Surinamese CHINESE & INDONESIAN Breakfast Markets Tour | Paramaribo, Suriname

Huge flaky bun, I mean, this is incredible. This feels like I'm in China. Hey, good morning, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. This is David Hoffman from David's Been Here in beautiful Panamaribo, Suriname. I'm here with my guide Imano from Jenny Tours, and today we have an epic tour for you guys. We're gonna go to three different markets to eat street food. We're gonna go to a Chinese market, a Java market, and then another market that's basically on the street. But before we do that, we're here at Independence Park, and every Sunday at 6.30 in the morning, people bring their birds. There's like three different type of birds. What happens here is people bring them just to show off their birds, right? They're in their cages. You can hear them, you know, making chirping noises. But once a year, there's a competition to see which birds can whistle the longest, right? Once a year, though, it's not today. We're just gonna see the birds right now. Then after we see the birds, we're gonna go eat. Yeah, now this is a picolet. Yes, and on the other side there, you have the roti. So these birds are like very small birds. This one's black, like really dark bird. And this whole area right here, this is picolets, right? It's all these right here, and the roti's over there. What about the other one? The totoa. The totoa, and the totoa's here, yeah? Yes, on the other side. On the far end, okay. Okay, great, I mean, yeah, so as you can see, just cages. Everybody's here with their cage. They set it up, let the bird relax here. And that's basically, yeah, I mean, it's just to come here and see them. And they don't want me to get too close to the birds, so I'm gonna keep my distance about a meter away so I can just show it to you from here. And yeah, I mean, this is what it is. It's 6.30 in the morning. It's so hot right now. I mean, it's definitely the middle of summer right now. And I definitely think it's something you should do if you're here on a Sunday in Paramaribo. Come out, see the birds, just, you know, admire them. Thanks, guys, thank you. And now we're gonna go eat. It's so early, it's not even seven. And oh, this bird's beautiful. What is another? Which one is, it's the picolet? Wow, beautiful bird. And yeah, now what we're gonna do is we're gonna go eat some delicious street food. I am super, super hungry. I got, and I can't wait because he was saying that the Chinese one, we could probably have some like dim sum, some dumplings, maybe some wontons. Oh, Chinese food in South America, amazing. Okay, so we made it here to the Chinese market. And outside we have these like tents, these yellow tents. And here we have some street food. Wow, perfect. This is my favorite thing ever. Oh, this is my favorite. Wow, how many different ones? Oh my God, this bun is huge, man. Huge buns. And here we have some like dumplings, some wontons. Oh, dumplings here. Wow, okay, we gotta try this, man. It's so good. Yeah, you guys are right. So what is this one? This is chow bao. Chow bao? Yeah. Wow, and then these? This is shumai. Shumai? Okay, I love shumai, oh my God. This takes me straight back to China. Did you eat this before? Yeah, in China I eat it in a lot of this. Yeah, man, it's so good. Oh, okay, let's eat it. We're gonna eat everything. So that's the pork bun? Yeah, this is pork. I'm gonna give you one chicken. Oh, no, no, no, too much. Not a problem. You may eat this, you want a chicken and a pork? Yeah, I'll get a chicken and a pork. The vendor here went a little crazy and he gave me one, two, three, four, five different things but I got two of each over here. So I have a chicken shumai, a pork shumai, I got a beef ball, and then I have two buns, chicken bun and pork bun. Okay, I'm gonna try the pork bun first. Pork bun all day. Oh my God, this is like going straight to China right now, man. I'm in South America right now. I mean, this is like super cultural. I mean, going here, having Chinese food on the street in South America. Suriname, man, amazing. Nice, juicy pork in there. Love the sauce. The sauce makes this so good. Huge flaky bun. I mean, this is incredible. This feels like I'm in China. The taste is almost the same. Different spices, but still very Chinese feel. Now I'm gonna try some of this. So I'm gonna separate the