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Every Saturday morning, my daughter and I go chinese grocery shopping. During our first visit to Salt Lake, I wanted to cry. As far as I could tell, there was one asian market, Blue Sky, in downtown. From the outside, it looked like a liquor store. Fortunately, I have found other ones since and have yet to visit the inside of Blue Sky.

Great China Market is located on State St. at 700 South. Around the corner from the Sears with 4 taco carts, but more about that another day. It’s my favorite. The owner is really friendly and helpful.

I go to Great China Market for the vegetables. They are delivered every Friday, so I try to go early on Saturday morning for the best selection. It gets busy after 10:30am. I went on a Friday once and the Cantonese ladies circling the vegetable refrigerator waiting for the fresh produce scared me.

There is a pretty good selection, given you are in Salt Lake City. The quality is not as good as Oakland Chinatown and the prices are higher, but it’s either that or broccoli everyday from Dan’s.

The vegetables they carry are Bok Choy, Baby Bok Choy, Mustard Greens, both large and small. Turnips, Water Chestnuts, leeks, green onions, chives, Da Dou Miu, Bean Sprouts, Fuzzy Melon, Gai Lan, Chinese Eggplant, Winter melon, Toong Sum Choy, Yau Choy and fresh ginger among other things.

As for staples, they have everything. I get all my soup fixings from there. The place is little hard to navigate. There is stuff EVERYWHERE and the owner speaks Mandarin. So when I ask a question, I start with Cantonese, then default to English and hand waving.

They also have a large selection of meats. The fresh stuff is fish and yellow chicken. The other stuff is all frozen. There are not a lot of Chinese markets that have fresh meat. However, if you are craving Gnul Nam, this place has it and tendons, mmmm, in the freezer.

BTW – the only white person I have ever seen in this place was my husband. I go there and listen in on the other shoppers to get my Chinses fix. Besides, I figure it’s a good thing that my daughter doesn’t think that all people aside from mommy looks like daddy.

My husband, daughter and I moved to Salt Lake City about 6 months ago. We moved from where I grew up, San Francisco Bay Area. So, I was apprehensive, no, reluctant, to say the least.

There is a small Asian population here and no Chinatown. The major divisions here are Mormon and non-Mormon. However, whenever I see other Asians, we do look at each other curiously, waiting for the other one to strike up a conversation.

I have found it difficult to adjust, mainly, because I had to hunt for Asian food stuff and culture. I have located some Asian markets, but no culture yet.

I figured that some other unfortunate Asian American soul will land in the Salt Lake area and can benefit from my wanderings. Hence….