New York Mart

I find myself making quite a few Asian dishes lately and there is always some ingredient you can only find in Chinatown. Yesterday, it was lily bulbs. I was actually looking for the Hong Kong supermarket but I couldn’t find 158 Hester, only 157 and I somehow ended up in the New York mart. Lol. I’m a native New Yorker but I constantly get lost in Chinatown. It’s ok, I like wandering around. Back to New York mart. This place is huge! Sooo much variety. I’m going to go back when I have more time because I want to google things while I’m in there.
I found my lily bulbs! Fresh, 3 in a vacuum sealed pack for $ 3.49. Not sure if that’s considered cheap or not. It seemed a good price for me. I also found garlic chive flowers! I had those in a hutong in Beijing. So good! Personally, I don’t like Chinatown because aesthetically, it’s just too dirty and smelly for me but I will get past that because of places like New York mart. There are just so many things to discover, it’s just so interesting to me.

One of the busiest Chinese supermarkets in Chinatown by far, but certainly not the greatest.
The supermarket has a lot of produce, poultry, foods, and etc. as well as roasted meats on the other side of the supermarket. Customers here are quite rude and pushy. The aisles are a little tight, not much room to move around.
I came to this supermarket once to purchase an electric hot pot because my boyfriend has one too and it works very well. The price of mine was $ 49.99. We brought the pot home, did a test run and found there was a hole inside the pot and water was leaking through the hole when we did the test run.
We went to return it and explained the issues to management and was given a $ 50 store credit instead to use and shop with it. It can get pretty packed and crazy here. I definitely prefer Hong Kong supermarket on Elizabeth Street or going to similar shops to pick up what I need.

Awesome fresh fish market! They have vegetables and a departmental section too. My only complain was that no names are written on fishes. It’s difficult to know which fish it is and have to ask which is annoying for both seller and customer during rush time.

The goods in this medium-​sized market tend to be crammed together on the shelves and around every corner. It kind of gives me a closed in feeling, but since this is one of two large Chinese supermarkets in the area… here I go.

I’ve been to New York Mart twice and both times my experiences weren’t bad (not great, but hey, it’s Chinatown– ‘not bad’ equates to great elsewhere). I must admit I try to stay as far away from Chinatown as possible. I hate the crowd of people and the smell that permeates the streets (raw sewage is the best I can describe). I’ve started frequenting in the last few weeks only b/​c of my soy milk and roast pork buns cravings. And since I’ve trekked all the way to Chinatown, I might as well do some grocery shopping while in the neighborhood– and voila, I found a one-​stop shop in New York Mart.
The place is quite large– i would say it’s a size of two large stores combined (actually look two stores were combined/​walls knocked down to create the mega store). One section is produce and meats; and the other section of the store is the dry and refrigerated foods. I like the place b/​c they stock my fav vege (snow pea shoots) and have an array of steamed white buns in the refrigerated section. The food quality, like what some reviewers have mentioned, is not top quality. The produce don’t look like they are as fresh as ones you can find from the street vendors but they aren’t rotting by any means, and I like the convenience of picking up my steamed white buns along w my veges. The soy bean milk here looks suspect, so I pick up my soy milk elsewhere.
Now the place does get crowded. The first time i stopped by was after work and it was crowded. The second time I stopped by was on a weekend before Chinese New Year (stupid me!!) and the place was PACKED. The whole neighborhood was packed during the CNY weekend with ppl shopping for new year’s celebration. I would assume typical weekends are busy times as well though, so I’ll probably stick to shopping here after work to avoid the mega crowds.

NY Mart is one of those one-​stop shop for all your grocery needs that neither impresses or disappoints. The convenience of having fresh (but more often semi-​fresh) produce, staples, packaged/​frozen good is always a plus. However, big crowds and the frequent need to dig through the fruits and vegetables for freshness makes one hesitate to want to enter in the first place. It does have a bigger variety of produce than Dynasty two blocks away, so there you go.
Lastly, a shout-​out to NY Mart for being open on the day where Chinatown is being bludgeoned by The Blizzard of 2016.

