Kam Sam Supermarket - ingredients of the Orient
There’s a method to shopping at Kam Sam Supermarket, and you don’t have to be Chinese to master this method. All it requires is patience, some elbowing, expert cart navigation through skinny aisles and no expectancy for great customer service unless you have small Chinese children: you’re on your own here. Located in Rockville, oftentimes tenderly referred to as “Wokville” for its suburban (and better) alternative to Chinatown, Kam Sam is where all Chinese people and Chinese food lovers flock, regardless where they were born and raised.
Craving potstickers or wontons for lunch? The store sells a wide variety of frozen brands. Your children begging for egg custard pastries? Kam Sam’s bakery counter sells those, along with other prepared Chinese favorites: lions’ head meatballs, pork-filled bao, noodles, red-bean cake, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves.
There’s a wide variety of Chinese produce (bok choy, soybeans, Asian pears, Chinese broccoli, tofu), a long aisle of soy sauce and vinegars, a grand selection of rice and noodles, Chinese and other Asian treats and snacks, a huge variety of tea, and soy milk that’s not available at any Whole Foods or Safeway. A seafood counter sells live fish and a butcher counter offers any selection of fresh cuts of meat or poultry. Kam Sam also has Chinese and Japanese chinaware, woks, hot water boilers, rice cookers and favorite household items like laundry racks, feet-washing bins and cleaning supplies found in many typical Chinese households.
Posted by Rin-rin Yu
