At Trading

As a young child of Chinese immigrants, I spent a ton of a time in Chinatown during my younger years. I have many fond memories of traveling around C-​town with my mom, her shopping carriage in tow as we went from store to store picking up (then) exotic ingredients for meals, soups and more. Many of our shopping trips involved going to smaller stores that weren’t much to look at, but always had the basics of what you needed to stock your home with Asian goods.
There are many large scale markets in Chinatown nowadays that cater to both the traditional crowd and tourists. However, tucked away in pockets of Chinatown are still older places where you sort of have to be «in the know» to shop at because most average tourists would wander right by them or not bother to go in because they’re not quite modern looking enough. A.T. Trading is one such shop. I confess that I don’t recall its original name, but I do remember going to this store now and then as a youngster with mom to grab some basic items including noodles, tea or canned goods.
A.T. sits on a corner, so they use this to maximum effect, with a spread of everything from roasted peanuts to Chinese medicines laid out in the front as watchful store employees look on. Inside is a section with tons of ingredients for Chinese herbal medicines, some in boxes, some in big glass jars. After that are aisles full of some of your basic staples for any Chinese household. This includes a wide variety of teas in tins and tea bags, sauces such as Oyster sauce and soy sauce, noodles, rice, canned goods such as mushrooms and bamboo shoots and there’s even an aisle with a limited supply of Chinese snacks. You’ll also find cold drinks in a fridge in the back area, but don’t expect the aisles to be super organized. Some sections have boxes tossed hastily into corners to get them out of the way and I noticed a child’s Tonka style truck on top of a box pile.
The selection here is somewhat limited in terms of brands. Go to a place like Kam Man and you’ll find tons more variety. But if you just need to stock up on some fairly cheap items, you could do worse than A.T. Trading.