Tuesday January 1, 2008

KENTUCKIANA GUIDE 2006-2007

Let’s Go Shopping: Ethnic Food Markets

The Courier-Journal

While American supermarkets gradually and cautiously boost their offerings of ethnic foods, they can't be relied on to bring the most authentic international flavors to our tables.

Fortunately, Louisville-area market owners are ready and willing to fill in the culinary gaps with ethnic ingredients, offering foods from dried anchovies to yakinori, from freshly made chicharrones to frozen banana leaves.

From Clarksville to Jeffersontown, ethnic markets dot our landscape, offering authentic ingredients to satisfy our tastes and our curiosity.

Virtually all area markets carry the comfort foods that current immigrants left behind. Staples like fufu or tortillas, certainly, but also a dizzying collection of sweets, snack foods and, often, soda pop.

It's fascinating and rewarding to shop in ethnic markets, where you can buy hard-to-find ingredients for your most challenging recipe or foods to reproduce your favorite restaurant dish.

The Courier-Journal started an ethnic market guide several years ago when the landscape was less diverse. As much as we try, this guide is never comprehensive, as new places open — and close—all the time.We try to update the guide every year, however, to keep readers informed as to where they can buy the specialty foods they're searching for.

African-American

The Meat Store 1200 S. 28th St., (502) 772-0700 The Meat Store is a normal supermarket. Toilet paper, shampoo, a deli, a pharmacy, all create commerce in this clean, brightly lit market.

Against the back wall, however, is a butcher counter with more friendly, knowledgeable and helpful butchers than you find in a normal supermarket taking care of the incredible selection of meat.

This is not only the perfect market for your soul-food needs, but for those cooks looking for ingredients that Richard Olney (author of "Simple French Food") might call for; meat and innards to make broth or homestyle European dishes.

There are chicken wings by the ton and gizzards; pork in every form, including some you may never have seen: kidneys, tails, ears, maws, snoots and neck bones. Many cuts come smoked and fresh. You'll also find whole oxtail and whole, head-on fish.

Don't miss: Big, inexpensive bunches of fresh collards, kale, mustard and turnip greens, as fresh as I've ever seen, dominate the otherwise normal produce bins.

International

AM PM Mart 1231 Gilmore Lane, (502) 962-9092 The look of the store is totally urban, the setting totally suburban. Inside, every nook and cranny is crammed with every conceivable derivation of a range of ingredients from all over theMiddle East. And the owner's definition of Middle East is from India to Morocco, with products from Thailand, Mexico, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Senegal thrown into the mix.

So there are several kinds of rice from Pakistan and from India. There's Iranian rice and Egyptian rice, Turkish rice and American rice. Feta cheese is from Cypress, Bulgaria, France and Greece. Spices and spice blends of every conceivable nature, beans, teas and frozen meat products abound, including frozen whole lamb, plus many bony pieces for soup making.

Rosewater, pomegranate juice, linden honey, fruit nectars and juices and a wide range of olives can be found here, along with breads and pastries.

Don't miss: The wide selection of olives, cheese and yogurts, halva in several flavors and maamoul cookies.

Burger's Super Market 1105 Ray Ave., at Grinstead Drive, (502) 454-0461 Burger's was gourmet before gourmet was cool, always specializing in service and a wide selection. Indeed, the 6,000-square-foot store offers more variety than supermarkets several times its size. If you call with a list, the Burgers will not only shop for you, they'll deliver your groceries. If it's more convenient, you can stop by and pick up your groceries, bagged and ready to go.

Don't miss: Real Nabisco Mallomars, but only in the cool months. Also, the wide selection of chocolates for cooking and eating. You can buy Kentucky-label Jamieson chocolates, bulk pieces of Callebaut in every flavor (including white), Valrhona, Bella Crema, Ghiradelli, Ibarra, Nestle, even Baker's.

And some of the best "prime" grade beef tenderloin you've ever tasted.

Creation Gardens 609 E. Main St., (502) 587-9012 A100-year-old ice plant is now the warehouse for ingredients used by area chefs — whether it's heirloom tomatoes or imported foie gras — and it offers the products to retail customers.

The retail store for groceries is conventional enough; for fresh produce, customers go into the refrigerated warehouse, where they can find tiny baby pattypan squash, haricots verts, fresh berries, hand-carved carrots and, in season, a variety of locally grown produce, including Mediterranean specialty melons.

Don't miss: Huge bunches of inexpensively priced fresh herbs that are beautiful.

