In white-people grocery stores, the backlit signs shine from a half mile away, the aisles are wide, the floors gleam, and the labels are in English—but the produce is mediocre, the meat is pale, and everything is expensive. This is not true in Little Saigon, up the hill from Chinatown, where grocery stores are hard to find, distinguished outside by boxes of fruit under tarp awnings and inside by imperfect linoleum floors. But there you will discover prices so low, you’ll think you’ve died and gone to 1954.
At Lam’s Seafood—which is the best of the grocery stores in the area, and maybe the world—you can’t find cheese. (The entire dairy section takes up only the bottom-left quarter of a small cooler, where they stock a few cartons of milk.) But anything else you could ever want to put into your face, to make any food of any cuisine, abounds.
The seafood: Lam’s is more than a fishmonger, but we will start in the seafood section—past the stands of jackfruit and durian, through the impossibly narrow aisles, all the way in the back. Tilapia are swimming in massive aquariums, and you can purchase one for $4.49 a pound, and the men behind the counter will turn it into fillets in minutes. Live lobsters are $7.99 a pound. Whole octopus is sold for $2.99 a pound. Bins of snails are $3.29 a pound. All the shellfish are there, tanks of clams and crates of crawfish, and a dozen varieties of finfish with fresh, clear eyes are chilling on a queen-size bed of ice. The halibut flesh is white like taffy, fillets thick as a softball, and it’s cheap: $8.99 a pound. I take some halibut home and poach it with garlic for 10 minutes, toss in some vermouth, salt, and cream, and it’s amazing. Scallops the size of gerbils are $15.99 for one and a half pounds. Two pounds of massive prawns are $9.49 frozen. You are practically being paid to eat the Pacific Ocean.
The produce: Almost nothing is labeled in English. But if you know what a thing looks like (for instance, a bundle of asparagus for $1.49), you’re in clover. Some stuff is loose (five limes for a dollar! Three avocados for a dollar! Guacamole for all!), and lots of other stuff is prebagged (fresh bamboo shoots for $1.29 a pound), wrapped (serrano chilies for $1.49), or tied together (two heads of butter lettuce for $1.29). The roma tomatoes are candy red all the way through and not mealy in the slightest. There’s lemongrass, basil, shallots, Greek cucumbers, papayas the color of a sunset, all overflowing from wooden crates.
The meat: You must be warned that an average American can’t walk through the Lam’s meat department without at least once thinking, “OHMYGODPEOPLEEATTHAT?” Case in point: the pork uteruses ($1.99 a pound). But waltz right past Wilbur’s childhood home to
rafts of pork belly ($2.99 a pound) or pork shoulder, the King of Meats, only $1.79 a pound. (Since we’re on the subject, you really must know how to make a pork shoulder: Salt the meat liberally and let it sit out for an hour, brown the dickens out of it over high heat, pour in a generous bath of chicken stock and some browned onions and carrots, insert the vessel into your oven at
250 degrees, and then walk away for approximately four to five hours. Blessed are the frugal.) Also, rosy chicken, crimson oxtails, marbled steaks—the whole ark.
The tofu: There is a cooler of soy products. The soy milk on a Sunday afternoon is still hot—it’s just been made—and has the proper name “soybean juice.” There is also tofu. Don’t like tofu? You do now. It is still warm when I get it home, and it crumbles into something that could give ricotta an inferiority complex. The label shows it was made on 12th and King—about 150 feet west.
The deli: The deli is so affordable it doesn’t even make sense. Rice noodles with barbecued pork and veggies and sauce is $2; barbecued chicken, spring rolls, and sticky rice are all from $1 to $3. There are steam trays of mysterious meats with the bone still in, strange beans and gravies, and other unidentifiable things. You can get those rolls that Vietnamese sandwiches come on and make your own pork-shoulder sandwiches.
Of course, all the other stuff you want to make Asian food is at Lam’s, from tamarind paste to fresh rice noodles (new every day, so delicious). But you can get all your white-people food, too—except for cheese. 
average american would not fit down the isles of asian grocery stores in the city.
dam it, now all the white-people will know
What happened?
Did ya move into the neighborhood?
Lam’s been around since at least ’00 (anyone remember the opening gala?).
In any event, it’s great to see Lam’s finally getting some press.
I’d expect a homepage story of The Stranger would spend a bit more time when writing to use
more descriptive and politically correct terms than “white-people grocery stores” versus “Asian-people” grocery stores. Have you shopped at Uwajimaya? And I’m a religious shopper at the so-called “white-people” stores and I am a first generation Taiwanese immigrant.
The Stranger’s editors needs a multicultural course in how to not to perpetuate racial and cultural stereotypes… and I guess raising the journalistic standards of this publication in general…. for a newspaper that calls itself the ONLY newspaper in Seattle.
This story should be called “Safeway Sells Cereal!” or some other title that proclaims obvious-ness. Is our city so segregated that someone “ventures” into a grocery store that’s been around for years, 10 minutes from downtown, buys a bunch of stuff, and it’s considered a “story?” Please, I found out about this place within months of moving here. It’s not like Asian American newspapers review the “white people” stores all “Gasp! They have Lara Bars!”
