Melbourne Oriental Market — Attraction in West Melbourne

I am from Japan. We drove around the area to see many oriental markets in the area. This store has the best selection and presentation out of all the oriental markets we visited. The store is clean. It does not leak of fishy smell like some stores do. The owner and her dog are friendly and sweet. They will both remember you and if you stay, the lady will chat with you to catch up. 😊🐶 If you wanted recommendations, she can answer your questions. If you have questions about prices, just ask. She has a much larger selection of refrigerated and frozen foods, which are what I look for the most because they are hard to get online. It really looks like she gave lots of thoughts into choosing the products for her store. The products they have are authentic. We could not find anything we wanted to get from other stores, but we always find what we want from here. They dog she has is tiny. Today, was a cold day, so he was under a jacket staying warm. Often times, he is taking his nap. He was very well behaved and did not make a sound. He was very happy to see us and wagged his tail as he approached us at the counter to smell us. Other than that, he left us alone to shop. We enjoy talking with the owner when we come to see how each other is doing. She remembers the products we like and she can show us the new items she gets at her store, but she won't force you to buy something. When we are done, she always walks us to the door and say "See you next time." I almost do not want to tell everyone else what specific foods from this store is best so she won't sell out.😆 But her snack and dessert selection is great if you are into Japanese snacks. She also has a large selection of noodles (both fry and registered) and asian condiments (sauce, cooking wine, etc). You can also find soap, cooking utensils, bowls, eating utensils (chopsticks and whatnot), rice, produce, dried peoducts such as seaweeds and bonito flakes, rice seasoning, tea, bottled and canned beverages such as ramune and tea, tea snacks both sweeet and salty kinds, miso, tofu, takoyaki, ice cream, sometimes she also has Japanese imported breads. If you are into those things, give this store a try. Owner is learning Japanese...

Writing a review so people have more recent experiences to go off of:

Newer to Melbourne and haven't really explored my Asian market options. Read reviews on this place before I went, and went anyway to check it out for myself since I was in the area.

The vicious dog people keep mentioning lifted it's head up when I walked in and the entire time I was there just laid on the counter napping- even when I went to check out, no barking, snapping or biting.

The prices were admittedly high, I had gone to Jason's produce down the road beforehand and could compare the prices of similar things I saw around. I ended up buying three things. (Sesame oil, a 4-pack of ramen, and some Szechuan peppercorns) and the total added up to almost $30. To compare, I bought 6 items at Jason's and spent the same.

The products were 50/50 on whether they were priced or not. So it's really a gamble when you pick something up that doesn't have a price, but pretty much expect a higher price than you would usually think. There was a good amount of seemingly homemade items in the store as well, those were priced out and are in either the pint containers or Ziploc bags, no expiration dates that I can see though.

With that being said, the store is very heavy on the Japanese products and I haven't seen any other place around here that carries those items.

Not sure if the signs about not taking pictures is newer or not but there was a clear sign expressing she didn't want pictures taken in her store. Which, since it's her store, I think it's obvious that people should respect what she wants, or don't go.

The store owner was super nice and asked me about myself what I was making with the products I was buying, she mostly left me alone except for when I first walked in. She asked if I was looking for anything that she...

I really should have looked closer at the prices before I bought. I bought three grocery bags worth of snacks and the total came out to about $180, which is almost twice as much as I pay at any of the other area Asian markets for very similar goods. Like others have said, the prices aren’t great and the owner is constantly following you around trying to introduce you to random stuff. Some of the prices are unmarked, which is definitely a problem considering the actual cost. The selection of snacks is indeed really good though. However, one of the snacks I paid $8 for was sitting on a dry goods shelf when the only English part of the label stated “Keep frozen. Refrigerate after thawed.”

My favorite part of the visit was when the owner asked if I had kids, to which I replied “No”. He made some funny thrusting gestures to his groin and asked if I would like to buy some stuff to help with fertility. He was shocked when I told him I don’t really want kids. I smiled and was actually pretty amused by this exchange though, so I’m giving the place an extra star than I would otherwise. That was probably my favorite part of the visit. The owner is definitely a bit wacky, but he’s also friendly. Some reviewers said he is like a high pressure salesman, but my experience is that he did not really try to convince me to buy something after I politely replied “No, not today”. He was just making constant suggestions for all sorts of stuff.

If you aren’t too concerned about price, are looking for a wide selection of Eastern snacks, and are interested in meeting a wacky store owner, maybe this place is worth checking out. – but if you are a price conscious person and dislike constant purchasing advice, this might not be the...