Asian supermarkets and stores

>>8466063
Thai chilies, pork belly, curry paste...lots of stuff really.

>>8466079
What this anon said. If it's a decent place you'll be able to find sauces and ingredients for a bunch of Asian dishes. It's more up to you to narrow down what cuisines you're interested in and buy some pantry essentials for them.

What do you want to cook? Thai curries, Chinese stir fries, ramen?

Pretty mu h everything i go to one for duck and cheap fresh seafood best place to get duck fat as well

It's probably a waste of time to go there unless you know Asian themed dishes and now to cook them.

Most of the ingredients on sale won't even be in English. I only know what to buy there because I lived with an Asian girl in college and watched her cook often

Veggies, seafood, pastes, things for stocks, snacks.

Agree with anon who said pork belly, and really pork/chicken in general is cheaper. The exception is beef, for some reason that tends to be more expensive. But I did manage to grab two decently thick ribeyes recently for $14, whereas if I attempted to buy at whitey grocery it would've been $20+ easy for the same thing and weight. It's just timing and luck.

Also don't underestimate their frozen section. You can find really yummy buns and dumplings. As well as desserts.

>>8466126
Asians get a bad wrap, they're really helpful if you ask a question. If you walk in with a recipe or list of ingredients just have the balls to ask and they'll help you find it, assuming they know your native language.

>>8466063
A whole supermarket full

>>8466063
Buy all your instant noodles from them, there's always a better and cheaper selection than in normal supermarkets

And maybe get some frozen dumplings/buns or other wacky snacks.

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>>8466141
*rep

>>8466063
specialty snacks, wonton/dumpling wraps, tapioca bubbles, tea/drink powders, exotic vegetable like Lotus roots, yu/bokchoy, & peppers, various mushrooms, marinated meats, and import drinks. Dumb rare stuff like Oreo O's cereal, too, if you're into things like that as they will import stuff if you ask them.

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>>8466231
>exotic vegetable
>bokchoy

>>8466063
Fish sauce
Exotic ramen
Asian mortar and pestle
Prepacked spices and masala
Canned asian fruits (try lychee)

Vegetables tend to be cheap at Asian supermarkets, especially leafy greens.

>>8466063
they have nice bakeries too

>>8466542
My local Asian shop has a bakery and it smells so good, but then they say that they're less pastries/cakes, and more savoury.
Anyone have any thoughts? Is it worth giving them a try because it's like £1.50 each and I wonder whether it's worth it.

>>8466063
Everything they sell you can get in Walmart much cheaper.
Don't encourage immigrants, they're not welcome.

>>8466566
agreed

>>8466566
This is untrue.

BUILD WALL.

>>8466566
Fuck off ya cunt.
Regardless of position on immigration you're going to get much better quality at prices not too much more expensive than supermarkets like WalMart.

And then you also have a greater range of products available as Asian stores are highly specialised.
Good luck walking in to WalMart and looking for fresh Lemongrass or something similar. That's not to say shit like bok choy isn't garbage and a waste of money, but there is definitely merit in looking for speciality ingredients outside of a supermarket.

So sure, go to WalMart if you're ok with bland as hell barely seasoned dishes since you have a stick up yer bum that means you feel a hard working individual doesn't belong in your country since you were born there and they or their parents weren't.

>>8466606
Bok choy is no more a waste of money than celery, because water content. I tempura fried bok choy once and it came out amazing.

Not that bok choy is anything to be revered, I'm not suggesting that.

>>8466630
I never really understood the appeal of it. If you're looking for a filler vegetable, onions/shallots are much better IMO and more readily available.

I'd consider it if it wasn't so expensive and such a delicate ingredient. I can buy a kilo of onions for about the price that I could get a meal's worth of bok choy, and the onions will also stay fresh and usable much longer.

>>8466566
>immigrants not welcom

You're about 400 years too late, son.

>>8466063
Interesting snacks. Dried Squid is pretty awesome. Premium Ramans and Udons. Foreign markets in general have awesome prices on spices. If it's a bigger store with a butcher, they usually have awesome prices on fish. If it's got produce, the prices are usually good too. Curry mixes, cheap cooking supplies. I have a great single burner hot plate, wok, and cleaver I got from one. Oh, yeah. the cutting board. It was like 5 bucks for what I assume is a cross section of a telephone pole or something. I use it with the cleaver because it's sturdy and I don't want to hack up my good boards when hacking through bone.
Sake.

