The Duong Dong night market, one plate at a time

A long street of grills, tanks and pepper stalls where you can eat your way from sea urchin to coconut ice cream, if you go slowly and keep an eye on prices.

Area

Duong Dong & west coast

Start from

Duong Dong town

Distance

walking distance

Time needed

one evening

Best season

All year; showers in the wet season pass quickly

Difficulty

Easy

Transport

On foot

Tickets & rules

None

Why go

Phu Quoc’s night market runs along a short street near the Dinh Cau shrine, and from about five in the afternoon until late it is the busiest place in town. Tanks of live crab, lobster, cuttlefish and grouper line the pavement, grills smoke under strings of lights, and stalls in between sell pepper, dried squid, pearls and sim wine in old bottles.

Yes, it is touristy, and it has been tidied up and reorganised in recent years. But Vietnamese families from the mainland come here too, and the food is good if you choose carefully. I treat it as a progression rather than a dinner: a grilled scallop with spring onion oil here, a sea urchin there, a glass of sugar cane juice, then dessert somewhere else.

It is also a good, painless introduction to the island’s products before you visit the pepper farms and fish-sauce houses themselves.

The story

Night markets are a recent arrival on Phu Quoc in their current form. Until the 2000s the island had little tourism, and most evening food was eaten at home or in small eateries along the river. As flights increased and the first resorts opened along Long Beach, the stalls around Dinh Cau multiplied until the town organised them into a proper market street.

Seafood is sold by weight, the old way: you point at what you want, it is lifted out of the tank, weighed in front of you, and you tell the cook how you want it done. Grilled with salt and chilli, steamed with beer, or stir-fried with tamarind are the classic choices. The system works well if everyone agrees on the price per kilo and the weight before cooking.

Look out for gỏi cá trích, a herring salad that is something of an island speciality: raw fish cured in lime, mixed with coconut, onion and herbs, then rolled in rice paper with greens and dipped in a peanut and fish-sauce sauce. It sounds odd and tastes wonderful.

Another local name is bún quậy, a noodle dish from Phu Quoc in which fresh shrimp and fish paste are pressed into the bowl and you mix your own dipping sauce from a counter of sugar, salt, chilli, lime and fish sauce. Ask locals where they eat it; it is a small cult.

Getting there

The market street is off Vo Thi Sau and Bach Dang streets in central Duong Dong, a couple of minutes’ walk from Dinh Cau. Ride-hailing cars can drop you close by, but the last stretch is pedestrian at busy times.

If you are staying at the north end of the island or in the south, a taxi takes thirty to sixty minutes each way, so plan to combine it with a sunset at Dinh Cau.

A suggested plan

1. 17:30Sunset at the Dinh Cau shrine, five minutes away.
2. 18:15First pass down the market without buying anything, just looking at prices and what is fresh.
3. 18:45Seafood at one stall: agree the price per kilo and see it weighed before it goes on the grill.
4. 19:45Herring salad rolls or bún quậy at a smaller local place, then sugar cane juice.
5. 20:30Coconut or fruit dessert, a little pepper to take home, and a slow walk back along the river.

Where to stay

Duong Dong town hotels are within walking distance and make a late evening easy. From Long Beach it is a short, cheap ride. From the far north or An Thoi, consider eating in your own area most nights and coming here once.

Good to know

• Ask for the price per kilo and the total weight before cooking, and confirm it once more when ordering.
• Pepper, dried squid and sim wine are cheaper at farms and markets away from the main street, but quality here is usually fine.
• Go hungry but order small; the fun is in moving between stalls.