It's pretty hard for new Chinese supermarkets to compete against the existing ones. I've seen newer and cheaper Chinese supermarkets in Hacienda Heights go down while Ranch 99 continues to do well. If you're competing against Ranch 99, you need to pull your prices down to attract customers, which ultimately hurts your bottom line. As soon as you raise the price, your customers flock back to Ranch 99.
There are a few exceptions, i.e. Shun Fat has done well.
I used to shop at Han Nam Korean Supermarket for their cheaper groceries, but recently their quality has gone down. Zion in Hawiian Gardens is still good and the one in Irvine is slowly improving. But they still fall into the price slash mode to garnish customers (hoping they'd shop in Irvine instead of Garden Grove). I picked up a frozen Hokke (Okhotsk Atka Mackerel) for $2 there last weekend. Geez.
For the Taiwanese there's still a perception that Japanese groceries are superior, which can be true if you buy the higher end products. There's a double standard here where the same customer would pay $$$ for Washugyu at Mitsuwa but not a dollar more for kalbi at Zion. The Japanese are good at producing higher end / premium products. But the lower end stuff is usually way over-priced.
I usually check weekly ad at Mitsuwa, about once in a while they have good sales on American kobe beef, I go and stock up. They usually sell them in these thin long strip slices, perfect for yakiniku. Brush lightly with Japanese yakininu grilling sauce and cook to medium rare. I use an inexpensive sauce from Nishimoto (yakiniku dori ninniku shoyu daisho) and it tastes just as good as the more expensive stuff. For different flavor, get the Taiwanese BBQ/grilling sauce bottles from Ranch 99 -- some have a brush attachment with the bottle.
If someone were to open an "independent" Chinese grocery store in AV, it'd be like those in Hacidenda Heights trying to compete against Ranch 99. It ain't gonna work when your customers flock to Irvine or elsewhere. My friend's niece just got married and moved to AV with her husband, both are 1.5 gen Vietnamese and they make weekly trips to Westminster for groceries. Which reminds me, if you're buying expensive "live" seafood like those big red shrimp and live clams, it's much cheaper to make the drive to Westminster than to pay $22+/lb at Ranch 99 in Irvine. If you don't know what I'm talking about, visit Ranch 99 by Jeffery & Walnut, walk to the sea foods section in the back, look in the fish tanks in the corner for the reddish big juicy live but overpriced shrimps.
bkshopr said:
They are grossed out by the live fish heads, chicken feet, and squids at the Chinese markets.
There's not much meat on the fish head, but the "neck" or collar area is quite good. We used to get these big salmon heads from American supermarkets, back when they didn't think anyone would want them and sold us whole bags for $1. Their fillet cuts were quite wasteful and left large chunks of meat around the collar area. We'd use it to make misoyaki.
