Today we went to the Super H Mart in Doraville, GA. This area is pretty ethnically diverse, with different sections of Buford Highway catering to different cultural groups—Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Hispanic, etc. I personally like getting out there when I get a chance to, so I can experience small parts of a very big culture (why go to Starbucks every day when you can get a can of coffee beans from Café du Monde in New Orleans or Shirakiku Ramun drink?).
My mom’s been shopping at Super H Mart for years—she would spend over a hundred dollars and we would be up to our eyeballs in dumplings, spring rolls, pot stickers, and everything in between. The grocery store has whole aisles dedicated to soy sauce, rice, and ramen-esque bowls (but let’s be real, this isn’t your typical ramen). I’ve never been myself, so today she took Ryan and I on the adventure.
The produce section was so wild—of course there were limes and tomatoes, but they also had Chinese eggplant, Kohlrabi, several types of Bok Choy, and a bunch of packaged mushrooms I’d never seen before. We were eyeballing this fuzzy fruit thing, when a fellow customer came up behind us and showed us how to rip it open and eat the fruit inside. The employees motioned for us to try the rest of the fruits!
The fish section was even crazier. They had tanks on tanks of fish and lobster, squid and shrimp on ice, conk meat, all kinds of stuff.
We grabbed some freeze-dried shrimp for my uncle, who’s been hiking the Appalachian Trail in segments. Seafood is an excellent source of protein, and even though this shrimp looked so nasty, it would be good to sustain a hiker.
This was weird. Not sure who buys pork blood, but I’m sure it’s a delicacy to some.
My mom found this packaged frozen octopus and came over to show us.
Hey, wanting a new pet? We turned the corner from the octopus and saw …
Live, moving crawfish! I used to play with these at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market as a child, and make them fight each other.
The packaged section was fun, too. A lot more American foods woven in, but still fascinating to pick through.
I also loved the different styles of packaging. I want to go back and photograph more of these.
All in all, I think this is so much better than any other grocery store I’ve been to. They had all the regular stuff I’d buy on a trip to Kroger, but all the other crazy stuff made it worth it.