buns, right? Try some of the shumai. And they gave me some sauces here. So I'm just gonna break it open here. Like a little hole. Look at that, whoa. Whole thing. I couldn't do anything else about it. Just popped out. All right, so I'm gonna try first the chicken shumai. So I gotta dip the chicken shumai into the soy sauce, right? Get a little bit of that. Oh my God. Thank you. Water. Oh, you need water. Right now, it's like almost 100 degrees and it's only 7 a.m. All right, let's try this. They thawed this chicken. They also put yolk in there. So delicious. They just teleported me back to China. That's how I felt. I was just in China like two months ago. Oh my God, this is like amazing memories. I'm reliving my vivid dreams from Shanghai. And here we have the beef ball. Right there, just dip it. The only thing that doesn't make this like super authentic, 100% authentic Chinese, is that I'm eating with a fork. Whoa, this one actually tastes way more gamey. I know it's beef, but the texture, it's like a denser texture, almost like a sponginess to it. A little tough. That's why it has a gamey taste to it. And next up, we have the pork one. Pork shumai. The food's phenomenal, man. All right, so for this one, spice? Nah. Nah, no spices today. Jumping on the pork shumai. Mm. That was the best. Oh my God. This is so tasty. So airy too, this one. It had like a little more like air pockets throughout. Whoa, I'm being so blown away by the food. And I love how this is like straight up street market. So the market, as you can see, has like, now it's filling up with me, easily like 20 different vendors here. They're also doing similar things. There's a few more dishes, obviously, like wonton, fried wonton. They have some stuff wrapped in banana leaf. But you gotta take it easy, you gotta go slow. If you eat too much in one sitting, you're done. All right, so this is the chicken bun. Okay, you gotta take off this, right? Always remove that little wrapping on the bottom, paper. I've eaten that before, not good. And the reason, you know, this chicken bun is on top, you see that little yellow and little orange right there? Chicken. So good, so good. I love this like orangey red sauce they have inside. You're gonna open it up, oh, paper. I won't lie, I actually like the chicken bun better. It has just a lot more meat inside. Nice, rich sauce, wow. Man, I can't stop with the pork bun, it's just too good. Hey, thank you, thank you. Have a nice day. Amazing, amazing, like too good. The chicken bun, the chicken bun's the best. Wow, thank you guys. There's the tofu, the fried one, and there's the fresh one. Fresh one. Yeah, the fresh tofu looks phenomenal, but this fried one, oh, that is like the best. And then here we have some like buns with some cream inside. This is more like a bakery style over here. And then we have even more Chinese food. I mean, look, you got some what? Sao mai, so more sao mai. You have some, so what is that? Chicken legs. Pork. Pork, wow, more buns. They even have pizza, Chinese pizza. Once you pass all the street food vendors, you get to this area in the middle where there's like two vendors selling vegetables, right? What are these vegetables? I've never seen some of these. All right, there's the kai soy, or pak soy, and this one, the kai lam. The kai lam. Yes, and there's the lung bones, and there we have the eggplants. Very nice, I've actually, I've never seen eggplants like that. Is it like long eggplants? It's different. And then over here we have some frozen seafood, right? And then once we pass this, we have some duck. Oh, and some sausage. Look at these ducks, man. And the sausage, can we try sausage here? Like, oh, wow, yeah, we're gonna try some sausage right now, guys. Sausage, oh, and this is like the chicharron, the pork rinds. Woo! All right, so next up, I'm gonna try a Chinese sausage. Look at this. Whoa, this is like chorizo. Oh my God. So this pork sausage is called fashion, and it has this delicious sauce that you always eat with like, you know, chicken or duck in Chinese restaurants. The sausage itself, the outer layer, like the wrapping, you can't really break through it. It's really difficult. So you have to just get in here and pull out the food. Mm, nice chunks. Mm, delicious chunk of pork right there. Straight fat, straight fat. Mm. Oh, wow. Like, it's so good, I need to stop. I need to