New York City Chinatown Supermarkets: New York Supermarket v. Hong Kong Supermarket

Along East Broadway in New York City's Chinatown, there are various stores and markets, selling everything from baked goods to fish balls. I stopped by two of them today to comparison shop.

New York Supermarket
75 East Broadway
New York, NY 10002

Located in a slightly hidden mini-mall directly under the Manhattan Bridge, you have to get past a corridor with small stores that smell of perm solutions (appetizing, no?) to get to the New York Supermarket. Don't worry - the market itself doesn't smell or seem to be contaminated. The fruit section of the market is in a covered, outdoor area, but the vegetables and other food are located inside the store. This supermarket has the usual Chinese fruits - Durian, Persimmons, Kumquats, etc. - and vegetables - bok choy, pea shoots, winter melon, etc. Everything looked pretty fresh. I found scallions at a great price (3 for $1.00)! The space itself is well-lit, but the aisles are a little tight.

Hong Kong Supermarket
109 East Broadway
New York, NY 10002

The Hong Kong Supermarket is the 800 lb. gorilla of Chinatown supermarkets. They have a huge space and a ton of selection. Reviews on the internet of this supermarket are unfairly harsh. People think that this is a dark and dirty spot. I'm not sure what standards they are applying because I find the Hong Kong Supermarket to be brighter and cleaner than most American supermarkets in the city.


Comparison
Interestingly enough, the fruit selection (located outside of the Hong Kong Supermarket) was much bigger and better than the New York Supermarket, but the vegetable section (again, located inside) was not very good. The aisles were bigger than the New York Supermarket, and just because the sheer size of the place, Hong Kong Supermarket has much more selection.

As for prices, I found that noodles (both fresh and dried) were slightly cheaper at New York Supermarket than at Hong Kong Supermarket. However, for other goods, Hong Kong Supermarket served a beat down to New York Supermarket by a wide margin. Here is a quick comparison:

Fresh Lo Mein Noodles ($1.39 at New York Supermarket, $1.49 at Hong Kong Supermarket)
Gold Key Dried Mangoes ($4.99 at New York Supermarket, $3.49 at Hong Kong Supermarket)
Kadoya Sesame Oil ($4.19 at New York Supermarket, $3.99 at Hong Kong Supermarket)
25lb. bag of Golden Crown Brand Jasmine Rice (N/a at New York Supermarket, $14.99 at Hong Kong Supermarket)

As a side note, do you know how difficult it is to carry a 25lb. bag of rice around NYC? It must be like carrying a small child around with you everywhere. Now, I understand the plight of young mothers with their small children on the subway! Except, I would imagine that young mothers can't (or shouldn't!) throw their small children on the ground like I did with my bag of rice.

Note: This blog is in no way affiliated with either of these businesses mentioned in this post. This is the sole opinion of Mystery Ter.

Fresh Bluefish at $2.29 per pound

It's astounding how few varieties of fish most supermarkets carry. I often wonder whether it's really the consumer demands that generated our "over-fishing" problems, or whether it is the lack of demand-generation effort on the part of the retailers to encourage consumers to eat types of fish that are plentiful from our oceans.

On a good day, if you go to a general supermarket in the Boston area (e.g., Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Wholefoods, Shaws, Foodmaster, Roche Brothers), you may find one kind of fish for $5.99 a pound (even cat fish costs this much these days), but most will priced around $8.99 a pound. The varieties are usually limited to salmon, tuna, swordfish, cod, haddock, catfish, tilapia, trout, and your usual New England shellfish. Recently, I've been seeing more swai and pollack as well. But generally these are it. And they're expensive. For convenience sake, sometimes, I'd end up buying fish there, but I usually wait until I have to shop at Kam Man, the large Chinese Supermarket near my home in Quincy. I'm lucky that I live in a very racially diverse enough town where there is such a supermarket.

There are many, many more varieties of fish there at Kam Man that you don't see at other supermarkets. These are usually the plentiful fish and are the bargain items. The salmon is generally not much below prices at other supermarkets.

Most of this fish are very fresh–some (such as tilapia) are even live in tanks. You have to choose a fish, pick it up with a pair of tongs (as pictured above) and put it into a basket and then ask the clerk to clean and cut it for you. For bigger fish such as salmon and grouper and carp, you can get it by the pound, but for smaller fish, you have to pick a whole fish, which they weigh entirely and then cut and clean. Yesterday, I ended buying a 3.25 pound bluefish for $7.42 (@ $2.29 a lb). I had the clerk filet it, keeping the bones in the bag. Each filet will be served as entrées for two (a total of 4 servings), and the bones, head, and tail I plan to keep for fish stock.