Lotsa Pasta 3717 Lexington Road (St. Matthews), (502) 896-6361 The store belies its name. Though it specialized in fresh pasta when it opened in 1982, the store is neither mostly Italian nor mostly pasta. These days, there's more cheese than pasta.

Several continents and scores of countries are represented. There's Hungarian feta cheese, Jamaican soft drinks, Chinese vinegar, South American coffee beans, Mexican chilies and so on. In addition, there are such specialty ingredients as fruit ices, gourmet pizzas with toppings of goat cheese and artichokes, a variety of sausages and deli meats (especially Italian), homemade pesto, and various breads baked on the premises.

Don't miss: Intensely flavored roasted tomatoes that are slightly dehydrated but not as dry as sun-dried tomatoes. The fabulous cheese selection includes world-famous Montgomery and Keen's cheddar and Parmigiano-Reggiano. You can depend on Lotsa Pasta's fresh garlic; the large heads are always plump and firm, and they make fresh mozzarella every week.

Valu Market 5301 Mitscher Ave., behind Iroquois Manor, (502) 361-9285 This Valu Market poses as a mildmannered grocery store but, QUICK! Into a nearby phone booth and it emerges as SUPERMARKET! Neighborhood residents remember this former A & P as fairly average. But a few years ago, both the clientele and the selection began to change.

The inventory continues to change to appeal to Bosnian, Vietnamese, Latino, Cuban, Russian, Ethiopian and other cuisines eaten by people who shop there. You can now find yu choy, lemon grass, yuca and kabocha squash tucked among the Delicious apples and head lettuce in the produce section. And "normal" items like garlic and fresh ginger are often less expensive than at supermarkets.

Grocery items are organized in orderly, tempting collections by cuisine: Indian, Middle Eastern, Latino and so on; all of which appeal to the international community in the neighborhood. For cooks intrigued by authentic ethnic cuisine, this is the best market in the city.

Fresh produce is delivered on Wednesday. The normally beautiful herbs may look tired or be picked over by Monday.

Don't miss: Fresh ham— the only place I know in the city that sells it. Also fresh goat. Eenie-weenie Thai and Indian eggplant, whole frozen artichokes, beautiful Asian greens (Wednesday delivery) and fresh pressed sugar-cane juice in the summer.

African

Darou Salam 2202 Buechel Ave., (502) 671-8382 This small store carries everything African, from Morocco to Ghana and beyond. Unfortunately, you often have to know what you're after, as many of the products aren't labeled, and some that have labels are in a foreign language.

You'll find all kinds of couscous, fufu flour and some fresh produce. Also lots of African music.

European

International Star Super-market 9715 Taylorsville Road, (502) 261-0707 The Zlatin brothers, Jack and Nathan, hold forth in a former convenience store between Stonybrook and Jeffersontown. They are ebullient and knowledgeable salesmen who will spend as much time educating you as you have the appetite to endure. The store specializes in European foods, but there are a few Mexican items, too; it particularly appeals to those looking for Eastern European and Russian products.

Don't miss: The selection of European meats, variety of smoked fish and caviar is among the best in the city.

Alwatan Bakery 3711 Klondike Lane, (502) 458-6000 Anyone who loves pita bread knows that it needs to be fresh to be good. Fresh pita bread is soft and yet chewy — stretchy enough that, if you tear off the top to create a little bread pocketbook, you can add balls of falafel (chickpea and sesame burgers) with a little yogurt-cucumber dressing and not have the whole thing immediately fall apart in your hands.

Alwatan makes pita bread in its bakery all day long, seven days a week.

But Alwatan is more than just a bakery, it's one-stop shopping for your next Middle Eastern mezze table or that graduation party for your favorite vegetarian. Hummus, baba ganoush, olives, several kinds of feta and fresh lamb cut to order are available in the grocery, fresh food and refrigerated section of this little market.

Don't miss: I'll be honest. Every week during tomato season I buy 2 pounds of feta cheese and ½ pound of dry cured olives. During the winter we stock up on canned Ziyad baba ganoush and Ziyad hummus, which are standard snack fare at our house. With no preservatives, the pita molds quickly. After two days, make pita chips by brushing with olive oil and toasting slowly in the oven.

Rames Food Mart 3027 S. Fourth St., at Central Avenue, (502) 636-3366 Tucked behind Club Cookie across from Churchill Downs, this tiny Arabic store has hard-to-find ingredients that include broad flatbread and whole dried limes, essential to several Persian dishes.

