rev:text
| - Mochi mochi mochi! A mochi source near my neighborhood, not all the way out at Cofco or, worse yet, in Chandler.
This is a hole-in-the-wall market, bigger than a bodega but not at all on a supermercado scale. It has a lot of noodles. Honestly, it has more noodles than seems logically possible.
There is an aisle of Indian sauces, which is excellent, because no matter how much I like the Indian market in Tempe, it's a haul. There is an aisle of Mexican beans and other Goya products, which I thought a little pricey but I didn't take a full look for anything exotic. There are shrimp crackers. There are completely inexplicable boxed pastries, as well as packaged moon pies (the Chinese kind, not the North Carolina kind). There is an aisle of rice cookers and little blue bowls.
This is not your spot for frozen wonders -- I think the cold section might be only refrigerated, and I'm not sure I even understood much of what it was. In general, you'll want to be able to sort of cook, at least on the level of rehydrating your noodles, reheating your Beef Balls (actual product), and heating them in a helpful jar of sauce.
The lighting runs dim, but I wouldn't have said it's dirty or smelly; I've been to far, far grungier places in small towns back East. The staff don't necessarily speak English (or, at least, not to you), so you'll want to be confident in the thing you're doing (or so devil-may-care that you will regard it as a pleasant surprise if a mystery can turns out to be tripe in bitter melon sauce, which I can't guarantee is an actual product, but I can't guarantee it isn't, either). Also: the truly daring can get pastries filled with durian creme.
I'm going with four stars because the place is jammed with useful ingredients, and it is a frequent source of frustration to me that regular supermarkets have "Asian" sections consisting of three cans of Chun King products and a couple of Thai boxed dinners, with no Indian food at all. So I'm looking mostly for "exotic" ingredients and emergency mochi; if the butcher counter inspires terror, I've probably already bought meat elsewhere in a form that doesn't dispute my belief that hamburger grows on trees in little plastic-wrapped packages.
|