Big C Market

This is the shop you go to when you need sun cream, a SIM top-up, beer for the villa and something familiar from home, all in one stop. The grocery floor covers Thai staples and a decent run of farang products, and the wider centre has a KFC, a bakery, a coffee shop, a pharmacy, toilets and an ATM. Outside in the car park, independent grocery sellers set up with fresh bits and pieces, which is often the more interesting shop of the two.

It's been modernised and expanded, and shelves are generally well filled. Two departments let it down, though, and reviewers keep saying so: the fresh vegetables can be tired, sold out or unclearly priced, and the meat trays sometimes look like they've been sitting a while. If you're cooking, buy your produce and protein at a proper local market and use Big C for everything else. Prices on some lines run above what you'd pay elsewhere.