The Bay Area’s culinary crown jewels are not limited to world-class restaurants; they are also reflected in the rich diversity of our grocery stores. Immigrants have flocked to San Francisco since this city was known as Buena Vista, and each wave of people brought both their taste for the foods of home and the ingredients to cook them. And while a restaurant can satisfy a diner’s appetite, a grocery store can sustain a community.
So whether you want to expand your cooking repertoire or your community, support small businesses, or just soak up the sights, sounds, and smells of another culture, a walk through the doors can be like a delicious trip abroad.
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1. Battambang Market
This compact market in the Tenderloin opened in the 1970s to supply newly arriving refugees and immigrants from Southeast Asia with the foods and flavors they left behind. The store primarily stocks ingredients for Thai, Cambodian, Filipino, and Vietnamese cuisine. There’s a small produce section and a freezer where you can find krapow leaves for making pad thai, curry leaves, pandan leaves, and citrusy makrut lime leaves.
The main draw to this store is exploring the canned and jarred goods: soup bases for pho, tom yum, and others; all manner of vegetable, spice, fish, and meat pastes and sauces; and fruits such as attap, longans, rambutan, lychee, mangosteen, and toddy palm. And while other groceries may carry canned young coconut, Battambang also carries macapuno (coconut sport) and nata de coco (coconut gel), both of which make excellent desserts.
2. Casa Guadalupe Supermarkets
There are two Casa Guadalupes on the same block of Mission Street: The one at the corner of 25th Street is an upscale bodega that would feel at home in any neighborhood, and the store at the corner of 26th specializes in groceries from Latin America, especially Peru.
Like other markets in the Mission District, Casa Guadalupe includes a fresh meat and fish counter and lots of produce. What sets the 26th Street market apart is the huge variety of foods particular to Latin America: soup bases like recaito and sofrito; moles, adobos, and acopas; and plenty of canned sauces and dried beans. If you’re a mate fanatic, they sell several brands by the kilo.
Ratchet up your dessert and cocktail game by experimenting with a few of the frozen fruit purees from Peru such as maracuyá (passion fruit), guanábana (soursop), lucuma, nance, mamey, and naranjillo. The frozen section also includes healthy herbs such as huacatay and chipilin as well as choclo, green mango, and the tuber ullucu. The front counter has several to-go options. The cooler holds house-made ceviche, salsa, and guacamole, and the countertop hotbox often has crispy chicharrónes, tamalitos de chipilín, and tamales.
3. Jai Ho Indian Grocery
This tidy Indian grocery store in the Western Addition is the largest Indian market in San Francisco. The shelves are packed with an impressive variety of flours, rices, lentils, noodles, dried mixes, pickles, sauces, oils, spices, teas, snacks, and sweets. There’s an array of beauty and ayurvedic health products, and Indian cooking utensils from pressure cookers to the indispensable chapati rolling pin. The refrigerator and freezer cases scattered around the store like vegetarian treasure chests are stuffed with breads, dosas, paneers, butters, chutneys, and vegetables such as green chickpeas and purple yams. There’s also a small produce section in the rear of the store.
Owners Rakesh and Rama Marwaha have posted dozens of their favorite recipes online, many of which include videos. And while it’s fun to browse through the store, you can also use their comprehensive online grocery list to place an order for local delivery or curbside pickup.
4. Koreana Plaza (KP) Asian Market
This well-stocked Korean grocery, established in Uptown Oakland in 1973, houses a huge variety of imported food from South Korea, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. There’s nearly an entire cold case of kimchi, one side of an aisle is dedicated to sauces, another for dried noodles and ramen, and a third for fruit and rice wines. There are full-service counters for the bakery, the meat counter, the live seafood tanks, and even imported cosmetics. Freezers are stocked with frozen seafood, dumplings, and other prepared foods, and the produce section includes fresh Asian fruits and vegetables. There are also to-go dishes like kimbap, japchae, Korean pancakes, and California rolls.
Don’t leave without visiting the adjacent housewares store, which offers everything from rice cookers, plastic sandals, and linens, to metal bowls the size of a kiddie pool.
