Where to buy thai ingredients?

[1newyorkguy]

I'm looking to buy good quality curry paste, coconut milk in a box, thai herbs and fresh rice noodles.

[Gaseous Clay]

Also, any ideas about where one could get hold of a workable quantity of palm sugar here in #YVR ?

Been looking all over for some alas, no success yet.

[fmed]

Thurga on Fraser has quite a variety of solid palm sugar and 3 or 4 kinds of bottled palm sugar syrups. Mostly from South India, Sri Lanka, etc.

[jcolvin]

I like cock brand's palm sugar. It comes in a plastic tub like their curry pastes, but is sealed under a layer of wax which has to be chipped off first. Asia market has it and I'm sure other places too.

[Le Beep]

The half kilo tub of Nam Jai available at Sieu Thi Wong Xin comes in a bag [inside the tub] and is frequently still soft. It's the best I've tried so far.

As for nam pla, nuoc mam, etc., three crab brand and flying lion are tied for top honours, and are both also available at STWX along with a dozen other varieties. Funny thing happened the other day, my fish sauce spontaneously fell off the shelf and smashed on the concrete floor... Clean-up actually wasn't too bad.

[1newyorkguy]

I also went to the Pepper Pot in Lonsdale Quay. I was foolish enough to buy one of the Arroy D curry paste buckets for 5 bucks there, when I later saw it for 2 at Walmart. Made a pretty good curry with it, though..and spiked it with fresh lime leaves, thai chilis and thai basil from the Pepper Pot.

I also ended up buying fresh, fat rice noodles at Donald's Market and frying them up with a dark soy sauce that has sugar in it (from Walmart), bok choy, thai chilis, garlic and egg. Pad See Ew esque.

[jcolvin]

Asia market 265 east Hastings. Huge selection of Thai ingredients including mae ploy and cock brand. Great prices. Lots of hard to find stuff. Go to place for Thai ingedients.

[grayelf]

Good call, I always forget this place for some reason. It is the only market in Van proper that I have found Thai iced tea mix.

[fmed]

Me too. I do have to say that their herb selection isn't very good nor fresh. I would come here for canned goods, pastes, etc. though.

[grayelf]

True dat about the fresh herbs. Occasionally they do have interesting fruits in the cooler...

Asia Market would make a good one-two punch with Sieu Thi Wong Xin which is just over and up a few blocks on Gore.

[iamsuperrat]

Asia Market has more thai ingredients now (previously they had more Vietnamese types)

[fmed]

Hen Long in Surrey is the best place in Metro Van to buy Thai stuff (including fresh rice noodles) http://www.wisemonkeysblog.com/archiv... .

88 Supermarket is the best place in Vancouver proper. (See Sam's post)

[Le Beep]

Thanks for pointing out 88 supermarket, fmed, I'll stop by there next time I head up to Kim Phung for some pho or bo kho!

[grayelf]

88 has a crazy sell off of their char siu at around 6 in the evening as well if you happen to be there for that.

[Jzone]

I've found H-Mart and T&T good for coconut milk and thai herbs such as thai basil, galangal, kafir leaves etc. I haven't checked for the fresh rice noodles at HMart, but T&T usually has a large selection.

Finally curry paste. Are you looking for Indian, Thai (green, red, yellow), Malaysian, Indonesian etc.? For the most part the best quality curry pastes you will ever find are by making it yourself. You won't end up with super high salt levels most bought ones have, you can adjust the heat to your liking and you can tweak the flavors the way you like. I have a killer Thai green paste recipe if you need one.

Cheers.

[1newyorkguy]

looking for thai curry paste. I used to buy a very good one that came in a resealable plastic container (shaped like a little bucket).

[Jzone]

Yah, the bucket one is the one I think I tried and it was very salty. If you have an extra 15 mins in the kitchen and 10 in the store give this a try and let me know what you think.

http://www.andersonsonline.ca/cookboo...

Cheers.

[jcolvin]

Curry paste should really have coriander root in it rather than the green leaves. But coriander root is almost impossible to find here recently, since they generally snip the roots off when shipped from the grower.

[vancouvermatt]

One place I would recommend is the oriental shop on Granville island. It's in the main market net to tenderland meats and across from the tea shop. They have always had everything I was looking for. Alot of authentic oriental and exotic ingredients that you cant find elsewhere. Another place is gourmet wearhouse. They don't have many fresh items but they have an extensive selection of spices and sauces.

[Sam Salmon]

The 'oriental market' @ GIM also has a store in East Van

http://www.southchinaseas.ca/

Market 88 up on Victoria Drive around 33rd is a better bet

http://www.wisemonkeysblog.com/archiv...

Also the market @ 747 Gore St in Chinatown is worth checking out-lovely friendly people running the place.

[grayelf]

I love the market at 747 Gore! It is called Sieu Thi Wong Xin and is next to Cathay Herbal (in fact they are physically connected and owned I believe by two brothers). I've never bought fresh rice noodles there but I expect they have them. Lots of fresh herbs and harder-to-find fruits at the front, and aisles of nifty packaged stuff to explore. Not as big as Market 88 or as definitive as Hen Long but closer for me.

I've heard the best commercial Thai curry paste available here is Mae Ploy but I haven't made a concerted effort to find it. I did buy the bucket one you mentioned and it was good but I find I don't get through it fast enough, even with freezing! I'm using Namjai brand at the moment which has nice flavour and is a bit less flaming hot than other brands I've tried.

I usually just grab tinned Arroy-D coconut milk. What is it that you love about the boxed version?

[1newyorkguy]

It is more about avoiding all food in cans..which have toxic BPA. And I believe Mae Ploy is the one I had and enjoyed!

[grayelf]

Good point. I'm gonna look for the boxed ones. And hope nobody decides there's something nasty in them ;-).

[1newyorkguy]

picked up boxed coconut milk at T&T but they didn't have the buckets of mae ploy..just single serve packets of the red and yellow curries. also, didn't see the variety of thai sauces I was looking for: soy for pad see ew, and fried chilis and garlic hot sauce.

[grayelf]

I found the 500 ml boxes of Aroy-D at New Apple on Broadway, right next to the cans. There's 100 ml more in them and they are 20 cents cheaper at $1.79 so what's not to like? Thanks for the tip on the cartons, 1nyguy.

[Le Beep]

It could just be me, but I've found those boxes of arroy-d to have the best coconut flavour. Different than the canned version from the same brand. In either case they're one of the few coconut milks on the market that are just coconut and water. Even organic offerings have guar gum and other junk that have no place in coconut milk.

Cheers to Sam Salmon and grayelf on the thumbs up to Sieu Thi Wong Xin. I've been loving that spot for several years and have recommended it countless times. Their herbs and condiments are outstanding! A very minor gripe: they used to have fresh pickled mustard greens that were so delicious, and much better than commercially available ones. Anyone know of another place to find them?

[grayelf]

Now I'm really looking forward to trying the carton! One of the reasons I always bought Aroy-D was because it didn't have additives...

Did you by any chance talk to the owner at STWX about the mustard greens? He's helped me out a couple of times with items, though not specifically this one. Maybe he'd get them again if you made your case eloquently enough :-).