Chung Chou City Inc No 4

The price premium you pay is not enough to justify the rude service. Today was the last straw when the old man at the counter kept ignoring me while chatting with some other customers who are just hanging around. Seems like they don’t need my business.

My mom cooked some herb medicine for two hours. The last step was to add in some white nuts, so she went and purchased some white nuts from this place. When she got home and removed the shells, she found molds in three quarters of the nuts. She brought them back to the store. The employees were very defensive, and had the attitude like «so what they have molds». They also indicated that it was only a few dollars, most people would just throw it away and not cause any trouble. They eventually gave her the money back. But she lost her time, gas, and was not able to complete her herb medicine. As she was leaving the place, she saw them put the white nuts with molds back in the original pile to sell again. It was so gross. I don’t know if their other stores are as bad, but I would at least avoid this one.

Maybe it’s because I’ve taken it since I was a kid… or maybe it’s cause of the placebo effect, but normal nyquil/​otc drugs that you can find at your local drugstore never cures any of my colds. I’ve sworn by these ridiculous caplets whose packaging totally doesn’t make sense. I may not know what the ingredients are in it [are they even safe?], but I can always count on Chung Chou to have them in stock.
Although there are a whole bunch of these Chinese herbal remedy/​drugstores in the Cupertino Village area, I always end up at Chung Chou because it’s the nicest one [and the price difference is really quite paltry]. They also stock your usuals like dried abalone, shark fins, ginseng, and etc.
Tip: for those of you who don’t speak Chinese [like me]- it may be a better idea to come in knowing exactly what you want, or to carry a picture of what you actually need. Most of the folks here are quite happy showing you where things are without too much English involved.