Tokyo Central West Covina — Attraction in West Covina

Tokyo Central at West Covina is the market I must go to every month, at least once per two months after I moved from Glendora to Pasadena. I love it.

It's 7 years ago, and I permanently moved from Shanghai to LA, I visited almost all the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thailand, and Philippines markets but I was not satisfied. I am a professional amateur chef, I need good materials. Yes, I found most seasoning, raw food, cookware, dishware, and tools in the markets, but I was not satisfied until I found Tokyo Central randomly. It filled in the blank part of my requirement.

Why am I saying that? Tokyo Central always has the best quality foods. For example, the rice, I could find good rice in other Asian markets but Tokyo Central in 2016. The Nishiki rice from Japan was so soft and so good. The pity is that the Nishiki rice became a Product of UAA since COVID, became much worse than before. Nowadays, I still don't have good rice to eat.

Tokyo Central has a big canteen just beside the entrance, you can buy the food, sit and eat them in the canteen. The canteen provides seasoning sauces like ketchup and soy sauce, tempura sauce, etc. It also provides a microwave oven, cold and hot water, forks, knives, and chopsticks. You can warm your food there and enjoy them, very convenient.

Tokyo Central also provides buffet-to-weight foods, not too many options, around 20 kinds but very balanced. There were tempuras, fried chicken, fish, vegetables, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba(fried noodles), and rice. The buffet station was closed for several months by the pandemic as well as the canteen. Now some of the buffets changed to prepacked and some are still pick-as-you-want.

There is also plenty of sushi, rice ball, bento, Japanese style desserts, Japanese style cakes, all you can eat in the canteen after paying them through the counter. I love those onigiris (triangle rice balls) even though the price is getting higher and higher recently.

It looks like they shorten the opening time of the canteen after the pandemic, I didn't get the chance to have lunch there several times.

I think I know Japanese food well, and I cook them well. I think I am qualified to say that since I translated one Japanese food dictionary and one Japanese cookbook. I can get most raw food from Tokyo Central when I'd like to cook Japanese food. I can get okonomiyaki powder and sauce there, as well as takoyaki powder and sauce. I can get various Japanese seasoning sauces there as well as thin and thick noodles.

The raw fishes for sashimi, are good. The premium beef is good. Also, the bags of Japanese pickles, are authentic and delicious.

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Fresh cut fish. Watched the sushi crafted from a trunk of tuna behind the short counter. Staff do answer questions and fill requests. A tub of crushed ice available to scoop into bags as a way to keep meat/fish fresh on the way home. It is next to the fish counter adjacent to the meat isle. Very important consideration for me that travel long before getting home on the usual hot LA days. Front end has ready to eat prepackaged sushi and other hot food to order. Used to be able to seat yourself and eat but that's no more for now. Tons of snacks, many Japanese only favors. Couple of oddball isles selling home goods and make ups among other Japanese small items that are hard to categorize. Vegetable selection is a bit short compare to an average Los Angeles area supermarket. But enough for the masses. Small baked good area for breads and other sweets. No longer required the club/reward thing that they used to insist you must join before even start the check out process. You do the cart cleaning yourself. Didn't see any staff doing that while going in or while coming out of the market packing the groceries into the car. It was pretty crowded on a regular Saturday lunch time. Prices are not the lowest but reasonable for what you get per specialties and quality. Go online to check out their sales items or sign up for once a week SPAM. The ramen shop is permanently gone. You could get the noodle cold and microwave it onsite. The soup magically appeared from what appears to be dry noodles. No need to add water. There is a self-serve water machine onsite for cup base consumption. No hot water there despite the hot water button. Super popular during lunch time. Cute kid's shopping carts (2yr old could handle) draw loads of families...

Tokyo Central is the Japanese version of the fresh produce, dry goods, and home goods store. How does one describe in words the difference between cultural presentations of the mixtures of Americana and Japanese merchandise?

The best experience is to visit Tokyo Central. Walk through the produce section. Note the size of the finger. Bigger than normal. The quantities are constantly restocked rather than sprayed municipal water through uncleaned water delivery systems. The packaged sushi are fresh. The meats are brought out just like fresh produce. The variety of pickled items, salted and cured you will not find at the 99 ranch stores. The main theme is about quality. Don't expect cheap prices at Tokyo Central. In Japan, the people spend 34% of their income on food versus 22% by citizens in America. The Japanese don't openly quibble regarding what can be considered passing costs down to customers. Those products that can be substituted are and ingredients and what make the entre are purchased.

What do I think? I happen to be thankful to have the choices in California. Tokyo Central represents to me a cultural choice with no divisive attitudes. I typically shop Ralph's, Costco or Trader Joe's and even 99 Ranch. The Tokyo Central has the most behaved customers and politeness as a custom. Unfortunately it is 40 miles each way from where I live so I take a trek once a month for you, umeboshi and usual nihonghin stuff to quell my fond memories of...