House of Rice is a fantastic place to stock up on all of your Asian cooking essentials. Well maybe I'm not exactly qualified to say whether they'll have all of your Asian cooking essentials, but they certainly do have mine. The rice noodles for Pad Thai are less than two bucks, Indian curry pastes are around $3, and tamarind paste is $2. For me, these are the essentials and I'm grateful I can count on House of Rice to have them in stock and so very reasonably priced. The staff members are eager to help and won't look at you condescendingly for not knowing how to pronounce something.