Asian Supermarket

Super impressed! I found my Korean sweet potato noodles and some other good stuff!!! The noodle aisle is mind blowing not to mention the frozen where you can pick up your Chinese take out faves for a quarter of the cost!!! It definitely took me back to my time in China and Southeast Asia! Picked up some Titos pork rinds which were seasoned with vinegar om nom nom! Even got some fresh produce and coconut milk. i went organic with that! No extract for me! Going home to make a slamming chicken curry atop the sweet potato noodles fusion! Definitely goingnbacl for more… warning to those with sensitive noses stay away from the live fish section! It just smells like the sea to me.

There is a minimum spend to use a credit card. Don’t complain. Accepting credit cards can be very expensive for small businesses.
Disclosure: I have only been to this Asian market, the one on Colvin, and a tiny Korean market in Latham. My experience is limited. Also, if it matters, I am a mid-​twenties white girl.
I have been to this market a few times. I have the worst time finding things, but that is okay because I like to wander. There are SO many choices! Just looking for rice vinegar, I see different brands from multiple countries (China, Japan, Korea, and probably more). There are probably fifty types!
I was super-​excited to find frozen 50-​packs of gyoza skins (thin dough wrappers for Japanese potstickers) for only $ 2 each. Woot!
I asked a man stocking shelves where I could find a certain variety of miso. He didn’t speak English, but he was nice about it. I have not experienced rudeness from anyone.
There are often boxes piled up in aisles, but maybe it’s because there is just too much product to fit?
Store shelves are consistently labeled with English and unit prices. This is a big benefit over the Asian market on Colvin.
It was very cold when I went recently. Be sure to wear your coat and gloves indoors! Those poor cashiers certainly do.
Yes, the entire store smells like the fish section. This really isn’t surprising. I would advise vegetarians to avoid that far left wall of the store.

The store has a good stock of inexpensive Asian foods. No problem there. The trouble is that the cashiers are fresh off the boat, do not know more than three sentences of super simple English, and lack good manners. They are usually quite rude to customers, particularly to blacks and non-​Chinese Asians. If you make the slightest complaint about anything at the counter, two-​three cashiers will roll their eyes and talk about you in Chinese. It seems that the owner does not care. After all, the Chinese folks will buy there, no matter what. So dear other customers who want the minimum semblance of any good service, go to hell. Who cares?
Another thing, be careful with your car. It is most likely to be damaged as parking is really bad in this store.

The supermarket has so much variety that it seemed overwhelming to someone that is new to shopping there. There is really no one to help find items, and the smell is «like whoaaaa… funky». I also saw quite a bit of rotten produce.

What should I say… This place is essential in my life. I come here every now and then for the Chinese groceries I need. However, I have bought expired tofu here and bitter bamboo shoots (labeled fresh), which is really weird cause I’ve been eating bamboo shoots for all my life in China and this is the first time I found it bitter… I also don’t like the smell in the market… Bottom line, be careful with the food but you can’t beat the price here.

This review is for the Harmonious Grand Tour bus that goes up and down from NYC to Albany and back. This bus is always packed! Be sure to board on the asian market stop instead of the one down central ave towards albany area or they will NOT have any seats left then forced to wait for the next bus which are usually an hour or 2 apart.
This ONLY cost $ 25 round trip! Way cheaper then Greyhound services. This bus service has been around for about 10 years now and went thru 2 – 3 different owners and name changes but can’t go wrong with cheap travels! Either get dropped off in Midtown or Chinatown.
They also do e-​tickets online.

Not much to look at (from the outside or in) but an amazing selection and good prices! Will be coming back for sure.

