The municipal market in Higüey is a working Dominican market, emphatically not set up for tourism. Produce from the fertile eastern lowlands comes in here — plantains, avocados, yuca, chili peppers, and tropical fruits — alongside hardware, clothing, and the miscellaneous goods that keep a provincial city running. It is crowded, noisy, and somewhat chaotic, which is to say it is entirely typical of Dominican market life.
Go in the morning when it is at its busiest. The streets around the market are lined with street food stalls selling cheap breakfasts of mangu (mashed plantain), fried cheese, and salami, or fresh fruit smoothies. This is the place to eat if you want a real meal rather than a resort approximation of one.