So I'm getting groceries later today at the Super HMart, which is this Korean grocery store a couple blocks away. I've been there a few times before and it's pretty cool. There's a lot of really wild foreign stuff, not just Korean, that I've never heard of before and a lot of fruits and vegetables that you can't pick up anywhere else. I'm going today specifically because I want to get some durian, which apparently smells like shit and is really creamy. I also like to pick up lots of tofu and weird Korean snack foods that don't give you any idea of what they actually are from the packaging. I've gotten a few really weird drinks there too, like this one corn silk tea that tasted exactly like popcorn and this really good cinnamon drink called soo jeong gwa. What I like best about this place is that everything is a completely new experience for me; I have no idea what any of this stuff is, which makes it sort of exciting and mysterious. It's also all really reasonably priced and even the food I can get at the regular grocery store is priced less.

So yeah, have any of you guys ever been to Super HMart or a grocery store like it before? What do you like to pick up and what do you recommend? I want to pick up something completely new and bizarre to me so any recommendations are good.

i go to my local asian shops all the time (brown not yellow :fogetracis​ and pick up really fresh and cheap coriander and garlic. They sometimes have some weird vegetables but the best thing is you get brilliant spices and herbs at industrial sizes/prices.

luv dem paki shops

there's a giant asian supermarket about 5 miles from where my gf lives, we went there a bunch of times. i dont know ANYTHING they sell, its all such weird obscure stuff.

they had giant sugar canes in a giant clay pot, and that's the thing that sticks with me the most, unfortunately. just "holy shit i can buy giant sugar canes". they did about 1 million different varieties of eggplant and bok choi, and so many weird drinks too. even the bottles they sold the drinks in were weird.

also like 1/4 of the entire place was dedicated to fish, including a giant couple of tanks at the back with some live fish and crabs in them. made me sad to see so many fish crammed into a tank but meh, it's cool to get it that fresh i guess.

they also also sold so many sweets and candies and stuff. and so much of it is a totally asian version of stuff i had as a kid - little pots of sweet breadstick things with a little section of chocolate to dip them in. they did a bunch of horrible bean/rice cakes filled with gooey stuff that my gf really likes but i think are disgusting.

also they do bird's nest soup. that really did make me sad. they even sell actual bird's nests

don't ever buy durians jesus christ they are so horrible. i cannot even come up with words to describe the taste.

You may need to google the proper way to cut into a durian as well.

Durians are so bad they're banned in some places int he native country they are from lol.

I used to go to Chinatown with my dad all the time when I was younger and we'd always buy weird Chinese candies that you never know what they are.  I remember going into this Traditional Chinese Medicine shop and seeing like dried seahorses for like 400 bucks a pound and then going to another one where you can buy a box of a snake penis.

Wow. I wish there was a Super HMart in the UK.

don't worry, go to the wing yip instead! the best chinese food superstore

is that the one in digbeth rockman?

if you get a durian I will be jealous but be careful. actually you should probably wait until the spring when you can keep your windows open for a while

there are a few really good asian supermarkets in philly. pretty much same as you described so I won't go into detail unless someone from the area wants some tipz

there are a lot of things you should pick up just to try like Mr. Brown coffee. actually there's too much to talk about so I'll just say don't get mochi it's disgusting.

is that the one in digbeth rockman?

yeah the headquarters is in digbeth. it's a chain now

there are a few really good asian supermarkets in philly. pretty much same as you described so I won't go into detail unless someone from the area wants some tipz

Gimme dem tipz.

alright, but I just logged on quick to say my sister gave me a birthday present and it was a bag full of stuff from the asian market. mostly candy, including two I don't know what to call because they aren't in english: a bag of chocolate-covered pinecone shapes, and these things lthat look like green truffles. a drink with a smiling orange character and two mr. browns. men's pocky and choco banana pocky.

I don't know of any grocery stores like this where I'm from but I work with a bunch of filippenos who tell me about all the wierd shit they eat and then laugh at me when I act like an american about it.

Like yesterday for instance they told me they eat goat brains, cow brains, cow skin, cow balls, balut and a bunch of other wierd shit. And today one of em sent me an email about chinese people who eat baby fetuses. Yesterday one of the galley dudes told me about how one time he was working with a chef that was making cow dick stew (I think it was stew or soup) and the cow dick was really hard and they boiled it to get it to soften up but it wouldn't soften up so they cut it up into little pieces and put it back in the stew and when he started stirring the soup up again he fished out a cow vagina and then said, "OH, THAT MUST BE WHY THE DICK WAS SO HARD".

I don't really believe that and I think they were fucking with me but the guy kept a straight face the whole time he was telling me the story.

there;s an hmart a few miles away from here and my wife and I go pretty regularly

I usually grab a bottle of the peach flavor of a drink called 2%, we also got our rice cooker there because they sell those expensive fancy asian ones that make rice perfectly

2% peach.. the rest's a mystery

there's also an icecream-redbean thing in the shape of a fish that is great

I'm pretty sure all cows are female (bulls are the males) so making a cow dick stew would be quite difficult.