped the vinegar to make it a 1:1 vin/water ratio. I added sliced cucumbers and red onions, which gives everything a lovely pink color. They are fabulous!! The radish tastes like, well, a pickle. No discernible radish flavor, which totally works for me!
I also made a jar of quick refrigerator dills (on the left) while I had stuff out. Radish, red onion, cucs, fresh dill, dried cayenne peppers, black pepper, garlic. As well as salt, a bit of sugar, water, vinegar. Also very good!
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Speak of the scooters, it reminds me of my experience in Hanoi Vietnam. Those scooters were so fast that they scared me to death. Whenever I have to cross a smaller street with no traffic light, I held on to my husband’s arm and look straight forward, tried to ignore the scooters coming at me.
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