Asian grocery stores (NTW article "don't call it an 'ethnic' grocery store" )
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There is a huge Asian grocery store in Oklahoma City. It's bigger than some big chain supermarkets. Its owners are Vietnamese, but I believe the store is accurately described as Asian, because I think it carries products for the cuisines of many Asian countries. It stocks hard-to-find produce, plus high-quality produce like you'd find at any nice grocery store. I've seen a house nearby growing tons of bitter melon in their front yard, and I wonder if local people supply some of the less common vegetables by growing them right there in the city. In the spring, they have starter plants for many Asian vegetables and I think some flowers.
There are multiple freezer aisles of all kinds of dumplings, shumai, etc., followed by multiple aisles of various sauces and canned goods. I think it's possible that at least some dim sum restaurants could stock their kitchens from those aisles. There are aisles and aisles of tableware, cookware, and other cooking supplies. There's a lot of fresh seafood, including whole fish, crayfish, etc., etc. There's a well-stocked butcher. It's completely not what I expected in OKC. If we lived closer, I'd have gone more often.
The owners came from Vietnam in the seventies. I learned this when the OKC newspaper wrote an article on them when the store celebrated its fiftieth birthday.
There are grocery stores from several cuisines near our new house but, honestly, nothing like Super Cao Nguyen.
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Chicago is rich in cuisine diversity, and that includes grocery stores. We have Patel Brothers, HMart, Mitsuwa, along with any number of independent grocers that carry products from all over Europe. Polish, Russian, Italian, German.
So much food. So little time.
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My wife shops at Oriental Market (yes, that its name) a few miles from us sometimes. She was introduced to it when she was tutoring English as Second Language classes for two Korean ladies. It moved to a larger building a couple of years ago.
She likes what she buys there and much of the produce is very good. I've shopped with her a few times. The most frustrating part is the shelves and shelves of different foodstuffs that I have no idea what they are or what to do with them. I could use a tour guide.
We have a decent variety of Mexican, Indian, and East Asian food stores in our general area, with a bigger choice in the Strip District of Pittsburgh where a lot of food sellers are concentrated. When trains delivered produce in refrigerator cars, it was the focal point of that trade in the region.
Big Al
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I love Uwajimaya; I don’t know if they all have bookstores in them, but the one in Beaverton does. Kinokuniya. I could spend a lot of time in there looking at craft books, pens, paper.
If I want something not quite as refined, I go to Fubonn, which is a very large grocery/everything store in Portland. The produce is great. And where else can I get pig snouts? (I don’t, but they are available.)
