Well, as I mentioned in my post this past Sunday, Zion Market finally opened in their new location which had first been announced way back in 2022. I've got a love-hate relationship with Zion, which I won't go into detail about. But, we needed fermented kimchi, a staple in the household, so I thought I'd give the place a visit this morning, like right when they opened since I'm somewhat familiar with that parking lot which seems a bit on the small side for the market.
I got into the lot and parked in the last row. The lot was pretty full, except for the tow rows of EV dedicated parking. There's still construction going on, so hopefully there's more parking in the future….especially since I'd heard the Marugame and Bafang were planning to open a shop here! Yeeesh, can you imagine how crazy it'll be?
Anyway, Paris Baguette's shop is right past the front entrance and seems to be larger than the previous location.
The spacing between the cash registers and the shelving was quite spacious.
It's funny, the produce section, which is where I spend most of my time at Zion looks basically the same as did the prices.
And other things as well. I got hit by a shopping cart driven by a wild "Halmoni" while taking this photo. I wasn't even in the middle of an aisle!
How long until the "Please do not throw the fruits and vegetables" sign goes up?
Anyway, I got what I needed.
And fighting the temptation to get the heck out of Dodge, I decided to take a quick look.
The shelves for the house prepared panchan and food is quite large, but I'm guessing they are still working on things as it was more than half empty.
Speaking of prepared foods; I don't recall the "old" Zion having such a large quantity of refrigerated packed foods.
It could just be that I was always on a "mission" when I shopped at Zion that I never noticed before.
There was one last section I wanted to check out; the meat department. It was kind of interesting as the cold case for meats was rather small, though what was available there was the $$$ stuff.
I asked the guy who was stocking where the typical sliced ribeye was and he pointed to one of the freezers? Hmmm….this is interesting, I'll need to follow-up leter.
Also, while I've never bought the marinated meats from Zion, I noticed that the butcher case that stores the prepared meats has it in pre-packaged containers; another change.
Well, while some things seemed the same; I'm not sure about the parking….I'll be coming early and hopefully during the week and having the standard 10up sliced ribeye frozen is not something I'd really go for.
So, we'll see in bit.
Zion Market
8330 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Daily 9am – 9pm
So, my good "FOYs"; if you drop by the new location of Zion, please let us know what you think!
The line for coffee was crazy; so the Missus got some tea which She rather enjoyed and I had some sparkling water.
The location of Twinings in the strand dates back to 1706! It's a nicely lit small shop. The Missus enjoyed shopping here and just had to get the special 
As I took my bag of peanut brittle and the fried garlic to the register; the guy in front of me bought a $170 worth of bottled sodas! I asked the friendly cashier about this and she told me "it's totally normal"! Whoa!
This was a huge, but interesting dish. The menu said pork rinds, but this was fried chunks of pork. Man, it was quite porky and full of flavor, but really hard and chewy, like chunks of fried jerky. Make sure your teeth are in good shape if you order this. We enjoyed the yuca. While the exterior was crisp, the interior just melted in your mouth, the texture was amazing! I don't think they do the usual "boil and fry" here. I'd gladly get the yuca again!