>A whole supermarket worth of fresh vegtables and meats
>don't know what to buy

christ you're fucking pathetic

>>8466695
This desu famalam.

>>8466558
eat it. then you'll know if it's good or not.

or use google and find out what pastries people from country X eat

anyway OP, go to rasamalaysia.com, find a recipe you want to try, then buy the ingredients.

Essentials:
>dark soy sauce
>kecap manis
>sesame oil
>kaffir lime leaf
>lemongrass
>tamarind paste
>coconut milk
>rice noodles (pho and beehon/mifen)
>Chinese noodles
>Chinese vinegar or Japanese rice vinegar
>fish sauce
>galangal
>fermented shrimp paste (belacan)
>shrimp/crab chili paste
>gochujang
>doenjang
>any kind of rice wine
>shaoxing wine
>Chinese five-spice and/or tea spice mix
>maggi or gold mountain seasoning sauce
>gochugalo (thin chili flakes)

Also recommended:
>all kinds of instant food mixes from Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand
>drums of all kinds of curry pastes
>tom yum paste
>kalamansi and lime juice
>dried mango
>any kind of vegetable you can't find in another supermarket
>shrimp chips
>frozen dumplings
>wanton, spring roll, and dumpling wrappers
>rice paper for spring rolls
>banh mi bread
>sweet chili sauce
>fried shallot

>>8466231
Almost like cancer on a stick.

>>8466747
>fried shallot
Sneaking in the most retarded thing on your list right at the end there buddy?

>>8466761
Piss off, Shallots are amazing.

>>8466761
fried shallots are an essential ingredient in sambal and the basis of numerous Malaysian and Indonesian dishes. It also makes a fantastic seasoning and goes well in several Thai dishes. You can make it on your own if you want, but I get a huge bag for 2 bucks from my local supermarket.

>>8466566
>Yes gwai low, all Walmart products are 100% Amelican, at super low prices!

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>>8466761
>Sneaking in the most retarded thing on your list right at the end there buddy?
Huh?

I'm not that guy, but fried shallots in a canister is a common asian grocery item. It's like French's fried onions, but razor thin fried tastier shallots instead. You can eat them like candy as a snack or combined with some mixed nuts, sprinkle on top of stir frys, on soup. I like them on casseroles, potatoes, on top of burgers, steaks, etc, not just asian food. They sell them in a huge gallon canister for a reason. People buy it and use it at home (Vietnamese and Thai cuisine). It's a really common garnish and bring both texture and flavor. They're also more expensive for Americans to make at home, since shallots are more a luxury priced produce item, costing 10x that amount of garlic or onions, most of the time. A canister for $5 is probably equivalent to $50 dollars in costs.

>>8466063
You can get rice extremely cheap if you buy large bags from them. Their pastries are also usually interesting (not necessarily good).

>>8466822
I personally think Chinese and Vietnamese pastries taste excellent, especially HK ones. However, their Western pastries are garbage. This is easy to deal with in an Asian grocery store in a Western country, since the closest thing to a Western fresh baked good they'll sell is banh mi bread, which is great.

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>>8466834
>banh mi bread
>bread bread

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>>8466063
They have pretty damn good prices on vegtables.

Also getting a giant tub of peeled garlic for like $4 is fucking awesome.

>>8466132
What kind of desserts do you recommend?

>>8466834
>banh mi bread
It's literally a fucking baguette you goddamn hipster retard, the sandwich is leftover from french colonization of the area. Vietnamese food is shit and your kind are shit for liking it.
>fuck pho
>fuck bhan mi
>fuck vietnam

>>8466868
>>banh mi bread
>>bread bread
Yeah, and the best banh mi is T-Bell's 7-layer burrito.

>>8466288
>Fish sauce
what do you use this for

>>8466566
>Everything they sell you can get in Walmart much cheaper.

Walmart just has top ramen and soy sauce

>>8466920
How long will that tub last if kept refrigerated?

