I finally worked up the nerve to place an order with Asian Food Grocer (AFG). I’ve never ordered imported food online before, and didn’t know what to expect; that said, I’m now sold on the idea.
I placed the order on Christmas, and received it Monday, January 5th, at 8:30 am. They used cardboard & kraft paper for packaging, which was effective & neat. Everything arrived intact, and more surprisingly, in pristine condition. I’m so used to grocery store imports, battered & dust-covered & occasionally slick with greasy film, that the fresh, clean bags & bottles made me ooh and aah.
The prices are great, though not the absolute best (e.g., a 1.41 oz box of Pocky costs $1.08 at AFG versus $0.99 at Koamart). They offer FedEx and USPS shipping options; I chose FedEx and paid just over $18 to ship this order, which isn’t unusual. The shipping fee also gets more reasonable as the order size increases.
Summary: AFG features quick shipping (given the holidays), low prices, and nice-looking products. They also add English language nutrition labels to all imports, a nice touch. Highly recommended.
And, because I’m excited & want to share, below is an overview of what I bought. You’ll notice that AFG sells Japanese products almost exclusively; I may try Koamart next to fill in the blanks.
Clockwise, starting at the far left corner: Salux wash cloth, ajino rakuen rice crackers, small grain rice, bonito flakes, La-Yu chili oil, chili bean sauce, shichimi togarashi, Puchirin Konpeito (sugar candy).
I’ve heard great things about Salux wash cloths, so threw one in the cart. Small grain rice, shichimi togarashi, chili bean sauce, chili oil & bonito flakes pop up in all the Japanese cookbooks I own, so in they went too. The sugar candy had great reviews, but more importantly, resembled the space candy in Nodame Cantabile (right).
The rice crackers, though, have a brutal aftertaste. I nearly cried the second time I tried one, and I’m not a picky eater. I’ll give them one more go before posting a review/pawning them off on an unsuspecting friend.
Clockwise from far left: Roasted bulk sushi nori, hirikon kiridashi kombu, shrimp chips, wakame, awase miso.
More basics: miso and three kinds of seaweed (nori for sushi & rice balls, wakame for soups & toppings, & kombu for dashi). As for the miso, AFG calls it red miso, but the full title says “awase miso,” which I thought was a blend of white & red. We shall see. I discovered shrimp chips in Paris, and lived on them for a month thereafter. These are made in America & quite good.
Clockwise from far left: Bull-Dog tonkatsu sauce, prepared shredded squid, panko bread crumbs, ryorishu mirin, prepared sweetened red beans, white sesame seeds, salmon furikake.
Since we like tonkatsu, I bought panko & tonkatsu sauce (Bull-Dog is the brand that always gets recommended). Dried squid is both disgusting & addictive, and perfect with beer. Mirin & sesame seeds were two other cooking basics I needed, plus the sesame seeds were half the cost of my local grocer’s. Ordering the mirin gave me a lot of trouble, however; some people advised aji mirin, most suggested hon or “regular” mirin, and in the end I just went with the one with the highest alcohol content (13%). Adding to the confusion, this kind is called “ryorishu mirin,” which is like saying “wine alcohol” (at least, that’s what this glossary suggests). Again, we will see.
I’ve wanted to try furikake since reading Shiawase Kissa Sanchome (the heroine lives on her own for the first time, and instead of cooking real meals, makes rice seasoned with increasingly bizarre types of furikake). The prepared red beans are for tau sar bao; I haven’t found red bean paste anywhere, so hopefully I can strain this and get something similar. As for the dough, I’ve heard that Pillsbury biscuit dough is a good shortcut. We will see, we will see.
Thank you so much for making this review! I found it by Googling “Asian food grocer review”. I wanted to be sure the site was trustworthy.
You’re pictures are marvelous as well. Again, thank you!!!!!
Sarah
Thanks, Sarah! AFG also supplies Borders with their manga/otaku food supplies–they’re definitely good eggs.
Thanks for the review…just found it. We appreciate your kind comments, we work hard for our clients.
Thank you so much! I’ve been wanting to give in and try for a while, but reading your review and seeing the pictures gave me the comfort to go ahead and order!
Can’t believe I missed this comment (seriously thought I had responded), but a much-belated thanks, Stacy! I had a great experience ordering from you guys.
I know, I fretted a lot before ordering from them. Turned out great, though! Hope you have a good experience too.
Nice review so do you think it is safe to buy canned soybean curd pockets from koamart.com?
^^ thanks
I haven’t bought from Koamart.com before, so I can’t say, but I bet it’s okay.
Thanks for the review, I’ve been trying out various Asian food sites and hadn’t tried this one, so thanks for letting me know about it, I’ll look foward to trying it out.
Thanks, Ben. Hope you have a good experience too!
I never received my product. I received my package without the knife in it. I contacted the website through email. AsianFoodGrocer insist that they have a “secure procedure warehouse in place and items scan indicates they were process”. I’m letting other people know do not buy more than 3 items at a time in one package, most likely 1 or 2 items will never make it to you like what happened to me. If an item goes missing you will not get a refund either. Expect to loose money if you order more than 1 product at a time.