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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:23:25 JST Adrianna Tan

   My mom was complaining that H-Mart was expensive but my grocery store calculus was ‘all bread is soft’ (we dislike hard and crusty bread) and ‘there are 100 instant noodle options’ and other stores just don’t have that around here

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     SnoopJ (snoopj@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:28:08 JST SnoopJ

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     @skinnylatte I found myself briefly thinking "I wish I'd gone to H-Mart instead" yesterday when I was scouring the (large!) chinatown store I did go to for a bigger jar of chili crisp than what I ended up with. they've got the really big jar of lao gan ma at H-Mart, but only the teeny tiny jar at the place I went to

     I was mainly there for bowls though, and our H-Mart doesn't sell them, so I was in the right place after all

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:29:48 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • SnoopJ

     @SnoopJ oh! I’ve seen lots of H-Marts with Korean bowls (various metal kinds) but not the other bowls

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     SnoopJ (snoopj@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:31:11 JST SnoopJ

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     @skinnylatte the one I would sometimes visit when I lived in TX definitely had a comparable kitchen wares section to what this market has, but not the one here. They do still have "the essentials" but it's a lot further from "you can basically do restaurant supply at this place"

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:32:01 JST Adrianna Tan

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     I explained to her that a big American grocery store might have two types of instant noodles and it wouldn’t be anything she knows or like.. I don’t think she gets it.

     I’ve exposed her to a weird other universe in our time here, where because of where I live (Little Saigon, SF) and where we were (Alhambra and Monterey Park, biggest destination for modern Chinese immigration today), she thinks our food situation is similar. I had to work really hard to incorporate those elements in my life! (I don’t love big box US grocery stores. I don’t eat any of the things they sell, really)

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:32:45 JST Adrianna Tan

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     She does like Costco and TJ’s tho (not TJ’s Asian food.. which is.. very bad to me, Costco is way better)

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:34:51 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • SnoopJ

     @SnoopJ ah yeah. I might get one bougie nice Korean homeware item, like some kind of steaming implement, but I wouldn’t get homeware there

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 02:37:22 JST Adrianna Tan

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     The fact that I can walk to grocery shop in my pajamas and sandals all year round and have not one, but three different stores within a block or two from where I live in SF where I can get my choice of soy sauce and fish sauce and fresh laksa leaves and galangal is.. pretty unique and not easy to replicate elsewhere in this country.

     Very often I’m cooking something very SE Asian and forgot something and I can just GO DOWNSTAIRS TO GET GALANGAL. While speaking my native language.