I always smile when people come back from a trip here and say, «eww, it was, like… .they have a gross bathroom. and it’s .so crowded».Dude, you want class? Get thee to Bergdorf Goodman. For my part, the pushy crowds and ‘blab of the pave’ as Walt Whitman called it. are music to our ears. And, actually classy. but in a different, (ahem) earthier way. Check out the baked goods counter, for some reason that weird scallion sponge cake roll is a turn on for this Italian lady. The meat section on NYM’s back wall has the best priced, tastiest pork ribs we ever ate. Fresh salmon filets as well as steaks also get raves from my family. I am in fact, headed to NYM this morning soon as they open: you can buy huge bags of mini bok choy, which I sauté and serve over sticky (Elephant Family brand) rice. Sublime!

This is my go to supermarket in Chinatown. It has pretty much everything I need. You might be able to find certain individual items at lower prices in other shop but overall New York Mart is fairly competitive. There’s always a vegetable on sale. Meat sales don’t run sales as often. They also have cooked meats for take out and some bakery items. They have a bathroom (which is rare in Chinatown and a positive thing) but the bathroom is kind of grose…

Hm. It surprises me that this supermarket gets such mediocre reviews. So it’s Chinatown – expect to fight through crowds of tourists and grannies pushing their little grocery carts, expect wafts of durian (for the uninitiated, it’s that nasty smell that you think is garbage), expect slimy floors that make you regret not wearing boots in the middle of the summer, expect long lines at the cash registers and having to scrimmage for cash when you realize you’re a few cents below the minimum for credit card.
If you’ve got your expectations set, you’re ready to do some serious shopping at New York Mart. This place has fairly good prices (comparable if not better than Hong Kong Supermarket). What I love is the selection of fresh veggies. It’s like a warehouse (and feels like one too — see note above about the floors). They usually carry everything I need except for yam cake, which is bizarre!
I advise taking a tip from Chinese grannies and coming earlier in the mornings to avoid insane crowds around midday and the afternoon. You can also come in the evenings, but the selection might not be as great. It’s nice to have an indoor supermarket where you can do you one-​stop shopping. It’s not going to be as dirt cheap as getting your fruits and veggies from the outside stalls lining so many of the streets in Chinatown, but it’s somewhat easier.

New York Mart has a really extensive produce selection, and it is crazily cheap. I also like that lots of stuff can be purchased in plastic bags already weighed to be 1 pound. Their selection of dry goods is solid and definitely sufficient, but for a wider variety, go to Hong Kong Supermarket just around the block. This, as well as the fact that their seafood tanks are hideously dirty, is why NY Mart gets just 3 stars.

Great selection of seafood, veggies, condiments, EVERYTHING. My mom got a 老婆饼, which is one of her favorite pastries, and she gave her stamp of approval. This is the place to go to if you want to prepare an authentic Chinese meal. The prices are great and the variety is amazing. The store itself is not super clean (definitely no whole foods) so embrace yourself.

Great grocery store in the middle of Chinatown. It literally has everything you might need, from cooking pots to fish to veggies to fruit to even prepared pork and duck fishes. Prices are very reasonable and lines always move quickly.

Coming here is like hopping on a plane back to the motherland — it’s that aroma of fish and sweaty feet in sandals. Stuff of nostalgia. I also raided the snack aisle and loaded up on honey wheat biscuits, those crunchy nut balls that I only ever eat when I’m stressed or watching Orange is the new black, dried chunks of sweet potato, and Hi-​chew (!!).
The cashiers are mean and efficient. Don’t be nice and actually try to help unload the contents of your basket onto the conveyor belt. You’ll get the basket yanked out of your hands and a snarl for your efforts to be polite and civilized.
Place closes at the oddly specific time of 8:40.
(and because I’m a crotchety Asian grandma in the making, I feel obliged to tell you how ridiculously CHEAP everything was — hello, 3 Fuji apples for $ 3?! That may still be overpriced somewhere over in Cleveland, but I was over the moon.)

This review is for the wife cakes only.
I came here because I read something on serious eats about this place having good wife cakes and wanted to try it since I love wife cakes. Unfortunately, they were not good. The outer shell was hard and dry, and what should have been melon filling was just a blended, gooey, sticky, sweet filling, with zero flavor. I hated the texture and taste of this wife cake. I took one bite, and spit it out. I took another bite a couple hours later in hopes of it tasting better as it was closer to the middle, but I ended up just throwing it in the trash. The taste was just too bland for me, and the texture was way too gooey. Maybe that’s why they are made with such a hard, thick, and dry shell? They need it to help balance how gooey it is.
Wife cakes are 2 for $ 1.60 here. They are a good price for the size, but a complete waste of money considering how bad they taste.
This bakery is inside a grocery store. Though it can technically fit a stroller and/​or wheelchair, it’s crazy crowded. So, it is wheelchair and/​or stroller friendly, if you can battle through the crowds, but I wouldn’t recommend it. They sell pastries, so it is obviously kid friendly.
$ 10 credit card minimum.