>>8467191
>Vietnamese baguette = French style baguette
whew lad

>>8467191
I'm fucking a Vietnam, shit's pretty nice.

>>8466468
why would you buy vegetables?

>>8466566
Asians literally did nothing wrong

a lot of the produce and meat they sell is cheap as fuck compared to ytpipo supermarkets because they don't waste money on advertising and shit

>>8467987
Roof Koreans even did us some favors.

>>8467997
And they don't report cash sales to the IRS, same reason gooks will polish your nails cheaper for cash.

>>8467453
a dash of fish sauce is actually good in almost everything because it's not super fishy and gives a lot of savory undertones

>>8466063
When I was a poorfag I did almost all my shopping at that exact store. Shits cheap af

>>8467453
Using small amounts of fish sauce is common in a lot of curries and soups from south east asia.

>>8467191
t. Frog who is still severely butthurt that they got their ass wiped by the Vietcong at Dien Bien Phu and had to have the US attempt to cleanup their failed colonial mess.

>>8468056
>>8468005
neat, never heard of it. Is it like soy sauce?

>>8466063
If you learn some of the basic moves of a couple Asian cuisines hitting the Asian market allows you to feed yourself a healthy diet for pocket change compared to a western supermarket. It's really easy to make delicious things that have a food cost of under $1 per meal. Chinese in particular like to eat well but hate spending money. Learn their secrets and you can easily feed yourself for ungodly cheap.

>>8468075
No, nothing like soy sauce. It's clear, crisp and fresh. Good stuff, love it on cucumber.

>>8468075
It's got s stronger flavor and aroma than soy.
A good fish sauce has a very strong smell on its own but you only use a tablespoon or so in a curry.
I can't really describe its taste but its really salty and a little bit fishy.
It's similar to oyster sauce if you have ever used that?

>>8468075
It's made from salted fermented anchovies. Smells like death, but tastes amazing.

>>8468108
>>8468106
>>8468104
>>8468075
what's the difference between oyster, squid and fish sauce in terms of taste? Do they actually taste like their respective sources?

>>8468117
I've never had squid sauce but fish and oyster do have a slightly different flavor, you could probably get away with switching them out in most dishes.

>>8468117
Oyster is sweet and thick, nothing like fish sauce which is watery and light. I don't know about squid

>>8466566
lol what? Walmart doesn't have everything and any asian stuff they have there is marked up way higher than what I can get in an asian grocery store. I do all my shopping at asian grocery stores since everything is just cheaper there, like vegetables and meat.

>>8467191
it's literally not
I've never had a banh mi that was anything like a baguette beyond appearance

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I never trust them. I think everything will be full of bugs.

>>8466231
Melona is fucking outstanding. By far my favorite frozen treat. Great taste anon.

>>8466288
What the fuck is fish sauce for? I have a giant bottle of it

>Chinese supermarket nearby
>Dad has a bad encounter with a security guard
>Vows to never go there again
>Can't even shop there anymore without getting shit from everyone

>>8469032
>>8468056

>>8469032
in SE Asia it's pretty much used as a substitute for salt. it's especially used as a salty agent in foods that would call for seafood. it's also great for grill recipes, J Kenji Lopez recommends it in his carne asada marinade

>>8469066
>The Life and Times of Tyrone Jamal

>>8469287

What's that even mean?

>>8469292
It was supposed to be a joke :(

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>>8467165
Depends on what you like. It's mostly going to be ice cream and fruity things. Samanco snacks are basically ice cream sandwiches, and then of course there's mochi ice cream. Definitely worth the look.

>>8466566
Wal Mart has objectively shit produce. I'd say even worse than Aldi. With less variety. Shit rots after the second day because they pack with gas, or takes forever to ripen because they harvest too quickly to stock demand.

>>8469401
>beans and ice cream
>semen-co

>>8466566
>don't shop at stores which use non-American labor and sell non-American products
>shop at Wal-Mart
kekkkk

>>8469406

>Aldi
>Shit produce

Woah is that true? I only ever buy snacks and frozen shit

>>8469604
Maybe it varies from store to store, but every single one I went to in the UK had produce that smelt like manure, and it was generally low quality. Always had good luck with their pears though.

