Salt-Grilled Fish, a Night Market and Living Near BTS On Nut in Bangkok, Thailand

The second the woman said “It’s near a night market,” I was sold.

I was sitting in a bamboo shaded rooftop cafe (“on” a rooftop cafe?) in Ton Sai, Thailand, trying to figure out where to stay when I got to Bangkok. A lot of the hostels seemed that they were downtown and a lot were out near Khao San Road, but the first seemed too chaotic and the second too touristy. I hate feeling like just another tourist. I’ve met some lovely travellers, but I avoid tourist traps like the plague. I want to know how the locals live—to really get to know their city, their lives, and their culture. And I love local markets. So when the Australian woman said she always stays at VX The Fifty Hostel by On Nut BTS  (light rail) in Bangkok right next to a night market, I looked it up. Less than a ten minute walk from the BTS, local day market, clean washrooms, has a kitchen, has laundry, has wifi and a friendly atmosphere, right next to a giant supermarket (though why I’d shop there I didn’t know)—perfect.

Not available for my requested dates. Imperfect.

So I booked the downtown Sukhumvit Hostelling International by BTS Thong Lo for a couple nights and then booked VX The Fifty for the rest of the week. HI was nice, had a night market right outside, too, and was convenient for walking, but it was sensory overload. Crowds and chaos and business and money and people and food stalls. That was fine for two nights, but on day three when I moved to On Nut, I felt my whole body relax. This is where all the people who work near BTS Thong Lo go home to after a day at the office. It’s where the young fashionistas saving money on rent came to buy vintage clothes at the night market. It’s where the locals hang out listening to music until midnight. It’s where cooks and grandmothers buy well-priced produce at the local market instead of odds and ends at little roadside stalls with a handful of chopped up fruit. Turns out the morning market is mostly for restaurateurs since most people eat out three meals a day and don’t even have stoves.

In fact, when the woman on the rooftop cafe heard me talking about needing a hostel with a kitchen, she frowned and asked why. Food on the street is so cheap, and it’s everywhere. Why would you ever cut your own watermelon? My response had something to do with having seen the water they wash those knives in, and having seen those unwashed watermelons they cut into using those gross knives. At least in Vietnam vendors sometimes wear plastic gloves. Thailand doesn’t seem to think that’s a big deal yet. Influenza, anyone?

So On Nut and I got along. From there it was inconvenient to go anywhere else in the city, and there wasn’t much to do around On Nut itself. But it was a great place to come home to, and it had that night market with a tented area full of food stalls serving sushi and fruit shakes and curries, pad thai and tom yum soup, stir-fried vegetables and dried anchovies, and grilled meat of every kind. Sauces, salads and curries to-go come in little plastic baggies tied acrobatically with rubber bands.

For my last night at VX The fifty, I knew exactly what I wanted to eat. I’d seen these huge whole fish coated in coarse salt on display (rarely on ice…) at a number of seafood stalls. A week before, I’d finally tried one at Sabaijai Restaurant, a local restaurant across from Healthland Spa near Ekkamai BTS. Sabaijai is known for its grilled chicken and its seafood, as a man who gave me directions to Healthland told me. So I’d stopped in and ordered the thing and been blown away. Here’s what’s so good about it: all that salt creates a crust that keeps the fish’s flesh moist and tender and perfect while it grills, a little like the fat in anything cooked “confit” keeps the juices in. The salt also helps preserve the fish longer without going bad. So win-win for everyone, especially Thailand, land of no ice.

Here’s how it’s served: you sometimes stuffed with herbs, then grill it, and then always serve it with more fresh herbs on the side (at least Thai basil and mint) plus lettuce and maybe steamed cabbage and runner beans as they did at Sabaijai. Normally I don’t eat anything raw in Thailand, but these I at least dried off with paper towels so I could experience the dish. My stomach wasn’t great afterwards, but it got through. The two salsas that accompanied (one green, one more orange) probably also had some uncleaned chili peppers in there, so I got light on them, too, but they’re so, so good. I skipped the third dark, soy-based dip for gluten reasons.

The two dips are for the fish flesh, if it’s not flavourful enough for you, and with a mouthful of greens at the same time, it’s heaven. Get it with a side order of sticky rice and a papaya salad. Perfect.

At the On Nut night market, I hoped the fish would be just as good. I’d seen a skinny Thai man eating a whole fish by himself for supper one day, and while I didn’t think I could handle that, I was going to eat my fill and bag the rest. The stall I went to was the last one at the back that advertised two kinds of salt-grilled fish. One is slightly cheaper than the other. Go with the more expensive one for 200,000 baht (or was it 250,000?). The less expensive one is tilapia, which isn’t as flavourful as the bass or grouper that they use for the more expensive one. You place your order, point to where you’re sitting, and wait. In a couple minutes, the tons of plates appear, or styrofoam if it’s to go. You pay after you eat, or when your to-go order arrives. I like that system. There’s a feeling of trust and respect for the customer.

It was just as good as Sabaijai…Again, I had to shake excess unclean water off the herbs and go lightly with them, but the two dips were delicious, and it came with rice vermicelli noodles. I sat with my honeydew melon shake and listened to the music. I think I even did an okay job of tearing the fish apart with chopsticks and a spoon while trying to not eat with my unclean hands (I wiped the spoon first on the inside of my clothes, hoping that would help. Night markets don’t have high-heat dishwashing facilities…you’ll more often see an old lady squatting with a bucket in the street. The bucket may or may not have soap in it).

Now I don’t know if I’ll ever make this dish for myself. It’ll cost about $5 for the salt, I think…Then $20 for the whole fish. Mostly it’s the waste of salt that bothers me because I’ll splurge on good fish. But you can’t even recycle the salt. It just gets washed away. I don’t want to think about the gutters in Thailand all clogged up with oil and salt.

But I do want to think about On Nut’s night market with its vintage shops where you can’t try clothes on, where no one speaks English, and where German sausages are sold next to salt-grilled fish.