What to Eat & Drink in Son Tra Night Market?

Son Tra Night Market is a paradise of street food and local dishes. For that reason, it should be in the to-do list for foodies and food lovers. More food options will be seen on Saturday and Sunday. Besides food, visitors can find some local drinks, such as sugar cane juice, bubble tea, lime iced tea and other fruit teas.

Visitors will see many Da Nang’s local specialty food and regional food to try, including Banh trang cuon thit heo (pork belly wrapped in rice paper, served with anchovy sauce mam nem), Mi Quang (a noodle dish with white/yellow rice noodle, shrimp, pork, quail egg, raw vegetables), Banh xeo (a crispy pancake wrapped with rice paper, pickles, raw vegetables and served with fish/peanut sauce), Banh trang nuong (grilled rice paper topped with crispy potato, fried shallot, chopped spring onion), Banh mi que (stick bread filled with pork sausage or pork belly, raw vegetables, sauces), common Banh Mi (Vietnamese bread filled with meat, pickles, raw vegetables, herbs, sauces), Nem lui (grilled lemongrass pork skewers), Banh loc (clear tapioca dumplings, naked or wrapped in banana leaf), Banh nam (flat steamed rice cake), Banh beo (savory steamed rice cake served with fish sauce), Trung chen nuong (egg and other toppings are cooked/grilled in a small ceramic bowl), so on. For dessert, kem bo (avocado ice cream) or che (sweet soup) are always local picks. In general, the price of these dishes is affordable, not expensive.

Fresh seafood is popularly seen in Son Tra Night Market during the summertime. Mostly, local vendors serve grilled options. Solo travelers or those who just want to try or do not eat many, can find yummy skewers of prawn, squid, octopus, or scallops, snails, clams…. For larger groups, a combo of different types of seafood is a better choice. The price for seafood combo is often not expensive. However, we recommend going to restaurants by the beach instead, if you want to see higher qualities.

Besides seafood barbecues, snail dishes are also slightly diverse at Son Tra Night Market. Eating snails is a part of local cuisine in central Vietnam. In this market, snails (oc mong tay – razor shells, oc gao – ‘rice’ snails, oc huong – ‘perfume’ snails or babylonia areolata,…) and other molluscs (so lua or chip chip – undulate venus, scallops, clams, …), from both rivers and sea, are cooked with spices and herbs (such as lemongrass, ginger, chilli, more). The most famous dish from the region is Oc hut or ‘sucking’ snails, a savory snail dish which people use the mouth to suck to get the snail meat.

The sellers will serve a small plate/bowl of these tasty snails and shells, together with fresh herbs and dipping sauces or pepper-lime salt. Locals use hands or toothpicks to pick their meat (so, please bring hand sanitizer to wash hands because of no clean places at the market). For dishes in which seafood is stir-fried with specific sauces or coconut milk, locals also like calling a bread, to shred it, dip and eat with the flavourful sauce. The sauce itself usually is a little salty, buttery, spicy and sweet. Trying snails in Vietnam is an interesting experience.

Some vendors introduce seafood with a cheap price at Son Tra Night Market (for example, lobsters or squids). Seafood looks so fresh when visitors see, but when people serve, may be frozen or dead seafood. Be careful!

Other things to eat which visitors can see at Son Tra Night Market are local processed food, such as caramelized seafood (squid, small sea crabs, fishes,…) or sweet/salty cakes (coconut crackers, coconut rice papers, mango rice papers, green bean cakes, sugared fruits, biscuits,…). Vietnamese tourists often buy them to bring home as souvenirs and to eat with their family. Samplings are free of charge, and the sellers are happy to give tourists one or some.

Fresh tropical fruits are in Son Tra Night Market too. At the present, there are sweet or sour (green) mangoes, Vietnamese durian, jackfruit, mango steen, rambutan, lychee, longan, banana, papaya, apple, grape… Foreign visitors can buy some fruits to eat and know their flavours (don’t have too many one kilogram or more!). Local sellers often are happy with this deal. To see more options, you can go to Han Market or Con Market in the city downtown.

Like anywhere in Da Nang, sellers at Son Tra Night Market will be friendly to buyers, no matter if they are locals or foreigners, buy one thing or many things, first customers or not. Likewise, sellers do not mind allowing tourists to take photos or make videos at their shops (although may not get anything). This is the reason why Da Nang draws millions of people a year.