United Noshes Shopping

The best place for Southeast Asian goods, since the better place around the corner closed. Good selection of Thai, Indonesian, etc., but the staff is either not terribly knowledgeable or had trouble under

Brazilian supermarket. Not the "Rio Bonito" nearby. It's pretty sizeable for a one-country ethnic market, and has a lunch counter too.

32-15 36th Avenue

Smells like smoked beef when you walk in. Sausages, sour creams, pickles, and all the other Slavic/Balkan/Eastern European favorites. Good prices, bountiful selection, fun shopping.

Chaotic and huge. Hard to beat for sheer variety, especially among Caribbean goods.

Church Ave around the F/G stop has several small- to medium-sized markets with Bengali produce (such as bitter melon), dry goods (like panch puran), etc. Quality varies so don't hesitate to shop around.

Great live fish, fast and thoroughly cleaned. I'm a bit suspicious of their meats. In the heart of the bustling Brooklyn Chinatown.

 

My go-to market in Manhattan Chinatown. Enormous selection, good prices. Really nice fish/seafood section with a large selection. Noodles and dried goods are downstairs, which is easy to overlook.

They sure cram a lot of useful stuff in this relatively small space. Absurdly cheap and tasty olive bar, abundant and fairly priced spices in pre-packed containers, lots of bulk nuts and grains, plus cheeses and pitas and what have you. Closed Sundays.

The low-key, across-the-street foil to Sahadi's. Spices available in bulk. Friendly older gentlemen run the place and help you find what you need. Some stuff has probably been on the shelf a bit too long. Open Sundays.

If you can't find it at Sahadi's, they'll have it at Kalustyans in the heart of Curry Hill. An international-food-gawker's dream shop. You pay for the privilege of finding everything spice and obscure ingredient in one place — but then again, they have what you need.

If I were to open a supermarket it would most resemble Fairway. Huge selection, unnecessarily but amusingly rambling descriptions of custom-imported gourmet goods, and a darn friendly staff. Their private-label organic milk is one of NYC's best deals. The produce is good but it's not cheap.

Very wide representation of a lot of ethnicities' foods. Good and cheap produce. Stay on the edges for the good stuff, the middle aisles aren't much different from a standard American supermarket. Open 24 hours, I think.

Wines and liquors from pretty much every country between Germany, Turkey, and Russia, plus the standard selection of a good liquor store. If you seek Rakia (brandy), this is your destination.

Full of glass counters with sweets, pickles, meats, and everything else for the Russian-influenced palate. In the heart of "Little Russia by the Sea"

Super good African and Caribbean market convenient to Boston and Cambridge. There's an entire aisle full of beans! Color me impressed, Beantown.

Cute and good little halal meat market in Inman Square, Cambridge.

The second, less crowded location of the famous food mecca. Huge variety of produce, especially for Hispanic and Asian cooking. (But they didn't have green plantains :( )

All the selection, quality and service (and price) of a Whole Foods, but without the fake-hippie stuff. I've found stuff here that I frankly didn't expect to see in Tacoma, like Bhutanese red rice.

Forget Eastern Market, the wholesale food market in DC is where the action is! And this amazingly well-appointed African market in the middle of it gets the job done. Budget some time to check out, it's not the most efficient outfit.

The Richmond District of SF is full of Russians and others from the former USSR. This is one of many shops that will sell sour cream, smoked fish, and everything else you could want from those cuisines.