You'll find an array of spices, including whole cardamoms and cinnamon. Fresh labneh cheese and feta, pistachios, a wide assortment of halvah, large quantities of pulverized thyme, apricot pulp and canned and jarred staples, such as vegetable pickles and beans, dried bulgur and other grains and frozen chicken, lamb and beef of various cuts.

Golden Key 3821 Bardstown Road, near Hikes Lane, (502) 485-9009 Knowledgeable and friendly owner Arina offers a small but varied stock of Russian and European foods. She helped the Seelbach Hilton Hotel procure authentic Russian foods when the Russian ballet visited Louisville a few years ago to perform "The Nutcracker." Don't miss: The frozen pelminy, little Russian ravioli stuffed with beef or potatoes, which you simmer and serve with butter or sour cream, or oil and vinegar and perhaps some fresh herbs.

Asian

Binh Phuoc 5301 S. Third St., across from Iroquois Manor; (502) 366-7002 This Vietnamese-oriented market has a vast freezer section and grocery section, including frozen and/or salted seafood, Asian sausages, lots of sweets, fresh herbs you'd need for Southeast Asian cooking and shelfstable products, including the usual suspects from rice noodles to chili garlic paste.

Choi's Asian Market 607 Lyndon Lane, (502) 426-4441 Young Choi opened this market to sell all kinds of Asian food (plus some household supplies), including Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese, and there's even a small Mexican section.

That means a nearly unlimited noodle selection. Fresh, fresh-frozen and dried noodles in every shape imaginable. Fresh rice noodles as thick as your little finger. Frozen ricenoodle ovals that are sort of lozengeshaped. Long wheat noodles; fiberthin buckwheat noodles. Sweet potato noodles and noodles made of mung beans. Dumpling noodles that look like ravioli stuffed with shrimp. Dough pouches stuffed with meat and kimchi.

There's a wide selection of homemade and commercially made kimchi, but there's so much more. Tofu in every form — baked, dry, dried with spices, fried, regular and extra sauce, and jars of fermented, spiced tofu. Meats, soy milks, fresh vegetables (including perfect-looking peeled garlic in much better shape than you'll find it in the supermarket) and frozen or dried fish. Poultry includes chicken, duck and quail.

Da Hua 7100 Preston Highway, (502) 964-4447 The focus of this large, well-lit and well-organized store is Chinese ingredients, but plenty more of Asia is represented, including Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. There's even a fairly large selection of Mexican ingredients. The freezers are loaded with inexpensive bags of dim sum, all shapes, all stuffing possibilities, including Chinese celery with shrimp to pumpkin.

Pouches of prepared seasoning, bottles of sauces, rows of noodles and kim chee.

Head for the produce aisle and you might run into local restaurateurs shopping for Thai basil, slender purple eggplants, adorable little bok choys and other necessary fresh Asian produce.

There's an assortment of kitchen tools, cleavers, plates, chopping blocks and the like, available at prices you could call dirt cheap. Live lobsters, crabs and fin fish swim in tanks. Fresh meat includes uncured pork belly, heart and pork bones for making stock. And there's a huge selection of frozen meat.

Dixie Oriental 3900 Bardstown Road, (502) 473-1922 Located in Buechel, this is probably the city's oldest Asian food store (named for its old location on Dixie Highway). It's still the most orderly. Outside, the store is a modest white cement block. Inside is a selection of Asian ingredients with heavy emphasis on Korean and Japanese groceries augmented with goods from the Philippines, Thailand and China.

Don't miss: Various kimchi varieties, some very hot. Also, thin-sliced candied ginger and the roasted wasabi- flavored green peas. (It's a snack food you eat from the bag like potato chips; they're crisp and spicy, but they are fried, so don't think you're eating health food.)

Dong Phuong 6705 Strawberry Lane, (502) 363-0208 A Laotian acquaintance once said, "You don't get any good fish in this country, and when you do, they're dead."

Not so at Dong Phuong, where there are several types, including tilapia, crab, lobster and the occasional eel swimming in the tanks on Friday, and as long afterward as the supply lasts.

This Vietnamese store sells many ingredients relevant to other Asian cuisines, particularly Southeast Asian. And there are dozens of dehydrated soup mixes. Don't think Cup-asoup. These mixes include authentic dehydrated Chinese ingredients —rice noodles, ginger, mushrooms, maybe a dash of seaweed. Add water or meat broth. You can make your own broth with any of a variety of meats sold at Dong Phuong, including fresh beef tendon, perfect for making pho.

