Update 03/022, a year later: since I still shop here frequently, it’s only fair that I re-review and give an accurate impression of their current store.
The freezers/temp seem to be super stable now. Everything has been fully frozen (that’s supposed to be, at least!). I have no longer been concerned at all about their food storage safety.
Also, in the past few months I feel like I’ve been seeing more fun and trendy new frozen food items that they didn’t used to have. It’s been fun to check out all the new items whenever I visit. In the older store, the options tended to be more-or-less the same thing.
So, I retract my previous critical review. They seem to have things going smoothly now. Glad to have this place in the Lansing area, they have pretty much everything that other Asian markets in the area don’t. :)
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Big frozen food safety issue. Management, please read-- as well as anyone who has purchased any of their frozen food recently.
Exactly 1 week ago I visited to pick up some ice cream. When I picked up various cartons, i noticed it felt completely liquid inside, not frozen at all. While the freezers were cold, they were clearly not cold enough to actually freeze items. I then inspected the Popsicles, and found that those too were just liquid floating inside of their individual packaging. I made sure to check that both the items at the back of the shelf were the same, and they were. No products were frozen.
I came back today, one week later, to see if it's been rectified. It has not, the frozen dessert products are still melted. I did not have time to check the other frozen food products, but since meat products share the same cooler space (with the doors), I have full reason to believe that even meat products are being stored at unsafe temperatures for unsafe periods of time, against food regulations.
I have tried to alert staff, but the ones I've tried to speak to haven't seemed to understand English well enough and seemed confused.
While I have LOVED this store for many years, at this point I do not feel safe purchasing any frozen food items here until the problem has been rectified and enough time has passed for the unsafely-frozen food products to have moved off of the shelves and replaced...
Read morePeople has been watching this store for months, waiting anxiously for its opening and let me tell you it doesn't disappoint! This is a One-Stop-Shop store for international grocery shouldn't even exist in our small/mid size city!
This is definitely the best/cleanest International food market in Lansing Area or may be entire Michigan. The store carries various snacks, instant noodles and so many other products that you can't find in other market. There are so many kinds of Asian veggie and fruits on the shelves with reasonable price. They look fresher than other places in this area.
They have a big Meat & Seafood selection and they are look fresh. They are specially fine cut mean in house. And if you purchase seafood, they are able to clean and steak them by customers request.
For the food court they have numerous options for people to select. I'm surprise to see they offer Chinese Street food such as BBQ lamb sticks, steam bum. It seems they have shapu shapu available after the pandemic. Cantonese BBQ, duck and chicken are authentic favor and tender! seems like they make them daily. They are working with the best Sushi Restaurant Sansu for their to go Sushi.
The tea section in the market is a must try! They offer so many kinds of drinks such as fruit tea with cream cheese on the top and brown sugar boba milk with chewy tapioca.
I spend the most of time in the bakery and feel satisfied with those traditional Taiwanese/Chinese pantries like green onion bread, custard bread, brown sugar cake and especially the bun with pork floss. I hardly can find an "edible" bread in the states, and now I know where to get those delicious bread for my breakfast! It's even better quality and taste compare to 85degree!
Their employees are passion about their job, friendly and helpful if you have...
Read moreFresh International market has a little bit of everything, though it’s very much about the food first and foremost — if you’re looking for household stuff, outside of some very specific things this place is unlikely to have it. While it primarily caters to Asian cuisine (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese) you’ll also find things that would be useful in other non-Western cuisines, like various cooking seasonings/condiments, whole spices, bony cuts of meat, whole fish, etc (and sometimes they randomly have stuff like Jamaican rub). So it’s a good place to go if you’re looking for neck bones, pig/cow feet, tripe, or tendon. The selection of produce isn’t very wide, but it’s probably the most consistently stocked part of the store (except for fruit, which is usually seasonal).
Stuff rotates and not everything is always there (I’m assuming it’s a supplier thing). There’s an aisle of household goods that never seems to have the same thing in stock when I visit (I love the long gloves for kitchen work) but frozen foods can have variable availability (great selection of frozen dumplings). They’ll usually have a display closer to the checkout counter with any big seasonal food items (ex. mooncakes for mid-Autumn Festival), where there is also a beauty product/personal hygiene display.
I was a customer here before the big renovation they did a few years back and I can say the changes they’ve made have made shopping a much smoother experience and things much easier to locate. It’s clean and well lit, and the high ceiling keeps it from feeling cramped even if the shelves are packed full. The aisles are still a little narrow, so expect to squeeze past people during busier hours. It’s really best to visit when you have some specific-ish items in mind that you...
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