>>8466566
I can't even get udon noodles at my wal-mart lad, the asian market is useful.

>>8466063
Asian vegetables, spices, fireworks and banned imports.

>>8466141
If you cannot find all of the ingredients without needing to ask for help cooking might be out of your depth.

>>8469677
not everyone can read Chinese dude

t. a dude who can read Chinese

>>8469688
You can use google's translate app to live translate things with your phone's camera, probably want to download the language pack beforehand.

>>8469698
As the guy he was responding to I wanted to say this but I wasn't sure on it's moon rune language support.
I use it to translate the Spanish flyers posted in cheap hole in the wall burrito places.

>>8467471
Good question, I hate peeling garlic but always thing these things will go off pretty quickly.

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>>8469698
>>8469701
>great, thanks for helping me find dark soy sauce, guys

My argument is you should be able to find dark soy sauce by look. I own some dark soy sauce I didn't ask the clerk where it was.

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Any good chink beer out there?

>>8469820
For what purpose?

>>8469820
Dunno about good, but Tiger Beer? It's originally Singaporean/Malayan.

OP, make sure you buy this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yujacha

>>8469820
Tsingdao is just about my favorite macro beer.

>>8466558
get a char siu bao, those are mad good

>>8466658
I like bok choy with soups and stir fries. Onions will impart flavor and no matter how much you like onions your dishes can get too oniony. Bok choy has a very subtle flavor that doesn't leech as easily. Heck a semi-healthy meal is to just throw a handful of bok choy into instant noodles to instantly upgrade the meal.

>>8469743
there's no way to discern dark soy sauce unless
1. the bottle is in English
2. you can read Chinese
or 3. you've bought a certain brand before and know what that brand looks like, and the store you go to stocks it

if you're trying to buy it for the first time you're out of luck

>>8470416

I can't read chinese. But I can certainly draw or print out the characters (or just look at them on a smartphone) and then match that to the stuff on the shelf.

Also, once you've bought and used dark soy sauce before you can easily tell it apart from the normal kind by looking at the viscosity and the color that it leaves behind on the empty part at the top of the bottle.

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>>8469401
I fucking love those things.

Do they have better tea at places like this or am I better going to a specific tea place?

There's a H mart nearby and I'm hoping they are cheaper than the Teavana near me

>>8466695
It's a lot of new things and he's overwhelmed. I get it! I've been going to my Asian market for years and I still find little treats and surprises that I hadn't known about before.

>>8471223
Teavana has garbage tea.

>>8470427
Or, you know, you could ask somebody paid to help customers where a product in their store is. Like someone capable of social interaction.

>>8471223
Yep! It's good stuff. Try to see if they have any lapsang souchong. Their herbal teas are also very good. Some will want for you to dip the bag into a cup of boiling water for a few seconds, pour out the dipping water, then use the tea bag normally. Please do this for teas with fruit rinds-- it tastes better this way.

Be sure that you're buying a tea for meals, and not a medicinal tea. The latter doesn't taste very good and will take up a reasonable portion of the aisle. Fortunately, its health benefits are loudly advertised on the packaging.

Tripe, beef tendon and other assorted parts you won't find in an average supermarket.

>>8471274
How dare you suggest I actually converse with another human face to face, you philistine.

>>8471310
Also sheep, hog and bull penises occasionally. Not even joking. Next time I go I'll snap a pic. I have no idea how they're cooked or even what culture uses them. Asians? How are these prepared?

>>8466063
>obscure spices or herbs or sauces

If you can find sichuan peppercorns, those are really the shit. They have a "numbing" taste that is the basis for a lot of Sichuan food.

Any Asian mart will probably have more varieties of shozu than you can find at a normal supermarket.

Fermented long bean paste is another staple that shows up in Sichuan sauces and whatnot.

My local grocery store doesn't carry Ponzu sauce, but the Asian market near my house has like, half a dozen varieties.

Prawn chips are pretty awesome. The best ones come in a tall can.

The produce tends to be a little cheaper, but there are also ingredients I can't find at my local supermarket, things like Asian eggplant and some cabbages and roots.

