1st Oriental Supermarket

This is a great Asian super market. They may have any possible foreign Asian ingredient you maybe looking for. They were never a let down for me.
This market has fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh and package meat, ramen and variety of noodles, spices, snacks, and all your Asian heart may desire.
I like their roast duck alot too. Definitely recommend.

The biggest difference between 1^st Oriental and other Asian supermarkets is the sheer variety of products. I specifically like that they have a lot of Southeast Asian ingredients like galangal and kiffer lime leaves. Worth the extra few miles to travel to South Philly instead of Chinatown.
Also: it is more organized than other stories and it had very helpful staff.

Great supply of Vietnamese and Chinese products. I usually come here to buy snacks, which are overpriced in my opinion, but taste fresh.
Bathroom in the far back near the seafood, ramen, and meat.

Ok, ok. Let’s state the obvious: there is an odor when you walk in that’s a bit fishy. But seriously, who cares about that?! it’s a grocery store, not Bath & Body Works! The store has quite the inventory. It’s a little disorganized and it can be intimidating if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. The prices here are hard to beat. Unfortunately, the parking is less than ideal. No one should have to circle for a space on a Monday afternoon. That’s just not right! At checkout, sometimes the cashier would give you a little something something. This hasn’t happened to me always, so I’m unsure if this is done at random or if you meet a price minimum. Either way, great for all your Asian cuisine needs.

One of the nicer Asian markets in Philly proper, although there are very good H Marts out in the Northeast and Elkins Park. The place is large, well lit, and stocked with all those things that have never been heard of by the Acmes and Giants of the world. Need a regional chili sauce from Chongqing? They have a variety of them. Want thin noodles from Thailand? Just ask for it. Jonezing for sweet pea leaves for that special garlic recipe? Yup. It’s there. Need fresh fish for your father-​in-​law? The red snapper is right off the boat.
The prices can be erratic, and sometimes the aisles are so overloaded with goods that two carts can’t pass each other, but if that really bothers you, you probably never went to the markets in any town in Asia. That’s just the way it is. Sell by dates important to you? It may be better to just close your eyes.
Staff is very helpful and multilingual. They even have a small apothecary to save you the trip to the herb shops in Chinatown. Even had Wood Lock Oil.

I really love this store. The place looked very clean and organized and the staff was friendly and helpful. Nice parking as well. I’m looking forward to coming back.

This place is small compared to the other Asian super markets I normally go to, but most of the prices are pretty good. They even have an Asian deli stand for «Peking Duck», Ginger/​Scallion Chicken, Dark Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken, BBQ pork (red sweet BBQ Chinese pork), Fried Pork (Crispy Orange Skin), etc. They have a nice selection of live seafood in their aquarium tanks along with seafood and butcher section in the back corner of the store. The place may be a bit unappealing when you walk in or smells odd, but the prices and selections make up for it. Produce selection is pretty average for everyday selections you would find at a Walmart, but plenty of Asian produce selections. You may also come across produce that looks unappealing or less than fresh compared to conventional supermarkets, but it a good price and you just need to put in some time to pick out the fresh stuff. Just got a lettuce for $ 0.99 compared to paying a little over $ 2 for a similar size. It’s a bit of a walk for me but the savings was well worth it. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover or smell ladies and gents.

We were put off by the smell and in and out in less than 10 minutes with nothing in our hands. Let me start by saying I’m Asian. Glad we got that out of the way.
We usually go to Assi Plaza or H Mart, both great stores with an awesome selection. But we happened to drive by this place so thought to give it a try.
The smell of seafood that’s off made me sick to the stomach. As a matter of fact, we were there to buy seafood so it was a major turnoff.
We will stick to our usual Asian grocery stores.

While the produce and seafood quality and selection isn’t as good as Oregon Market, 1^st Oriental Supermarket has some items that I just can’t seem to find elsewhere in Philly. That’s what keeps me coming back.
Here are the items in case you are frustrated running around the city looking for them as well:
1. Fresh Kaffir Lime Leaves — You can find them in the produce refrigerated section on the wall. Go in the store and take a right. As of this week they were 1.49 for a bag with about 10 leaves in it. This is an essential ingredient of Thai cooking. The only other place I know to get them in the area is the Little Thai Market in Reading Terminal, but they are often sold out.
2. Thai Pickled Radish — Go all the way to the back of the store. They’re below the area where they’re selling fish/​meat in boxes. There are several different varieties. Score! This will make your Pad Thai really tasty.
They have all the other things you could expect to find at an Asian Market. They do take cards, but there is a minimum charge of $ 10 for credit card and $ 5 for debit cards. So, if you’re spending less than that, bring some cash!

We had a blast going to this supermarket. We had decided the night before that we would start making our own panang curry chicken and pad thai at home from scratch. So, we had to get the key ingredients. To reach this goal and we chose 1^st Oriental Supermarket to help us. This place is amazing. It has great produce, an impressive meat department and a wall of freezers filled with dumplings and other things our mothers did not teach us to make growing up.
The staff was really helpful. The recipe for the curry chicken called for citronella. We asked for help locating it but they did not know it by that name. So I plugged it into Google Translate and came up with the simple Chinese name and minutes later we had a bunch of it in our hands. We got fresh and intoxicating kaffir lime leaves too!
Next time I am going to look more closely at their selection of mushrooms.
Parking is easy (off street).