stop right now. Okay, so I decided to get one more thing here, and it's fish balls on a stick. So it comes with five fish balls on a stick. They look like they've been fried. Let's try it. Little different, you know, because when it's fried, it's very different from steamed, because it actually tastes like popcorn chicken, but obviously with fish inside. It's good. I wouldn't rank it up there as my favorite thing ever, especially for Chinese street food, but it's decent. Maybe one more bite. Mm, I think you need hot sauce for this one. Okay. Dumpling. Fried dumpling. The name of this market's called Songning Market, which means Sunday Market. So it's every single Sunday. Starts at around seven in the morning. Right now, it's 8 a.m., and as you can see, it's bustling, a lot more people right now. All the vendors are open. They're all doing lots of business. Everybody loves this, because there's so many things to try in Chinese food. I mean, easily, like 20 things to try. I tried like six, and I think right now, I'm gonna get what? Sugar cane. Oh, man, I used to do this a lot in India. In India, you do it, but on the street, the guy has the sugar cane, and he brings it, and he does it, but here, it's like more of a machine, right? Here we go. Oh, man, so sweet. Sugar cane juice is the best. This is the best thing in the world to rehydrate you on a super hot day. Today is like extremely hot, and it's only 8 a.m. Wow. Oh, thank you. Throw it over here. Woo! Chinese market was epic, epic. No, now I'm beyond excited to go see the Indo market, because Indonesian food last night blew my mind. You know, that's one country I haven't visited in Asia yet. Indonesia, I gotta go. Indonesia, you're calling me. All right, so we just arrived here to the Sauna Market, the Java Market. It's the biggest Indonesian market in Suriname, and basically, in case you guys don't know, the island Java is where the capital Jakarta is, Indonesia, and people from Java immigrated here in the late 19th century, and yeah, so they immigrated here, and they stayed. You know, a lot of people came over. I don't know exactly the number, but you can see the influence here. The food, Indonesian food here is unbelievable, and yeah, we're gonna try some stuff. Oh, lots of food. Here we go. So as soon as we walked in, we saw an Indian vendor making vada. It's not vada pav. It's a little different. So what it is is flour with a vegetable mixed. It's dough. They fry it, and it's just like this delicious donut. You know, in India, vada pav is more like the Indian burger, you know, potato fritter, and then you cover it with a bun, but here, it's a little different. I might try that later, but right now, I'm gonna look for some Indonesian food and also explore the market, and right here, we have nonstop veggies. Look at this. All these greens. Oh, wow. This is great. So I think we have satay, some stomach. We have some other stuff. I love this, the shredded coconut. Wow. Yeah, I love that, and the egg. What else do they got? Oh, so those are fried banana? Wow. I mean, everything looks so amazing, and it's just like a lot of different small plates. Lot of satay, so they do a big amount of satay, and the stomach, I mean, I don't know. That doesn't look. I can't eat that, okay? I gotta just try other things here. For sure, some satay. At least one. The liver. Okay. All right, so I decided to go with three different things here. Okay, I got liver satay. So liver on a stick. Amazing. It looks so good, and it has this delicious sauce, and then we have fried banana, deep fried banana with a peanut sauce, and then we have a lumpia, which is like an egg roll, Indonesian style, with spicy ketchup, right? So I'm gonna try this one first. Look at this. What? I love the density of liver. Yeah, no, it's a peanut sauce, but it has a little bit of another taste to it. I don't know exactly what it is. The flavor is very different. Super dense, love the texture. Mm, mm. This is the best. It tastes so good. Wow, this is my first liver on a stick. Mm, oh, I love it. Get to the very end. You know, drench it in all this delicious sauce. Wow. This is my favorite thing of the day. Yes? Yeah, it's so freaking good. I just love liver. Every time I get a chance to get liver, I do it, but this way, on the satay, with the sauce, mm, oh, man. Best liver I've ever had in my life. Right