*** United Food Mart has closed.
If I need Thai ingredients, or produce like galangal or ngo gai(saw leaf) I'd head over to United Food Mart:
Though a bit worse for wear, United Food Market carries a pretty large selection of canned and
fresh Thai, Laotian, and Vietnamese Food. This is also one of the few Markets where I can always get Kaffir Lime leaves. The prices are very reasonable, and there's an added bonus:
On weekends there's some satay action going on in the parking lot. The drill goes like this – go into the cashier and tell them how many you want. You pay the cashier ($1.25/ea), take the receipt outside to the barbecue Guy, and hand him the receipt. He'll ask you (sometimes very hard to understand) if you want chicken or pork. He then grabs the number of skewers purchased, wraps it in foil. Places it in a sack with some napkins, and you carry on. Today, I bought three ($3.75):
You'll notice only two here; well the Boyz and I got to one before I remembered to get my camera. The chicken is fairly tender and moist, though I found a bit of gristle. There's the distinctive taste of lemongrass and galangal, though very mild overall. Not bad really. These two "sticks" with some musubi (onigiri/rice ball) made for a nice dinner. Untied Oriental Food Market also now has a "hot table" with a variety of food items, I'll probably check them out at a later date.
Oh, and I did actually buy some stuff to justify my stopping here!
United Oriental Food Market
5349 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115-4730
(619) 582-8999