Long and plentiful aisles with all sorts of Asian cooking staples. If you need it, it is probably here. I had a meal at A La Shanghai that had tofu skin in it, something I hadn’t heard of before. I thought I might try to recreate the dish at home, and was able to find tofu skins here. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but seriously, my story will generalize.
Not the friendliest staff you’ve ever seen, but not in any way rude or unhelpful either. It’s a huge, no-​nonsense grocery store, and you can get delicious treats (including both red bean balls — yum! — and whole roast duck) from the bakery section in the front of the store. There is also a bigger-​than-​you-​think section in the very back with hardware — sushi rollers, chopsticks, millions of kinds of teapots, etc.
Fun place to just browse around, or to get precisely what you need. Beware the bucket of live frogs in the seafood aisle.

Yes for Asian groceries! When I first moved here, I was super nervous about not having my Asian nom needs met, but fear not! The cleverly named Asian Supermarket has alleviated some of my homesickness for snacks and noms. Below is a breakdown:
Vegetables: lots of options of Asian veggies. They come in pretty big bags, and the price is really reasonable.
Fruits: Never get fruits at an Asian supermarket. It’s always not good for some reason. Or there’s mold on the side you can’t see. Except for the Korean pears. Those are okay.
Meats: I don’t really buy meats here, but they have a lot of prepackaged meats as well as fresh cut. They also have the more bizarre meats like tripe and livers.
Seafood: If you’ve never been to an Asian seafood market, you might be a little squeamish. Depending on the season, there may be live turtles, frogs, or the like. They have crabs as well. If you want fresh fish or other seafood, they will kill it for you on point and scale the fish.
Snacks: Lots of awesome frozen and non-​frozen snacks! I always love checking out the new drinks and candies they ship in (green tea kit kats are yums). Recently, their boba ice cream bars have been shipping in consistently. Makes me a happy nommer. Though there are only 6 bars in a box, the short milky sweetness is quite worth the purchase. They also have a nice selection of ramen to try from, though I tend to steer towards the good brands.

Good stuff and prices! Didn’t check their veggie/​meat section, but they have a great selection of pastries, frozen goodies and snacks! Will come back.

I love Asian culture and its food, and try hard to learn what I can. So excited when this first opened because it was so large and clean and had such a great variety of foodstuffs. It has deteriorated in quality across the boards lately.
Overstuffed shelves (often with expired merchandise — careful!) and an exploding produce section that is nearly impossible to navigate your cart around. This, after parking lot challenges.. not much room there, either. (Try parking in the back, though there is no back entrance and if you unlucky enough to be there when the Chinese busses are in the lot, the back isn’t much easier.) Back to the topic of produce: great selection if you enjoy Asian cooking — but be careful, as the quality is a bit inconsistent. Bok choy — good. Apples? Not so much…
I have been treated rudely several times — and now that I have a study abroad daughter from China, I have a handy interpreter to tell me how the staff feels about me as a «rich white woman». Interesting, to say the least.
I can’t comment on the fresh fish, as I have yet to learn how to buy fish that way. Hey, I know my limitations. Be prepared for a strong fish odor throughout the store — although if you are used to shopping in Asian supermarkets this shouldn’t surprise you.
I find the cashiers very friendly. A previous reviewer was correct in encouraging you to ask questions up front — people stocking the shelves often don’t speak English well. When my study abroad daughter asked a man on a ladder where the fresh tofu was, and he didn’t understand her, she tried in Chinese. He then proceeded to yell at her for trying to speak to him in English. He was mean, I kid you not.
Today I had to cut my shopping short as the store was SO COLD it felt too uncomfortable to shop. Later, I was told that the cashiers were all chatting about how their boss never turns the heat up, and they freeze in there. Hello, OSHA? Rudeness starts at the top, after all… so don’t blame the staff too much…
* * *

Bigger then I thought it would be. So much good stuff there. A little overwhelming. Parking is iffy but manageable. Prices are descent. I found Filipino dried mangos there awesome.

This place was a real surprise! Inexpensive, fresh produce, unique products and peppy music. Just looking at the fresh veggies made me want to eat them! The options were endless and often intriguing. Not to mention its a phenomenal resource center in the event of a zombie Apocalypse.
I will warn my fellow vegetarians. This place smells like dead and soon to be dead fish. Its hard to ignore.

