99 Ranch Market — Attraction in San Jose

It's one of many Ranch 99 branches scattered throughout the Bay Area and the entire state of California. This Blossom Hill location is perhaps one of the newer ones, coming after the Milpitas, 2 Cupertino (Wolfe Rd) & De Anza) locations, Mountain View and Foster City, just to name a few.

It's pretty much all standard store layouts for every Ranch 99 locations, they got lots of fresh produce, Asian groceries from Taiwan and China (Ranch 99 is started by a Taiwanese owner after all), Hong Kong, but also Indochina items from Vietnam and Thailand are visible throughout the store.

The seafood and meat sections are located in the back of the store, you got fresh live Dungeness crabs 🦀 Atlantic lobsters🦞, and of course, shrimps 🦐🦐 I love their thinly pre-sliced beef or lamb strips, perfect for hot pot time. I also love getting tapioca balls (better known as BOBA pearls) so I can boil them and cook them to add extra boba balls toy boba teas.

I also love their Deli counter where I can get pre-cooked items, just like a smaller scale of Asian buffet; so some of my favorite items to get are: orange chicken, eggplant with seafood in garlic & black bean sauce, etc, in addition to chow mein, that makes a wonderful dinner choice. Then, I head over to other end of the Deli to get some Roast BBQ Duck, so yummy; I always make sure to get a couple of extra dipping sauce as I love to smother it over my roast Duck over rice plate👍👍‼️‼️‼️

It's nothing so special I'd recommend that you drive out of your way to this one, ANY of the other Ranch 99 locations will give pretty much the same experience, but you live nearby,...

Although the store itself has a nice selection of fresh produce and more Asian snacks than other ranch 99s in the area, the customer service at the deli was awful. I was refused service both times I went there. The second time I had to stand in line for 20 minutes (it was very busy that day), only to be completely ignored by the one of the kitchen staff even though I was very clearly there trying to order something, moving onto the next person without hesitation. It was as if she was treating me like I was invisible. This same employee refused to serve me the first time when I was asking for a small container of mixed a la carte items and quickly moved onto the next person in line.

Not only that, but the deli food was cold and dry the first time I had it, as if it were sitting there for more than a day.

Basically, go to Ranch 99 for groceries, not their deli food. Their bakery is always trustworthy, though.

(Update) It seems that that difficult employee is no longer working at the deli counter. Most of the deli kitchen staff are nice and generous, but some are unfriendly and seem to just want you out of there as quickly as possible. However, the deli food is often lukewarm...

This review is specifically about the food bar located at 99 Ranch—not the grocery store itself. The food bar is accessible from inside the mall and shares the same branding as the market. Please keep in mind, this reflects my personal experience; yours may differ.

That said, I believe it’s important to keep expectations low going in. This is not a restaurant, and certainly not a high-quality one. With that in mind, I wasn’t expecting much—but even those low expectations weren’t met.

The setup is similar to Panda Express, with food prepared in the back and brought forward. However, the customer traffic is much lower. I ordered Chicken Katsu (breaded chicken), rice, and chow mein. Unfortunately, everything was cold. The rice was old and hard, the chicken had a tough texture and tasted like it had been fried in old or reused oil. The chow mein was similarly cold and unappealing.

All in all, I won’t be making that mistake again. I was hungry and desperate, but next time I’ll walk a bit farther to the food court....