Oh, and cans of Thai curry paste. The Thai government apparently regulates the contents of canned curries in order to preserve the image of Thai food internationally because that could affect tourism. So those little cans of curry are probably the same shit as what your local Thai take out spot are using. Making a delicious Thai curry at home is pretty sweet.

>>8466566
:^)
>weeb bait.jpg

>>8467165
I always see thai sweet sticky rice in bamboo shoots, they are really awesome when done right in the oven

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>>8470416
>>8470427
why not just buy several varieties your first time and note which one is best? I mean, it's not like shozu is expensive. You could probably get 3 or 4 bottles for a couple of bucks each. Is $6 really going to throw off your whole fucking grocery budget? Just skip the avocado toast on sunday and you'll be fine.

>>8471773
that's not the problem, genius. the problem is that you could end up buying four bottles, two are regular soy sauce, one is kecap manis, and the other is Taiwanese dipping sauce, and you still don't have what you need to make your fucking hong-shao rou

>>8472893
>kecap manis

so make another trip to the store, genius. In your fictitious scenario, you now know that none of the bottles you have are right, so go back and try again. Maybe this time you can prepare by using Google to learn what the fuck you need looks like.

Or you could just make something else for dinner and improvise with what you have.

Also, hong-shao rou can be made with regular light soy sauce and brown sugar. Or you can use kecap manis. Your whole premise is weak and you talk like a fag. KYS.

>>8471483
>Ponzu sauce,

Is ponzu sauce similar to soy sauce? I see them side by side a lot at the store

>>8471483
What makes Thai curry paste "Thai" and not just curry paste?

>>8473086
kecap is way too sweet for most Chinese recipes

>>8473094
no, ponzu is a kind of seasoned vinegar

>>8473098
galangal, shrimp paste, chilis, lemongrass, among other things. It has few of the ingredients of Indian curry.

>>8468117
>>8468128
>>8468158
It's not that there's a squid sauce, but there's a popular brand of fish sauce called Squid. It's got a big squid on it.

Unless there really is a sauce with squid flavouring. I've never seen it.

t. chinese

>>8469309
Try being funny first

>>8473094
you can make ponzu sauce from soy sauce, but there's a distinct citrus flavor in ponzu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XEKh4Ubwgc

Mang Gong cakes

Bizarrely addicting little niggas

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>>8473106
>kecap is way too sweet for most Chinese recipes

no it's not. if you understand how flavors work, you could either balance the sweetness or find another way to make the dish taste good.

Irregardless, in the example given (hong-shao rou), kecap manis is definitely not too sweet, since the pork belly is supposed to be coated with a thick, sweet, and umami coating.

Anyway, even if kecap manis isn't called for in a recipe, if it's all you've got, why not just experiment with it and show some creativity? Why do you need to accept some recipe you found the internet as THE ONE TRUE WAY to cook something? Why not think about the concept of whatever dish your making and figure out a way to get there with what you have on hand or happened to pick up when you were dicking off at the Asian mart? Are you seriously so fucking dumb that you can't even adjust a recipe for one missing ingredient? I weep for the future of this world. Going to KMS now.

>>8473447
you can experiment after you know how to make something
if you've never made hong-shao rou before, why would you want to gamble on another type of sauce rather than the one the recipe specifically calls for? creativity is for people with experience

>>8473447
>>8473106
>>8473086
>>8472893
>kecap manis

Why don't you losers just write ketchup like normal people? You're not impressing anyone with your chinese spelling of the word.

They often have specialty vinegears and wines that are really good for sweet and sour sauce

>>8466231
Very good taste.

I also like the ice waffles filled with red bean paste.

itt people come to the realization that the price of shit depends on where you buy it by location. I live in a big city, on the Mexican side walmart has a full aisle dedicated to Mexican candy real cheap, in the Asian side of town, walmart sells fresh bean sprouts, in the white side they sell health/organic food and everything is 20c to $2 hier in cost. all walmarts supercenters all diferent prices all within 20 minutes from each other. same for krogers and HEB.

>>8473986
ketchup is a sauce made from tomatoes, kecap manis is a sauce made from soy product
2/10 made me reply

Anyone on the west coast like Ranch 99? There's one 2 blocks away from me and I've never been