Lanceta Trading Company 3435 Breckenridge Lane in Breckinridge Plaza, (502) 495-0255 The Lancetas deal in all things Filipino, which include indigenous foods and a hodgepodge of influences from other cultures, including Spanish, Malaysian, Chinese and American. They also sell a selection of Caribbean foods.

Like all Southeast Asian cuisines, the Filipino diet relies heavily on rice.

Twenty-, 30- and 50-pound bags of rice dominate one side of the orderly and well-lit store.

Banana leaves, fish (dried, salted and otherwise preserved) and coconut are all indigenous foods available at the store, though some of the products normally used fresh will be found frozen.

Don't miss: Calamansi concentrate. Calamansi is a cross between a mandarin orange and a kumquat, and resembles a lime. It's used like other citrus to season dishes. You can buy the concentrate frozen like lemonade.

Oriental Garden 4210 Bishop Lane, near Newburg Road; (502) 479-9830 Right next to the Oriental Star restaurant, this store concentrates on Chinese food and large quantities. The 5-pound bags of dried mushrooms and hot peppers, the large bags of unroasted almonds, sesame seeds and cashews, and the 8-pound containers of sambal oelek (hot sauce) certainly get the creative juices flowing.

Don't miss: Rice noodles shaped like little tongue depressors, and dim sum of every conceivable filling possibility (shockingly inexpensive).

Oriental Supermarket & Gift Shop 1211 Gilmore Lane, in Lynnview Shopping Center, (502) 966-0400 Probably the largest Asian market in terms of square footage, this shop makes you dizzy with possibilities. It's amazing that there's a parallel universe with a cuisine using all this stuff.

Dried seaweed in squares, shreds and flakes; miso in various colors; "honey powder;" dried fernbreak, bellflower and codonopsis. Fresh produce includes long beans, shiitake mushrooms and beautiful white bean sprouts.

Dried fish includes cuttlefish, pollock, anchovy, shrimp, croaker and smelt. Bean curd in chili, dried in strips and fresh. Rice varieties include black, sweet, brown, white, long, short, Jasmine.

Don't miss: The noodles. Fresh, frozen, dried, made of buckwheat, rice, wheat, bean, even sweet potato. Noodles are everywhere and tempting.

Sai Gon Grocery 5019 S. Third St., (502) 366-7427 The crammed aisles of Sai Gon hold Asian goods of all kinds, with an emphasis on Vietnamese. Fresh and frozen seafood every Wednesday, including many types of shrimp (with the head on), large squid and live clams. Gai choy, yu choy and other fresh, beautiful Asian vegetables cram the tiny produce section.

Don't miss: Live crabs on Wednesday and beautiful, fresh Asian herbs and greens inmany varieties. If you're in the mood for a fresh, authentic Vietnamese or Thai soup, you'll want to come here for the greens.

Vietnam 5019 S. Third St., (502) 361-7846 Lots of fresh fish on ice, including shrimp for $5.99 per pound. The produce section includes many fresh herbs critical to Southeast Asian cooking. There's also a nice selection of tofu in different styles, including firm, pre-fried triangles that tend to be the one tofu that meat eaters really enjoy.

The store is large and tightly packed, with a long aisle of cooking and serving paraphernalia, including china soup bowls, tea cups and harder- to-find china soup spoons (often now they are plastic). Prices are well-marked, in general, and reasonable (8 ounces of rice noodles for 79 cents or 50 cents, depending on how they're cut).

Anna's Oriental Food Store 426 Kopp Lane, Clarksville, near Eastern Boulevard exit of I-65; (812) 282-4186

This small Asian grocery occupied a small Clarksville house for nearly two decades before it became a roomy storefront with a few tables to eat prepared food in the evening.

Filipino Natalie Gentry (aka Anna) was laid off from her job at General Electric more than 20 years ago. She was called back to work but kept the store, which is adequately stocked with the basics anyone would need to cook Chinese food. There's a decent selection of frozen and dried fish, frozen dumplings and some fresh produce.

Don't miss: Garden produce and lemon grass in the summer, fresh blue crabs on Wednesday (call first) and Chinese bao — frozen buns for steaming.

Indian

India Bazaar 11324 Maple Brook Drive, behind Wal-Mart on Westport Road; (502) 327-5001 This looks like a convenience store inside, but the little signs above the aisle list Indian ingredients.

It is difficult to say what I like best about the store. But having a stack of frozen dinners and frozen tandoori naan (which has genuine smoky flavor) may top the list. Because it is highly flavorful and often generously sauced, Indian cuisine seems to bear up to freezing especially well, and makes an excellent instant dinner.