there. Delicious deep fried banana. No, and this peanut sauce looks even better than the last one. Mm, so it's basically banana, but more like a plátano. So plátano, the plantain, is a little different than a banana. Dude, this is so good. It's almost like a maduro. Very sweet with the peanut sauce. A little spicy as well. It's not too fried. It's just like just right. It's not too deep. And the inside's super mushy, you know, banana. Fried banana. Mm. Look at this lumpia. So you got the egg roll, deep fried egg roll, with some, he was saying that it's like spicy ketchup. Mm-hmm. So it's actually stuffed with this veg, you can see. Mm. It's nice, though. Nice egg around it. You see, it's almost like an omelet, but in the middle you have the veg. It's not exactly like an egg roll. Usually an egg roll's very stuffed with a lot of things. This one only has two different veggies in there, the egg, and that's it, and it's fried. The liver was the best, but banana is number two. Yeah, you know what? I'm not leaving anything. I'm actually gonna put the lumpia straight into the peanut sauce as well, because it's so amazing. Oh yeah. I suggest you do the same. Wow, so only 15 SRD, which is Sernam dollar. So that's just under two US dollars for all this. Wow, very filling. Oh, and a water, thank you so much, thank you. Woo, that food was so freaking good, but I think I'm gonna take it easy right now. My stomach is a little overloaded right now, just a lot of food. Everything I ate was fried, and really, really filling, so I'm gonna go get a juice. Now, what juice is this? Edawa. Edawa? Yes, it's like the coconut milk one. It tastes like coconut. Yes, it's just a coconut taste. Yeah, so it's basically like coconut mixed with like rose milk and syrup, and it's right here, this pink one. All right, so we'll get one. And it actually looks like it has boba on the bottom, like little jellies. This is the coolest part about Sernam is that it's so diverse, so diverse. I mean, eating Indonesian food, you're eating Indian food. You can eat, what else, Chinese food. You got African dishes. I mean, what a mix of cultures. So here we have the edawa. Coconut, rose milk. I'm 100% sure it's rose milk. They haven't really clarified that, but it's rose milk, and then on the bottom, you have the boba, right? I love boba. Boba is basically like small jellies. Oh, wow, this one's super sweet, extremely sweet. Oh, wow. Like a little billion jellies like rolling through there. Love the milk, love the coconut. Combination between the milk and the coconut and the syrup with rose. I can't tell you how good this is. Super refreshing on super hot days like this. Obviously, on the island of Java, it's extremely hot as well. So, I mean, they brought that from there, right? I'm gonna have to like, just go like this. Look at this. Like, look at how many come out. It's all jellies. Whoa! This is the best like boba, rose milk, coconut drink of all time. Especially, it's so hot. Right now, it's 915, and it's easily 100 degrees. I don't stop melting. You can see, I'm just sweating, sweating, sweating. I have to show you this. So this is Monica, one of my subscribers. She reached out to me, and she came to the market. Amazing. This is her son. He's so cute, he's so cute. The Java market is basically made up of like four main rows of vegetable vendors. Then, at the very ends, you have the street food. You have street food in the beginning, you have street food in the middle, and the far right, you have also some vendors selling clothing. And the guy over here is selling some amazing fish. They're like cooking the fish, deep frying fish. I'm a little too full, so I didn't wanna go for the fish right now. And then, yeah, there's some other people here walking around with the birds. Yes. More birds. But yeah, in terms of like veg, you can find everything here. You got avocados, you got bananas, you have cucumbers, you have cabbage. They have so many delicious veggies. Wow. So much street food. Oh my God, and the heat. I don't suggest coming here in the middle of summer. Maybe come here in the winter. It'll be cooler. And I highly recommend getting one of these slushies. There's two vendors here at the beginning. They're making incredible slushies. They have the huge ice, they shave it, and they mix it with different ingredients. Usually it's like some syrup-type ingredients