Is there a huge Asian market in Pomona?

[estone888]

A Thai friend who likes to cook has heard from a friend of hers that there is a new, huge, very good market in Pomona that has a fantastic variety of fresh and other foods from all over Asia. I've tried finding something online but can only find a couple of markets that seem primarily Vietnamese and no one seems overly impressed with.

Barring that, what do you think is the best, biggest, freshest, widest selection general Asian market in the Greater L.A. area?

I usually go to Ranch 99 at Del Mar and Valley for Chinese, Hawaii - across the street - for mostly Chinese with a bit more SE Asian tossed in, Lax-C for Thai (unless I don't want to buy Costco-sized quantities of stuff in which case I go to the Bangkok Market on Melrose), A Grocery Warehouse for general purpose I don't want to drive too far Asian stuff, and a variety of others for Korean, Japanese, etc.

But I'm wondering if there is something I'm missing - some all-purpose remarkable Asian market that I don't know about yet. (By the way, is the gigantic Asian supermarket that I can't recall the name of that's on Rosemead just south of the 10, east side of the street, still there and is it still any good? They used to have an astounding aquarium's worth of live fish.)

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Lax-C
1100 N Main St, Los Angeles, CA

[Chandavkl]

Yes. The vacant grocery store in the Phillips Ranch shopping center is now a Korean store, Grand Mart. Obviously quite large and not very busy when I went there.

[estone888]

Is it a particularly good Korean market? Any better than, say, the one in the basement of Koreatown Plaza or the Galleria? Does it have much of a selection of items from other countries?

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Koreatown Plaza
928 S Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90006

[JThur01]

Is the market on Rosemead you're thinking of just below Garvey? If so, that's Thun Phat and primarily Viet with a decent mix of other, most notably a section of Indonesian.

[estone888]

That is the one. Thanks.

[Chandavkl]

Appeared to be quite well stocked to me. I first learned about them from an ad in a Chinese newspaper, so they clearly are looking beyond a Korean shopping base. Interesting that over 25 years ago there was a large Asian grocery in Pomona in the person of DiHo Market, the first great Chinese supermarket chain in the Los Angeles area. I thought that was a strange place to locate, which was validated by their subsequent closure and lack of any replacement Asian market in the area for more than two decades.

[A5 KOBE]

It is an international market, not just Asian. It is owned by Koreans but they have a variety of different items from all over the world. One section is designated specifically for Latin food, another for American. It market is not that great but you can find great deals on certain items.

I would just go a few miles west and head to Super H Mart. So much more cleaner, cheaper, and has better stuff.

[coconutz]

H Mart in Diamond Bar on Golden Springs Blvd near the intersection of the 57 and the 60 is freaking awesome. Good prices, yes clean and huge. Sometimes they have tons of samples out and even hot things demo'd.

[coconutz]

Let me correct myself-- the market I'm talking about is Haman Market World. It is large with a big selection of goods and good prices on bottled condiments. I've bought premium IQF black pork belly on special this week for $2.99lb.

I ate a plate of dumplings at the little counter here this week. 6 King dumplings for $6.00. Way too many for one person. Served with chopped fresh jalapeno and a side of pickled turnip. They were nice and jucy. (I'd rather eat Chinese dumplings, now to find those near.) I'd eat with someone else and split this and another dish or get a combo. They had other items like black bean noodles, marinated meat, soups. I wish they had told me there was 'help yourself tea', it was located near the cash register. All I saw and drank was water from a cooler near me. So let's not pretend there's any service here. I'd rather go over to Spicy Kimchee and have a friendly place to eat.

There is also a soup place on the other side next to a little bakery, where you can get soon dofu and other soups.

The Super H Mart is on Diamond Bar Blvd just a couple of miles South of Grand. I just went last week. Very nice, the whole foods of Asian Grocers to me. But kind of expensive for some things. and most of the meats are prepacked in large quantity so it is not possible for me to buy ,say 2 lb of ground pork or 2 lb of pork belly ($5lb this week.) No need for that quantity at once, and no room in the freezer right now. The seafood selection is fantastic.

I did get takeout from the Kimbap Factory in the Food Court area (there was an awesome looking soup place too.) I picked the bbq beef, but they also had fish cake, cheese, tuna. It was $5.25 for 10 oz, a generous quantity and very good. What I really went crazy over, however, were the rice balls mixed iwth sesame seeds and stuffed with kim chee. The counter lady said if I was taking them home, to heat in the microwave for 15 to 20 seconds and eat it with the sesame leaf they were sitting on. Delicious. Good cold too. they are a bit fragile, so don't let them get squashed if they are in the same bag as the sushi. For $3.50 these are a great treat.

[TonyC]

Big fan of awoolim kimbap factory. They have a branch Norwalk, and it's $5 even.

LOLz at your self correction 10 months later.