You to can shop for low, low prices when you buy factory farmed veggies and meat and toxic farmed fish. Sustainability FAIL.
Agreed #6, I was thinking the same thing when I read this. I don’t eat it, but I do know that if seafood is comparatively cheap, then it’s probably either caught using the most unsustainable and un-natural methods, or from a factory farm, raised in the cheapest and most unappetizing way possible, likely involving hormones or chemicals of some sort. Then again, maybe I’m just a cynical bastard, and all of Lam’s seafood is caught by little father/son fishermen on little boats with the greatest of respect for the environment…. maybe. I know how it is; don’t ask, don’t tell, right? Ignorance is bliss….
What’s with the “white people” guilt, Dominic Holden? Shove it, you pretentious prick.
clams are illegal in south africa. for reals? yes, i live there…here, rather. coming to seattle soon and can not wait to get my hands on all the lovely ingredients that the city provides. appreciate what you have. try living in a place where there’s not really an option to eat sustainable, local and/or organic.
About the dairy thing: 98% of the people in that part of the world are lactose intolerant, so… duh.
I have shopped there many, many times. There is nothing wrong with the place. It’s great. It’s cheap, and smells like they got the last of the shrimp left on the dock on a hot day…there’s nothing wrong with that though…so far. They’ve been doing it for years, and they’re still doing it. I consider that as a testament to either low standards of customers, or economic realities (sure, I’ll eat farmed, frozen striped bass with sunken eyes if I’m broke. Shit, I’ll eat fresh farmed striped bass with sunken eyes if I’m broke…I just have to remember to stay close to the porcelain Honda for a few hours to make sure everything’s ducky). Regarding sustainability…it’s a noble cause and is the celebrated cause of people who regard themselves as foodies…but really, who are we trying to kid? Money’s tight, we gotta’ eat, and what are we gonna’ do? Wait? I lost 30 lbs. waiting. Fuck that. Besides, I’m a biracial ‘hapa’ (hate the term because I’m not from Hawaii)with a pension (sp?) for food that’s not traditionally referred to as ‘american’. Can anybody tell me where I can find locally grown, or even organic water spinach? Malunggay? Bitter Melon? Mountain Potato (that’s the tuber packed in the sawdust)?
So what’s a person to do? Don’t dare tell me to substitute it with kale, or spinach, or horseradish, chard or russet potatoes. It’s apples versus oranges. Tell you what…if Whole Foods builds a grocery store on Beacon Hill, you can bet that it’s(Beacon Hill’s) rich history will be dead as a door nail. The day that happens, I’ll jump off the Rizal Bridge.
Thanks for keeping it real. Even if it has to be trucked up from SoCal. Let’s just try to keep from referring to Beacon Hill as BeHi.
Supermarket on Beacon Hill has better prices.
If this article is an eye opener to you, you’ve been wasting a lot of money on groceries. As a vegetarian, I can’t vouch for meat/fish, but the veggies and tofu at small markets always beats PCC & Whole Foods on either price or quality, and they destroy them on tofu.
Hit up MacPherson’s on Beacon Hill for all your veggies, got to any Asian store for tofu and sauces, and buy your American food at Safeway. Boutique grocery stores are nice if you’re easily pleased, but the smaller shops do much more to push the hippie/foodie agenda at half the cost.
One more thing… Big grocery stores all follow the same formula. The “outsides” of grocery stores, namely their bakery, deli, produce, and pharmacy, generate almost all the profit. The next time you go to QFC, look at green onions. They cost $20 for a case of 80 units, but the stores charge $1.19 for a bunch (1000+% markup). Meanwhile, the inner aisles either break even, or are effectively rented to beverage and anak food companies (which is why the Pepsi driver stocks the shelves). This “outside” gouging doesn’t happen at stores who don’t invest a lot on the traditional “inside” selection.
At #13, thanks for the info, I didn’t know that but can definetely see why that would be. As for the quality of these Asian groceries, I have always liked shopping there but sometimes find it hard to settle on things. The prices are great, but not knowing how to incorporate the ingredients sometimes sucks.
#11 Go to the U-District Farmer’s market on Saturdays, there’s a Japanese farmer from Eastern Washington who grows most of what you mentioned and more. (He sets up near the NW corner of the market.) It’s all organic/spray free/sustainable. He has good prices and his stuff is AMAZING. Try the Japanese cucumbers, the bitter melon, the loofah. I’m growing a few of his shiso plants in my apartment right now–the guy has got great stuff.
Regarding the quality at cheap asian markets—
I’m not sure about Lam’s, but I shop at the nearly identical Hau Hau Market on the same block and I often see the Charlie’s produce truck parked in front. And since I see the very same truck outside QFC and Whole Foods, I can only conclude that it’s literally all the same shit wherever you go.
I think the marts of Little Saigon are cheap because
a) they have a more generous definition of “too ripe to sell”, and
b) an utter lack of pretense. QFC may have clean floors and not smell like pig uterus, but they sell the same shitty Mexican asparagus.
How do the produce prices compare to Trader Joe’s?