| rev:text
| - Lam's Seafood Market is one of those places you either love or hate.
Let's start off talking about why you might hate it:
1. If you've been to Asian markets before, the smells in this store won't surprise you; if you haven't --- and you're a typically white, middle class family person --- you might be very turned off by what you smell. Picture letting your three dogs go loose in the place after eating lots of food and they hadn't had a chance to do Number 1 prior to coming here. Yep, you got it. This is not to say, that the market is filthy or unsanitary; it's not. But you have a lot of fresh fish and meat laying around and that doesn't make for a happy, perfumed experience, if you get my drift;
2. The appearance of the meat and fish quite often does not meet "standard appearances of neatness". In other words: if you expect your meat and fish to be wrapped up in nice plastic bags or whatever, where you can't see or smell them like they do in "American stores", you may not be a happy person here;
3. The parking lot is frequently littered with paper items, potholes and unsavory people, which might tempt you to put the car in reverse and speed off. DON'T: though it looks and smells like Armageddon meets Mexico City on a No-Fireplace-Burning day, going shopping here is well worth it. Lam's is a bit run-down, but you're here to by food and spices, not attend a concert with the Phoenix Philharmonic.
OK ... that's pretty much why you might hate it. Now let's talk about why you might love it:
1. Lam's is one of those places that quickly makes you realize how little choice you have getting different kinds of foods in places like Walmart, Safeway, Fry's, etc. Having done a lot of traveling around the world and experienced lots of different kinds of food, I STILL was able to spend TWO HOURS walking around this place today, marveling at all the different kinds of food and the many different brands of the same item (and I've been here MANY times ... I always discover new things when I come back). It's like going on a trip to Asia without having to leave the country! Being that a large part of my diet is stir-fry, which can quickly become monotonous, I am always looking around for new spices and vegetables to put in my dishes. Today, I bought several kinds of Indian curry, Thai curry, Chinese and Vietnamese chilis, mushrooms, fungi, rice noodles, bamboo, etc. If you know the Valley, you know finding "exotic" foods is not an easy thing to do. While the neighborhood is a bit dicey, I've never had problems here and it's worth the long drive to find this amazing selection and variety. If you love Asian food, you better bring a pillow and book with you, because you'll be camping out in this place for a long time checking out everything they have (when's the last time you found a place locally selling jackfruit, taro, or a whole duck?!);
2. Employees and management here have always been polite and efficient and do not hesitate to help you when you need it;
3. Prices are frequently very competitive. Quite often, the prices for certain items here are much better than at Walmart (example: can of straw mushrooms ... here: $ 0.89; Walmart: $ 2.59).
Lam's also has a selection of Jamaican, African, Hispanic and other foods you wouldn't expect to find in an "Asian" market.
I can't recommend this place enough to stock up on hard-to-find ethnic foods at incredibly reasonable prices. If you can get past the smell and chaotic appearance, you'll do very well here.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)