Hi all. I’m making a family trip to SD next month. My mom has had some health issues recently and so I will be taking over much of the cooking duties while I’m there. Is there a good Asian grocer nearby where I can pick up pantry staples in particular? Various sauces, spices, curry pastes, rice noodles and wrappers etc? The less far I have to drive the better. Many thanks.
You’ll want to get to Kearny Mesa / Convoy area, which is home to a 99 Ranch, Zion, H Mart, and several Japanese markets (Mitsuwa, Tokyo Central (nee Murakai)).
That’s the closest to Escondido? I’ve never heard of Zion grocery. The others are familiar.
There’s not much in North County.
Best you’re going to do are places like Oriental Food Market and La Sorpresa, which to me are more like glorified NYC bodegas than true grocery stores.
Thanks I will check those out. I’m cooking for 5 or so days. I don’t need a store the size of a hangar. Just a live that carries basics. Appreciate the info.
I would recommend using Instacart with your mom’s zip code to check a couple of ingredients for availability near home.
In CA, what’s available at a “regular” grocery store is a lot better than near me, so you may be able to skip a long drive if somewhere nearby has most of the basics you seek. There are also smaller local stores that stock more asian products than elsewhere, so if you justneed basics, you probably don’t need a 99 ranch or Hmart.
(I mean use instacart for research, not delivery)
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As ipse mentioned, Escondido has relatively little wrt Asian supermarkets (but is good for Mexican stuff, e.g. Vallarta, Northgate). You might check out Major Market (which isn’t specialized in Asian ingredients but has a decent overall selection). There is a H-Mart in Mira Mesa and very close-by Lucky Seafood which is a shorter drive than to Convoy Street
Even with just a Google search, “Asian market near Escondido” shows me La Sorpresa Barata/ Asian Market, Rice Pantry, and Lucky Mee in Escondido itself which look they would have your basics.
Coastal metro California has no shortage of Asian markets, big and small. There’s also Weee!, a grocery delivery platform/app that specializes in Asian and Latin groceries. Serves most of the metro areas like the Bay Area, LA, San Diego. Don’t even have to leave the house to go to the hangar size stores…but you might miss something fun or interesting. The new hangar sized Asian grocery stores like H Mart are impressive, extremely nice and lots of stuff. 99 Ranch has upped their game after seeing new H Marts.
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Agreed, but unfortunately OP is nowhere near a coast.
She’s in Escondido.
Escondido is part of the San Diego metro area, and is a suburb of San Diego. It is considered coastal, as in you can drive to the ocean in 30 mins to a hour.
Livermore CA isn’t near the coast, in a similar way to Escondido, but it is part of the SF Oakland San Jose a
metro area, also a major coastal California metro area. You can also drive to the coast in an hour.
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I used to live in CA so I’m not unaccustomed to driving 30 miles for the store. I don’t want to do it in this scenario because the goal isn’t to be away from the family but to be with them, and the cooking is to lend a hand bc my mom is out of commission and my dad is taking it all on. So I appreciate your perspective generally, but a small bodega that is 10 min away but still carries rice noodles and three crabs fish sauce is enough for me.
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Try the Weee! App. You won’t even have to leave the house. I see my neighbor uses it. I think they dropped the Latin groceries.
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