I recently made a trip to Brooklyn’s Chinatown to check out thee. most. bomb. grocery store I have even been to (take that Trader Joe’s). In fact, I had to bring friends to witness what an experience this place was. Then I was all, “duh, I have a blog, the series of tubes is my witness.”
The Great Wall Supermarket is an all-in-one-stop shop, offering produce, meat and fish, prepared foods and anything else you might get at Met except the produce doesn’t melt in your fridge in a day and instead of saying “betty crocker,” it says [insert chinese characters here]. They sell the freshest and cheapest foods, much of which I had never heard of before. Have you ever seen 6 different types of bok choy? What about 30 feet of different types of noodles? Odd vegetables and fermented sauces, fish jerky and quail eggs, there was a lot of “wtf is this” and “I’m scared – let’s buy it.”
So, I bought a shit ton of food and took mo pics to share them with yall. I even did some marginal research (read: cut and paste from wikipedia) on the most confusing items. I hope you find them as interesting as I did. If not, go here instead of More Meat, jerk.
Fullish view of the store.
Check the aquarium along the back wall. Can’t get much fresher fish than this. I saw them pull one out, take a mallet to its head, throw it into a bag, and hand it to a shopper.
Love this presentation. See that bubble in the bottom middle fish? That was inflating and deflating to a rhythm. Yeah. Ain’t no fake lettuce for decoration going on here.
One time? I was at the beach with some friends and there was a jellyfish that didn’t not look like a bloody mess cause you forgot the tampax. The cool thing I learned about edible jellyfish is that the monger goes through 20 to 40 processes to bring the jellyfish to a state where you actually buy it at a grocery store and cook it at home. That’s really why this doesn’t look like that blobular mess that stung you at the jersey shore that summer you decided to date strictly staten islanders.
Those are scallops. Rare you see them in a shell, right?
Does conch make you think of Lord of the Flies, too? Oh Piggy.
Have you ever had frogs legs before? They taste like fishy chicken. Apparently people only eat the legs cause I’ll be goddamned to find a recipe for say, a frog shoulder roast. Send one?
How beautiful is this? An abalone is basically a sea snail. The holes are the respiratory system. (der.) The shell is also harvested for Mother of Pearl.
Geoduck, pronounced “gooey duck,” is a big ol clam that looks like a gigantic penis. Another fun fact (thank you to all the nerds at wikipedia) is that the geoduck is one of the longest living organisms with an average life expectancy of 146 years. Happy Birthday to you, penis clam! More on Wiki.
Snails. Haven’t decided yet if I like these suckers. But I did just buy myself a snail baking pot thing and Ima cook em. It’s a good excuse to eat something soaked in butter and garlic.
Those are NOT pets.
hehe.
Lots of cock.
The Devil Pod. Has there every been a name more appropriate for something that looks like this?! It’s also known as Bat Nut, Bull Nut, Water Caltrop, Trapa Natans, and Buffalo Nut, which is actually my favorite name for it. This evil little fugger is the seed pod of an aquatic asian plant. Although the seed inside is edible, it is more commonly used for warding off the devil. You don’t say. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that if you don’t boil these suckers before eating them, you’ll like, die or shit your pants or something.
Known as the “King of Fruits” in southeast asia, one of the things people talk most about Durian is its smell, which apparently is sometimes offensive. And you call yourself the King. I guess Durian makes people either love the shiv or hate it. anthony bourdain apparently said that “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” Other comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs. Wow. Plate me up. Quick. Jay. Kay. More on Wiki.
My friend. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I love him.
Honestly, it is what it looks like: A pile of skinned goats with their eyes still in their skulls. We saw this bed of grossness a couple blocks away being delivered to various shops in the hood.
Hope you enjoyed my internets tour of, what is for me, an exotic and wonderful grocery store.
See this super helpful site for more info on the Great Wall Supermarket.