Very good food, fast service. The owner was very friendly and the décor was quite nice. Not terribly authentic, but still pretty good.

The smell… omg the smell in this place is awful! If a regular store smelled like this no one would shop there, why is this place packed!!!

Mom and I love to get our Asian groceries here and when where done we grab our lunch at the food and bakery. Couple time there 2items are new but the most of time they always serve the same stuff. When your hungry and need some Asian food fixed it will do. I like ordering their coffee boba tea and couple of pastries. I can’t complain this is the closet place we can go to grab out Filipino ingredients. I just wish they can Speke better English. Some time I ask them something they can’t understand so I just give up and look for it my self.

This Supermarket isn’t that old, before this market was opened (like 6 years ago)… There was another Asian Markets (I think there were 3 of them), one of them is probably out of business.
This market is probably the biggest and the best in the Capital Region.
Tips: There is a weekend and night bus that come heres from Chinatown, NYC (take that bus to NYC if you want).

For me to review the Asian Supermarket relative to other Asian markets would be as if I were to try to mansplain feminism. I mean, I like this place, it’s got an amazing variety of packaged goods most especially from China (for Indian stuff, try Parivar up the street), and enough fresh vegetables I couldn’t identify that I suppose it’s authentic, plus live crabs. I consider myself a supporter and a fellow traveler but I can’t really objectively rate it because I am not living it. I can’t really truly appreciate it for better or worse because I am a shallow dilettante when it comes to Asian cooking, and it took me over a half hour to find the dried black beans I came for, during which I put in a dozen items, only half of which I could really identify. (My favorite was the «Indispensible Condiment.» Does that mean I can’t do without it, or I can’t dispense it? We’ll find out!)
What I will give this four stars for is the cultural experience, because I haven’t found another place in Albany or the entire CRUST where I’ve felt so much like I was a visitor on a sort of exotic trip. (Yes, I am the kind of person when he goes abroad, goes to the grocery stores and such, to get immersed.) There’s a modicum of English labeling, but who knows what it really says? Today I couldn’t find a single employee who spoke English, and I obviously said ‘Niihau’ with the wrong intonation because I got looked at like the gringo that I am. (I finally got directed around the store by asking the delivery man, who spoke only Spanish, like a real American.) There was another shopper who became my good samaritan and helped me find my dried black beans finally, although she said I had been asking for «old dark shoes» earlier. So much for Rosetta Stone, eh?
In any event, I strongly urge you to bring your kids here and have them try to get a treasure hunt list of ten items or so, it would be a great way of learning what it’s like to be an immigrant and have to navigate for the basic needs in life without knowing the language, the customs, or even what the basic food ingredients are. I’m completely serious. The CRUST doesn’t have enough real ethnic enclaves to serve this purpose, so you have to take these experiences where you can find them. Maybe that *is* like a feminism mansplainer, in that I’m being an annoying tourist in my own town here, but as long as I keep coming back and spending my money on bags of Indispensible Condiment I’m pretty sure the owners won’t mind.

Store hours are from 9am to 11pm everyday. I go there every week for mochi and instant noodles.

Minus one star for not having my favorite brand of peanut oil. It’s not that they never had it, but last time I was there, it wasn’t. And I’m just petty and vindictive like that.
I love their entire aisle of dried noodles. It’s a bit overwhelming, because when I go looking for buckwheat noodles, their must be dozens, if not scores of varieties to choose from.
A brick of GMO-​free produced-​in-​California tofu is about a buck.
They also stock a variety of Indian and Pakistani delights. But I generally try to buy those at Parivar, just because I’m always looking for an excuse to get some of their chaat.
Anyhow, it is a great addition to the Albany food scene, and the first place I go locally when looking for something from Asia. Just allow yourself plenty of time to browse the aisles, they are jam packed with wonderful and interesting delights.