Gong hei fat choy! In celebration of the Lunar New Year, here’s our pick of the biggest and best Chinese supermarkets from across the UK
Wing Yip, Birmingham
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The biggest Chinese supermarket chain in the UK, the Yip family owns four specialist Asian cash & carry sites across England and its flagship is in Nechells, Birmingham. Set across a whopping 10 acres, the superstore gives shoppers “the little China Town experience” and even has a paifang arch as a gateway to the store and Chinese-style hip roofs across the main building.
Inside, the range hails from across the globe and there are around 4,500 fresh, frozen, canned and packaged products available. There’s a fresh fish and shellfish counter with delicacies like conger eel and rows of fish heads ready to be thrown into soups and curries, there’s a section for cooked meats including whole ducks, aisles of hot sauces, sambals and pastes as well as a huge variety of speciality fruit and veg like durian, morning glory and petai disini (also known as stinky beans).
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The store also boasts plenty of options for sweet-toothed shoppers. There’s a wide range of fresh and frozen cakes and buns and masses of packaged sweets, snacks and drinks from popular Asian brands like Hello Panda and Tao Kae Noi.
To top it off, there’s a MoCo Coffee counter serving up hot drinks and chilled bubble tea in a bunch of flavours from matcha to mango that can be customised with fresh whipped cream and fruity syrups.
Seewoo, Glasgow
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Scotland’s biggest Asian superstore, Seewoo is on Saracen St in the north of Glasgow. It’s not the prettiest but it has a huge footprint and, according to the owners, an “unparalleled selection” of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, Korean and Japanese goodies. It also has an enormous non-food section with shelves lined with everything from teapots to takeaway boxes.
At the entrance, shoppers are greeted by a small floristry section, which carries a varied selection and depending on the season you’ll find fresh orchids in an array of colours, lucky bamboo stems and even ornamental fruit trees like kumquat.
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Scottish shellfish is high on the menu and the store features several hefty tanks brimming with crab, blue lobster and langoustine and it also takes in regular deliveries of live king scallops. Outside of shellfish, live eel and fish can often be found swimming around in the tanks.
There’s also plenty of seafood to be found in the vast frozen section, as well as speedy steamed favourites like bao and gyoza in various flavours, both sweet and savoury.
KH Oriental, Sheffield
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If it wasn’t for all the groceries, KH Oriental would look more like a well-kept homestore than the average Chinese supermarket. It’s fitted with dark brown shelving, bright wooden wall panelling and glowing signage to give it a sleek, modern look. This is the newest location for Sheffield’s oldest Chinese supermarket, which has been operating in the city since 1976. The new premises, which was designed to give shoppers the feel of a Hong Kong mega-market, opened in late 2017.
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The fresh section has a spacious market-style layout to showcase the wide range of tropical fruit and Chinese greens. KH goes big on bakery, there’s a pick-your-own section serving Chinese pastries like char sui pork (pictured) and a rotating variety of cakes including durian and matcha mille crepe layered with fresh cream. The store also has a huge snack range, live seafood, a hot food and prepared meats counter, tonnes of pastes and sauces and an adjacent café serving taro milk tea.
Asia Supermarket, Belfast
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Asia Supermarket has been only been operating on Ormeau Embankment in Belfast for the past few years, so the fixtures and fittings are freshly kitted out across the new spacious layout.
Like the others on this list, the store stocks a huge range of pan-Asian ingredients from spices to fresh seafood as well as non-food kitchenware and utensils. It’s the wide range of ramen, sweets and the huge frozen section filled with ready-to-cook gyoza and mochi ice cream that makes this supermarket popular with young people on the hunt for unusual snacks.
It’s also known for having some more out-there variants across those ranges, like flaming hot UFO ramen and Pokémon sparkling water cans.
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If perusing aisles filled with instant ramen makes you hungry then you’re in luck, upstairs there’s Café Asia Supermarket, serving typical café classics like soup and toasted sourdough alongside some Asian dishes like char siu bao and Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches (pictured).
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