The Lure of H Mart, Where the Shelves Can Seem as Wide as Asia

Re:The Lure of H Mart, Where the Shelves Can Seem as Wide as... by Animats on Friday May 14, 2021 @03:25PM (#27158655)

There are still places like that in SF's Chinatown. There's enough customer density to support a walk-in market that doesn't use shopping carts. SF's Chinatown has twice the population density of SF. And a median age of 47, almost 10 years higher than the rest of SF. So there are still old-school Asian grocery stores.

Nijya Market has a number of good Japanese grocery stores in the SF bay area. They're rather expensive, like Whole Foods. Noted for fresh fish and sushi. Also, they have the good Pocky, from Japan, not the made-in-Thailand stuff. Their stores are small supermarkets, with carts and parking.

SF's Chinatown is stuck in the 1950s. Where are the black-glass buildings, the fast forward fashion from Beijing, the automated stores, and the latest parts from Shenzhen? They're in Cupertino, home of Apple, which is 67% Asian and has entire malls of good Asian stores. The big mall across the street from the Apple mothership is a good place to start.

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Re:The Lure of H Mart, Where the Shelves Can Seem as Wide as... by injinj on Friday May 14, 2021 @05:41PM (#27160009)

I prefer the 1950s style, the produce isn't wrapped to death in plastic. My general rule is that the more plastic it has, the further away it was produced. The small Asian places have their own farm pipeline for the specialty vegetables, not industrial scale farms like from a Safeway. I cannot resist the allure of Nijiya, though, as they will have veggies and fruits that nobody else has.

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