Favourite East and South-East Asian grocery shops

Regional Dining Discussions U.K., Ireland
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What are people’s favourite East and South-East Asian grocery shops in London? I’d love to hear of any I might have missed.

I’m thinking here in terms of non-obvious ones that are worth travelling for — there are of course those which have a fairly generic stock and cater mainly for locals who want to pick something up on the way home, and there are the big cash and carries like Wing Yip, See Woo, Hoo Hing, and Loon Fung, but what else would people recommend?

I like:

Dat Cang Supermarket, 244-246 Evelyn Street, Deptford, SE8 5BZ. Vietnamese specialist. Most of the vegetables and herbs are frozen, but there’s a good selection. Pork floss, a few types of dried prawns, Chinese-style sausages, etc, in the fridge. I’m recommending this one partly because of the very helpful service last time I was there.

Longdan Express, 25 Hackney Road, Hoxton, E2 7NX (also has other branches). Pan-Asian, good for fresh herbs and greens.

Mum’s House, 20 Taylor Close, Tottenham, N17 0UB has been discussed here previously. Burmese specialist.

Natural Natural, 20 Station Parade, Uxbridge Road, Ealing, W5 3LD (also has other branches). Japanese specialist with a good choice of fresh vegetables and a varied selection of sakes.

Thai Smile, 283-287 King Street, Hammersmith, W6 9NH. Thai specialist but good for other cuisines too. This had several things I couldn’t find at the big Wing Yip in Croydon, including shirataki noodles and various herbs.

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Great topic, Kake.

Indian Spice Shop at Plentiful Foods on Drummond Street has been helpful for spices and packaged goods (like various types of lentils and pastes) when I’ve been sourcing ingredients to cook recipes from the 660 Curries cookbook.

This is sort of adjacent but I’ve really been impressed by the quality of the vegetables and fruits at Parkway Greens on Parkway (Camden NW1). It’s not an Asian grocery, but they carry fresh curry leaves, okra, thai basil, dragon fruit, and many other helpful items that are surprising in a small shop that doesn’t specialize in a particular region.

I need to make a trip up to Mum’s House one day – tried to order, but the minimum delivery to NW5 is 40 squid.

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If you’ll permit a northerner to join in …whilst Wing Yip has a massive range of products, it seems to me to be very much Chinese with only a nod towards other East Asia cuisines. The Manchester branch remains my main place to visit but there’s “finds” to be had in Chinatown’s Chinese and Thai shops.

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Thanks for the prod, John; you’re right that there’s no need for this thread to be London-specific. I was thinking more about what I could contribute than what others might want to discuss. I’ve messaged our kind host to ask for the “[London]” tag to be removed from the title.

The one we have in Croydon is fairly good at other cuisines, but where it falls down is on fresh items. Loads of storecupboard things, aisles and aisles of freezers, but the fresh vegetables are not the best and fresh noodles are almost nonexistent. They do have some live fish/seafood in tanks but to me this comes across more like showmanship than actual dedication to fishmongery.

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You’ve slightly pre-empted me here, as I was going to make another thread for South Asian groceries once discussion on this one had died down :slight_smile: But there’s no reason we can’t include South Asia in this thread.

I’ve walked past Plentiful Foods so many times and never given it a close look, so thank you for the recommendation!

Parkway Greens looks really intriguing, too, thanks. (The armpit shot on the front of their website is a little offputting, but was thankfully swiftly replaced by photos of vegetables!)

Now here’s a possible Hungry Onion challenge — can we find somewhere near Mum’s House to have a lunchtime meetup on a Saturday, and then head on there for Burmese grocery shopping? If it’s like their last location, it’s basically in their house, so we should call ahead to warn them there’ll be a few of us, but I don’t think they’ll mind.

Anyone interested? I think locating a suitably interesting lunch venue will be half the fun of this!

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Is there an address on Mum’s House website? I can’t find one. :slight_smile:

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Sounds like a plan–count me in.

I took a quick gander at the surrounds – looks like there are a couple Polish places, many Turkish – wonder what else could be found. Given the neighborhood demographics, Ghanaian, Colombian, etc?

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It’s on the Contact Us page, and should also be showing up above in the original post.

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Yay!

There’s a Ghanaian place called Akwaah’s Kitchen down on Lordship Lane, though that’s possibly far enough away to be inconvenient. The High Road certainly used to have another place called Kenkey House though it’s not clear from Google Streetview whether it’s still open.

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Thanks. It was so early in the morning when I read this thread. I found it now.

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Manchester recommendations:

Chinese - Hang Won Hong, on George Street in Chinatown

Thai - Siam Smiles, also on George Street. They also have a casual restaurant in the shop - reviewed by Marina O’Loughlin months back - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/03/siam-smiles-manchester-restaurant-review-marina-oloughlin

South Asian - Meezan, 142 Wilmslow Rd, Rusholme. Big. Has a Middle Eastern section which is reasonably well stocked.

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South Asian - VB & Sons for obscure Gujarati snacks
Middle Eastern - TFC but the Croydon one not the Hackney one

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If you’re going to the Croydon TFC, it’s worth popping into the Beydağı Food Centre a few doors down for some wholemeal Turkish bread, baked fresh throughout the day (they once made me take mine home in an open cardboard box because it’d only just come out of the oven and would have gone all sweaty in a carrier bag). Turkish bread is everywhere in Croydon, but this is the only place I’ve found the wholemeal version.

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Shekha, I’m curious. I have always rated the Dalston TFC as a really good shop. I’ve never been to the Croydon one, in what way is it better?

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It’s bigger, WAY cleaner and more choice from what I remember. But it is a trek so it’s understandable why people rate the other ones.