My message here is: open your mind to ethnic supermarkets. You're likely to find good quality produce. More on how I prepared the bluefish later.

The Mighty Dollar Store

I've become a fan of Dollar Tree, a chain of dollar stores with branches around the Boston area. And the items there are actually $1 or less, unlike some chains that call themselves dollar stores but in fact have items that are mostly above $1.

I have to pause for a moment and amend what I said earlier about shopping with a grocery list. You can't really be strictly sticking to a list at a dollar store, nor a place like HomeGoods/T.J. Maxx/Marshalls (yes, they have a few food items there too, and I'll talk more about that later). I would recommend keeping in mind a general idea of what you need. For example, pasta, sauce, canned vegetables, soup, etc.

I had been shy about buying food from the dollar store until a few months ago when I finally took a look at the variety they have and the dates on the cans. So far, all the dates I've seen are indeed guaranteeing the cans to be fresh. The more surprising, however, are the name brand products I found on the shelves. Among them were Swiss Miss hot chocolate, Healthy Choice soups (which can cost around $2 when not on sale at a regular supermarket). The VanCamp's Chicken of the Sea smoked sardines were actually priced at $.79. I even bought a pack of artist brushes (that's my only taxable item, as all food items are non-taxable in Massachusetts) for a dollar there. Excluding the paint brushes, the bill was under $15. That's 4 cans of soup, 3 cans of smoked sardines, 3 cans of smoked oysters, 1 can of chili, 1 can of beef stew, 1 package of thin spaghetti, 1 can of meat sauce and 1 box of hot chocolate.

Just the spaghetti and the meat sauce alone can provide 2-4 meals for one. Each can of soup, chili and stew can be supplemented with bread (6 meals), Each can of sardine/smoked oysters can be supplemented with rice and vegetables (6 meals). I always try to make fresh green leafy vegetables to add to dinner. Nutrition is important, and we need to be mindful of that. Fresh vegetables can be purchased cheaply as well. More on that in a later entry.

So, I just counted 14-16 meals from the purchases above from our purchases for under $15. Oh, and the hot chocolate, of course, is a little bit of luxury.

To Splurge Or Not to Splurge: Coffee

I'm going to talk a little about lifestyle adjustment. I used to be an IT professional with a decent regular paycheck. Then back in 2002, after the dotcom bubble burst, I decided to pursue my dream to become a full-time visual artist. It was a huge lifestyle change for me. I had never budgeted before, and I was used to having a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts coffee every morning. $1.50 - $3.50 (latte) a day didn't seem like much money to me, but what that really amounted to was $47-$109 per month just on coffee – That's $564 - $1308 per year. JUST. ON. COFFEE.

It's mind-boggling. Upon first making this shocking discovery, I swung heavily in the direction of skimping. Buying the cheapest (usually the nastiest-tasting) coffee available in the supermarket. Then I realized how stupid that is. You should not think of saving as self-punishment. There are plenty of great off-the-shelf whole bean or ground coffee choices available. If you really like your Starbucks coffee, you can even buy the Starbucks take-home beans or ground coffee to help you transition.

I think it's still okay to treat yourself to a latte once in a while, but budget for that too. I limit myself to once a month.

I guess I'm lucky that my favorite brand is not exorbitant. It's Yuban (pictured here). I had it the first time when I bought it on sale and then just fell in love with it. Unfortunately, not every supermarket sells it. When not on sale, a 12-oz can is around $4.50 ($.15 a cup) and can last a month. The only other cost is a basket coffee filter for my coffee maker. $3 for 100 count ($.03 a cup).

So, that's $.18 a cup. $5.60 versus $47-$109 per month on coffee.

Grocery Budget of $325 a month for 2 people and 2 cats

I'll kick off this blog with my entry. There are two people including myself in my household. I have a monthly budget of $325 (that's only $2 more than the amount of food stamps allowance for a 2-person household in Massachusetts, even though we are not on food stamps), covering groceries and pet food/supplies for our 2 cats. We eat pretty well. I want to show how this can be done.

WRITE DOWN NUMBERS. The biggest trick is logging in your receipts each time you shop. It's amazing how you can stick to your budget just by writing down numbers. I'm a total, complete slob and it took me a while to get used to this, but having a little notepad with you can really help.

GO INTO THE GROCERY STORE WITH A PHYSICAL SHOPPING LIST. The shopping list gives you a guideline to prevent you from impulsively picking up that "sale" item that you really don't need.

COOK MORE THAN ONE MEAL AT A TIME. Make a lot of food and store them in plastic containers.

I think these three are most helpful tricks for me. I will share what I make and how much everything costs as we progress.