This is the first time visiting this place and my first impression is that this is an Asian supermarket with fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, dry and cooked foods. The products focus seems to be more Vietnamese than Chinese. We stocked up on Phở noodles, Tom Yum paste and other items that we normally do not see in an Asian supermarket in NYC. This is great one stop place for our needs but unfortunately it is too far away from NYC. But we will definitely visit the place when we are in town.

This may be my go to supermarket for Asian groceries. The aisles are clean and organized. I was able to find some of the lesser known items (relative to American tastes) like kimchee and roasted seaweed.
The lady at the checkout was not busy so she waved me over to her lane instead of me standing in a longer one.
I’ll have to come back and check out the produce as that was not on my list this time around.

I remember this place being a Thriftway as a kid back in the 80s, but here stands this place. They have a decent selection of produce and different meats you can’t get in most supermarkets. The smell is kind of overpowering, so you are gonna have to get use to it.

I bought a mandolin slicer for $ 16. The box is printed in Russian, and the slicer is orange and glittery. I haven’t used it yet, but I can’t think of anywhere else I can go to buy an orange glittery mandolin slicer for $ 16.
As others have mentioned, the place is freaking huge and has anything and everything you can imagine. There’s a whole aisle of noodles, a whole aisle of sauces, a whole aisle of wacky snacks, and on and on. I haven’t bought the meat or fish so I can’t say anything about that.
I’ve bought plenty of produce here. I’m sure there is nothing organic about any of it, but it’s cheap and decent quality. Boyfriend picked up a boatload of kiwis for dehydrating. He paid next to nothing, and they were delicious.
Also hilarious: the shopping carts from every other store in the city, plus a few that have their own name on it.

I can’t think of any better place in Philly for my Asian grocery shopping.
Definitely the best Asian grocery store in Philly with the most complete product offering from fresh produce, meat (+meat parts, if you know what I mean), fish, frozen goods, country-​specific staples (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, man did I miss anything?). They also have BBQed cha siu prepared on the spot and baked goods from a Chinatown bakery.
And if your bill totals above $ 30, the cashiers would give you a free gift. I’ve gotten things like cookies, soy milk, soy sauce, fish oil, eggs

Great place to find everything asian… except for maybe korean (I have to head to North Philly for this) Everything here is priced pretty reasonable and for the most part fresh. I have seen some pretty nasty looking fruits here (overly riped), but in general, it’s pretty decent. They always have tons of different types of veggies too, esp the asian kinds I can’t seem to find anywhere else.
My husband loves going into the snack isle. There are really good asian chips and cookies here. Crab chips, coconut butter cookies, shrimp chips, etc etc. Yum!!! Also, they do sell tons of different types of rice. This is the only place I tend to buy rice from. Oh, and lets not forget about the roast pig and duck area! Mmmm, drooling just thinking about it. For the pork, you can ask for a specific spot of the pig so if you like fat, you can request it, or if you like mainly meat and skin (like me) i make sure I tell them. They are more than happy to do it for you.

Not the best Asian grocery store I’ve ever been to, but it’s got all the basics — noodles, tea, seasonings, etc. The produce was ok, I prefer Hong Vuong just a few blocks away. Meat wasn’t great. The frozen food section was very disappointing — not many varieties of dumplings and such. The bakery is very sad and not particularly clean looking (even by Asian grocery store standards).
Also, people keep mentioning something about a free giftie with your purchase, but I’ve spent a fair amount of money here and never gotten one. Lame.

It’s a very clean store with fast checkout lines. They have great deals on their wide selection of produce. The best deal to be found here is on Tofu. You can even get a 6 pound prepackaged container of Tofu for only $ 3.50! I also found this is the easiest Asian Market to park a car at in the city.
The only thing holding me back on giving them 5 stars is a really wish there wasn’t a limit on using a credit card.

Ok so I’ve never bought meat or fish here but I am still giving it 5 stars.
It’s really close to my house.
They have a huge selection.
You can normally complete your shopping trip for under 15 bucks, with a ton of stuff.
They have the freshest cilantro ever, not to mention aisles upon aisles of things in jars that I want to use to cook with.
Love this place.

One time I unwittingly moved to a place where Asian cooking supplies were hard to come by… and oh what a blow when I realized, too late! I’m shaking my head, remembering the taste of that bitter pill…
I spent roughly a year and a half hissing, «This is NOT Thai food!» Possibly peoples’ collars were grabbed… I spent a year and a half without ready access to many ingredients which had become fundamental staples of my cooking stylins. That’s some real weak sauce.
Living in NYC, living in Northern Virginia, I had come to take for granted the sheer abundance of H Marts, or places like the Eden Center, full of so many shops to explore. Yeah, a puny aisle dedicated to La Choy products and their ilk just will never, ever do.
I need sambal oelek! I need Huy Fong sriracha! Cough up those kaffir lime leaves, stalks of lemongrass, bunches of Thai Basil…
I need to spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing lanes of sauces and condiments and noodles and on and on. I do enjoy my trips to the market, alright… eyeballing the fish and the frogs and the hanging lacquered-​shining BBQ ducks…
I offer a supportive yell for the Viet-​centric stretch of Washington Avenue! Another extra-​supportive yell for 1^st Oriental Supermarket! It isn’t gigantico, but it has the variety. It’s pretty well organized and brimming with products and produce both foreign and familiar and I can appreciate that. To date it is my go-​to destination for all my tasty Asian essentials.