Food porn: Shots from real Southeast Asian markets

When I ate at ChoLon Modern Asian Bistro for this week's Westword review, I was fascinated by how Lon Symensma and his partners, Jim and Alicia Deters, had reinterpreted the Southeast Asian market and turned it into a fine dining restaurant. And as I wrote the review, I referred frequently...

By Laura Shunk

February 3, 2011

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When I ate at ChoLon Modern Asian Bistro for this week's Westword review, I was fascinated by how Lon Symensma and his partners, Jim and Alicia Deters, had reinterpreted the Southeast Asian market and turned it into a fine dining restaurant. And as I wrote the review, I referred frequently to the many photos I'd snapped of markets in Vietnam and Laos on a recent visit.

The markets in Asia have a frenetic energy, and they inspire all kinds of culinary experiences. Here are my favorite moments -- from the beautiful to the ugly, the delicious to the incredibly strange -- captured in the markets I visited on the Indochina peninsula.

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Laura Shunk was Westword's restaurant critic from 2010 to 2012; she's also been food editor at the Village Voice and a dining columnist in Beijing. Her toughest assignment had her drinking ten martinis and eating ten Caesar salads over the course of 48 hours. She still drinks martinis, but remains lukewarm on Caesar salads.

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