I love Leeds Market, of course, for its gloriously colourful Victorian, cast iron architecture, the fish alley with is beautiful displays of the British catch all laid out on crushed ice, Butcher's Row with it fancy dressed meats and the vegetable stalls that supply all the ethnic groups in Leeds like the Jamaicans, Chinese, Polish and even Ethiopian. There is the Nigerian tailor with her technicolour clothing and exotic 'medallion man' mock purple snakeskin shoes, the retro record and video shop with its dodgy knock-offs, and all the other wonderful fashion, luggage, cakes, deli, eggs, game and toys to mention but a few of its marvels.
I still think the Mercat de la Boqueria on La Rambla in Barcelona is one of the most exciting food markets I have ever visited. It is unrivaled, in my experience, for atmosphere and amazing quality of local fish, vegetables and flowers
Hoi An food market (for there is also a cloth market ........ only for the very brave I might add) is only small but it as Vietnamese markets go it is very approachable, well lit with wider aisles than usual and it uplit by the sun reflecting off the river. There are lots of things you have never seen, heard and smelled before but everyone is very helpful and polite. I find the market people in Saigon a bit brusque and they always bump up the price for foreigners but Hoi An isn't too bad. They aren't saints by any means, but they are manageable rogues I think!
The old lady that was sitting beside these two colanders of flat fish probably came to market with only 10 or 15 fish in total. She will have caught them in the Thu Bon and rushed them straight to market. Most of the fish for sale is still wriggling and the stall holders keep them alive in plastic tubs or by swilling ladles of water over them to keep them breathing. They couldn't be fresher if you caught them and whipped them onto the barbie yourself.
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