It really smells in here and it’s dimly lit. If you can get over these two things then you’re fine. I just like pulling up to the door which is on Mott St, hop out, get my necessities and drive down a couple of blocks, cross the bridge and I’m home in 10 minutes. Chinatown has more parking now and you certainly can find a space after 6pm which is usually when I go. I never had their prepared food but if you see a couple of containers of sorry looking roast pig a stone’s throw from the stinky meat and fish counter, you would probably lose your appetite. Go a couple doors down to the other large Chinese grocery (I forget the name) which has a better selection of meats and vegetables and there’s no pungency that hits you when you walk in. Wish I went there first.

Whenever I need to make a big dinner or stock up on food, I come to this place. They have a wide selection of Asian produce/​groceries at pretty cheap prices.
Con: BEWARE of the herd of grocery shoppers (mostly grandmas) who will knock into you or drive over your feet without hesitation or an apology. If you can’t stand small tight places, you should probably shop elsewhere.

When this place opened, I knew it was an imitation of Hong Kong Supermarket but this place is certainly a very formidable competitor and it has a cooked food section that is also competing with Deluxe Food Mart simultaneously with HK Supermarket, well lets put it this way, they are doing good and their selections and prices are not that far off from HK Supermarket though much cheaper than Deluxe Food Mart.
Surprisingly as there are so many people in Chinatown either living in, near or even visiting, none of the supermarkets seem to have a loss of business that is on the negatively affected side.
The reason for the 2 stars is because they offer terrible service at the cooked food section and the supermarket is designed in such a way that it’s impossible to get inside quickly when it starts getting crowed as the customers are slow to begin with. You will never find this problem so bad in any other supermarket though Deluxe food mart is almost there. On a quiet night that it’s not so crowded maybe 3 stars. But I won’t be coming here unless they changed at least one of the two things.

I’m not sure if I qualify to give a proper review, as I’m very limited to what I know. I’m always happy to try new things, but I don’t know how to prepare much of what’s here.
So for the typical non-​Asian New Yorker, I highly suggest walking around and seeing what catches your eye. I’ll tell you what I’ve purchased here and why.
I’ve been twice, I just right now bought:
— Dry ginger powder (it’s in actual glass, not plastic, and I’ve found this brand or style of spices to be very pungent, which is good. $ 1.59 is better than paying 2x with McCormick’s or what have you.)
— Kadoya brand Pure Sesame Oil (I got the 12oz, which was at the checkout as a special of sorts, $ 4.29, I was prepared to pay the same price for 7oz. I figure this’ll last me a year or two.)
— Chinese Cabbage (50 cents, and the original price was 3lbs per dollar.)
What I’ll make out of it: cabbage for tacos, soups, salad with a quick dressing. Maybe boats for meat or tuna salad. The sesame oil for Korean styled sauteed spinach and spicy mayo. The ginger powder for when I make Asian-​styled meatballs for soup.
Last time I came I bought beef short rib, it was on sale for 2.59 a pound. Wolfberry tea… that sort of thing.
It’s great to walk around and enjoy the difference. The meat /​fish /​produce area doesn’t smell very pleasant, but I’ve always enjoyed the items in that section without issue, once cleaned and prepared.

Good selection of various items. Wow thats a general statement! Anyways I like the asian popsicles, jewish chocolate cookies, cheap tropicana oj (3.50) and selection of noodles. They hate returns and fight you on it. The mochi ice cream isnt always consistent or good. Scrimp balls yuck. Besides that, its fine. Cheap grapefruits n nanas lure me in. Damn you!!! And the Israeli manuman cookies. Yum yum Id love some!

Oh you fancy huh???
In my opinion, this is just another Asian market. I’m not sure which markets in Chinatown have better prices. But this store is a bit different from the others. There’s a bakery inside and also a counter to buy cooked meats. My mom usually comes here on the weekend to go fruit/​veggie shopping, or to buy cooked meats for dinner. Sometime produce is better at this location than at the BK location, sometimes vice versa.
I’m surrounded by so many Asian markets in my area, so this isn’t really a special place for me. I still like it though.