If you'd rather cook from scratch, you'll have no problem. Bags of rice as large as 25 pounds are stacked high, chapatti flour, chickpea flour and rice flour are available in addition to the typical Indian myriad of nuts, beans (dals) and spices. In fact, the spices are so reasonably priced you should consider shopping here at Christmas, where you can pick up excellent bargains on nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom.

Shalimar Indian Grocery 1830 S. Hurstbourne Parkway; (502) 499-9791 Sukh Bains bought Shalimar restaurant in 1999 and said he was tired of having to run errands when he ran out of ingredients. So he stocked 4,000 square feet of market with all the things he needs to use at his restaurant, and much he doesn't need. "I only use about 5 percent of the products in here," he says, the others are typical in the cuisines of other regions.

Don't miss: Frozen vegetarian Indian dinners in several styles and the tandoori naan.

Indiaspices.com 4746 Bardstown Road, (502) 499-4776 This large, well-stocked store is full of everything Indian, including a wide range of spices, dal, nuts, more basmati rice than you knew existed and tempting frozen foods including chili naan and frozen dinners. Conveniently located just down the strip center from La Preferida, one of the city's best Mexican groceries.

Latin

Virtually every small community around Louisville, including Simpsonville and Shelbyville, has its ownMexican market, and Mexican restaurant/ markets continue to pop up around the community. Not all are listed here.

La Favorita 6201 Preston Highway, (502) 964-2639 The small store crams a lot in, including clothes and cowboy boots.

There's a variety of basic Mexican food, including plump, firm garlic, ripe avocados, plantains, limes, cheeses and other dairy products and dried chilies.

Of course, there are stacks of corn tortillas and a wide array of hot sauces and canned foods. Don't miss the bags of mesquite charcoal.

La Tropicana 5215 Preston Highway, (502) 964-5957 Cooks who use the books of Rick Bayless or Diana Kennedy no doubt will find their way to La Tropicana. This new location, next door to its former location, is the supermarket of Mexican food markets, and the supply of cowboy boots isn't bad either.

Don't miss: The store's homemade chorizo sausage. Also noteworthy are the ready-to-eat carnitas (various cuts of fried pork ready to chop and put in tacos, or on a plate of beans and rice) and fresh tamales on Saturdays and Sundays.

La Tapatia 8106 Preston Highway, south of Outer Loop; (502) 961-9153 What once was a little store with a cramped kitchen creating hot food has now expanded into a large, clean but informal restaurant with booths and tables, a beer license and a large screen television airing Spanish-language shows. It's a good place both for dinner and for your children who are taking Spanish in school.

Don't miss: The fresh produce, particularly the large, glossy poblano chilies (rellenos, anyone?). Plump limes, firm garlic and paper-skinned tomatillos always seem fresh.

The hot food, which is some of the best in town. Tacos cost $1 and can be filled with a variety of fillings, including beef, pork and barbecue. Tortas are sandwiches with shredded pork, tomato and lettuce.

Sante Fe 3000 S. Third St., at Heywood Avenue, (502) 634-3722 The Santa Fe restaurant, best known for its homestyle cooking (including great tamales), now has a market attached to the back of it.

A tiny room holds a decent supply of Mexican ingredients and products (like cowboy boots and tapes). Don't miss: Pre-made red mole will save you a ton of work if you're cooking Mexican.

La Paloma 616 W. Ind. 131 in Clarksville, (812) 948-9785 Both the Clarksville and Eminence markets have tacquerias in the back where you can get authentic if informal Mexican food.

High tortilla turnover in Mexican markets usually ensures a very fresh supply (and fresh is a major trait in a great tortilla). Castaneda says he sells 125 cases of corn tortillas a week. Lots of spices, beans, the usual.

La Sierra Tarasca 6501 Shepherdsville Road, (502) 964-1430 Neat as a pin, female-shopper friendly (though not much English is spoken), this is a great little market, complete with some of the freshest looking Mexican produce in town and a great meat case that includes fajita cut steak, skirt steak, chicken feet and oxtail.

Lots of hot and spicy staples, dried chiles and our favorite El Milagro corn tortillas and the requisite supply of cowboy boots.

La Preferida Tienda 4756 Bardstown Road, (502) 671-0009. Squeaky clean, well-organized market with everything from prepared mole to little frozen corn tortilla sopes — little boats that you can fill with yummy homemade fillings.

The meat case should not be missed — there's chicken in every form, including feet; tripe for menudo and more American-friendly cuts. Huge cans of hominy and boney cuts of pork promise excellent makings for posole.