with like mango, papaya, just a big mix of flavors. And that's it for the Java market. We're gonna go now to see one more market and have, you said try some wine, right? Yes, the Kasiri. Kasiri? Yes. And what's Kasiri? Yeah, this is from Cassava. Okay. And it's the Indian, the Merindian market, where they make juice, wine. Wow. Yes. And what's the name of this market we're going to now? Floja Mark. Yeah, Floja Mark, yes. Yeah, so this next market we're going to is not a market like this one that has like an actual area. It's more along the street. Lots of vendors along the street. Basically all they're selling are like clothing, a few different souvenirs, and then the wine. And this is the Floja Mark. Open only on Sundays. As you can see, lots of vendors along this road. We're parking. We're just trying to park in the middle of here. And we're going to try some wine. Kasiri. Let's do it. That's a Kasiri? Yes, it's a Merindian wine. Okay. Yes, it tastes like 2% alcohol. 2%? Yes. That's it? So this thing only has 2% alcohol. That's not bad. No. That's super light. After trying a 16% beer yesterday, that's like nothing. Prost. It's good, it's light. It's very light. Yeah, it's not light. Not strong, not that strong. But it's very nice. It has almost like a rosy taste to it. Like a little bitter. More like, it's like an earthy wine taste. But you definitely have wine. Oh, I like it. This is awesome. It's so good, I'm going to finish it. And what I like about all the drinks here in Suriname is they're really made to cool you down from the intense heat. That's like perfect, just like, it's like leveled me down, you know? I was so hot, and now I'm like. So we've got a vendor here selling birds, the birds we saw this morning. So I guess it's a big thing here in Suriname, I didn't know about this. So everybody has their bird, and they do a little competition. Hello, hello. Front one, you have the parquet. You have the, yeah, this is called canary. Yes. And the picolet. The picolet. Yes, and you have the roach there, this one too. Yeah, so, I mean, there's so many different species here, and they're all like very, very small birds. They're all almost like parakeets, little parakeets. Vinegar fruits inside. Vinegar fruit? Yes. Okay. Yes, and you have mangoes, you have olive, cherry, pomeciter. Okay. Yes, and it's called birambi. So basically, the fruit has been sitting inside vinegar. Yes. That's what it is. Cool. And next door, we have clothing. And basically, this is what this market's all about. I mean, it's a mix of vendors from clothing. They got CDs for sale here. They have street food as well. They have more veg. They got the birds, they got the drinks. So it's a big mix of stuff here. It's not just like Chinese or Indo. It's just the biggest mix of all the ethnicities here in Suriname. This is really nice. You should definitely come and experience it if you're here on a Sunday and go shopping, right? Maybe we buy one more thing. Let's buy one more thing. We have two different cassava. This is the bitter one, and this is the sweet one. With this one, you can make some snacks like chips or the cassava soup. All right, so our Sunday market tour is over. We ate so much delicious Surinamese street food. It's a mix between Chinese, Indo, and also Maroon Indians, right? Maroon. Maroon Indians. So we went to three markets. We started at the Chinese market. Had a few things there. Everything was super delicious. My favorite thing, I think, was the chicken bun. It was so good. Creamy. I love the sauce. Then we went over to the Java market. The Java market, we tried three things. My favorite for sure was the liver on a skewer. So sauteed liver. Oh, so delicious with the peanut sauce. Just super sweet. Then after that, we came to this market. This one's more spread out. This is more just a mix of clothing. It's basically a lot of clothing. There's a few drinks. There's some food. But besides that stuff, it's mainly clothing. You got shoes. You have pants, shirts, et cetera. And yeah, I think we're finished with the market tour. I thank you so much, Imido, from Jenny Tours. We had a great day today. Woo, it is too hot though. I'm gonna go inside and cool down. And guys, if you love this video, give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see you in the next Travel Food Adventure in Suriname, South America. Peace. ♪♪♪