5. Lehr’s German Specialties
This quirky old-school German import store in Noe Valley carries a bit of everything. You expect the imported pickles, sauerkraut, sausages, cheese, breads, and pastries, the lingonberry jam, black currant syrup, dried spätzle and other noodles, and the neat rows of fine chocolates and other sweets. But the store also stocks German newspapers and magazines, household gadgets, novelty gifts, dirndls, lederhosen, alpine hats, ornate glassware, an extensive line of Gehwol foot care products, and even a few record albums (Trini Lopez… really).
6. Lucca Delicatessen
This charming and family-run Italian deli in the Marina has been serving San Franciscans since 1929. There is an impressive selection of imported canned goods, cheeses, meats, and wine, but the standout here is the house-made pasta, particularly the ravioli. The machine used to make the ravioli was shipped from Italy in the 1930s and still cranks out about 100 boxes a week.
The deli counter contains enough soups, salads, pastas, sauces, sandwiches, and entrees to provision a fine restaurant, and in fact, Lucca’s does catering. The deli also sells locally baked focaccia from North Beach’s Liguria Bakery. Order anything from Mercato, or soup, salads, and sandwiches for delivery or pickup by phone or on their website.
7. Man Must Wak
This African and Caribbean grocery in Downtown Oakland brings families together for meals and supports a growing community through food, events, and classes. The grocery’s name is Nigerian slang which translates to “man must eat to survive.”
The store imports items such as canned goods, spicy sauces, and flours made from cassava, banku (fermented corn), coco yam, elubo (yam), and plantain. There are traditional African medicinal plants and spices such as kolanut, bitter kola, and alligator pepper; greens such as ugu and okasi leaves; and vegetables like garden egg and imported yams. The grocery also sells to-go food such as meat pies, stews with jollof rice, moin-moin (savory steamed bean pudding), scotch eggs, and desserts such as the beignet-like chin chin.
Browse and shop online for pickup or delivery. Man Must Wak also does catering.
8. New May Wah Supermarket
San Francisco’s Richmond District — sometimes called San Francisco’s Second Chinatown — is home to this sprawling and bustling Asian supermarket. New May Wah checks all the boxes: Live seafood tanks? Some towns sell tickets for lesser aquariums. Sauces? Hundreds. Fresh Noodles? Dozens. Dumplings? Truckload. Snacks, desserts, and sodas? Enough to pack an entire specialty store.
The front of the store has so much inexpensive produce, the fruit section overflows onto the sidewalk on rolling shelves. Season permitting, there are hard-to-find fresh fruits such as mamey, rambutan, lychee, and longan. There’s a huge meat and poultry case; they even stock fresh and frozen silkie (black) chickens. Peruse the aisle of imported beers, wines, and spirits, including flavored sujus and fine Japanese whiskies. There’s a fair-sized housewares section in the back and an altar in case you want to give thanks for this bountiful store.
9. New World Market
This market in the Richmond District serves the Russian community that first migrated there to escape the Russian Revolution a century ago. The store’s coolers house an overwhelming heap of imported sausages like kielbasa, salami, and bologna, as well as smoked meats and fish. There are also fresh and frozen dumplings such as manties, perogies, and varenikes. If you get tired of dumplings, there are stuffed peppers, stuffed eggplants, dolmas, and sheika (stuffed chicken neck) in the deli case. In the mood for something lighter? Nosh on delicate rye crackers, imported caviar, and iced Russian vodka paired with one of their many salads.
The market adjoins the Hermitage Banquet Hall & Restaurant which, once we get past this pandemic, will again offer restaurant service and event hosting with food from the store.
10. Samiramis Imports
This store in the Mission has carried the area’s most complete stock of Middle Eastern foodstuffs since it opened in 1950. The heady smells from the bins of coffee and spices greet you as soon as you enter the door. The shelves are crowded with canned and jarred goods such as pepper and tomato pastes, stuffed eggplants, dolmas, plain and spiced fava beans, and nuts in honey. Samiramis also stocks fruit syrups and jalab, vimto, and kamardine cordials for making drinks. Plus they offer the best selection of Middle Eastern teas in San Francisco.
The coolers contain fresh hummus and baba ganoush, local and imported cheeses, and butters — all of which you can spread on their fresh malawach, pita, and lavash breads from Northern California bakeries.
In addition to wandering through the store, you can browse and shop online for pickup or delivery.
