Golden Dragon Asian Market — Local services in Kennewick

This store seems to have a pretty good selection of canned and packaged Asian foods, and a bit of refrigerated and frozen items as well, as well as some cooking and eating utensils, and other related items. But I have a very difficult time rating them over two stars, largely because I have been in numerous times, and have been to this store multiple times, and asked for help with a number of different items, and virtually every time, the response is a cold, "I don't know" or "it's over there" or "Sorry, I don't know." These are to what I would imagine to be pretty basic questions. I have to stop short of giving it a one star "I hate it" but I'm not far from that.

I am an Anglo, born in the U.S. customer, trying to learn more about Asian cooking and culture, but for what I think should be the most basic of questions, I get a very terse, useless responses. I get the feeling that I am not actually welcome in the store. For example, I ask if they could recommend noodles from the various varieties that they sell, and an approach for learning to pan frying like what you might get in a Chinese restaurant. Instead of looking at this as an opportunity to sell me a wok, all of the sauces that I might need, and maybe the vegetables or other places I might need to go to get the rest, I get, "No, sorry, I can't help you."

OK, so maybe the person there runs grocery stores, and really doesn't cook. I can understand that maybe the person I talked to really doesn't know how to cook. But I would expect them to know how to provide some customer service. If they sell a cookbook, great, show me where it is. If they don't, maybe they could recommend one. Maybe this is the way a shopkeeper treats customers in China. I don't know. I couldn't imagine that commerce is really that different. Don't all shopkeepers want to strive to help the customer, and earn their loyalty to come back again? I gave this shop numerous chances to earn my business, and they only succeeded in driving me away.

I will be traveling across the bridge to the store in Pasco next time I need something. If they can be more helpful, it will be worth the extra drive, each time I look for Asian food products. I will post my experience with the other store(s) on...

Edit: This visit was around February 2022.

It's in a small, not very open or well lit space, so it was kind of hard to find things. I tried to find some instant Filipino coffee, but I couldn't and I started to feel uncomfortable because it was very dimly lit in there. I was getting ready to go to the counter when a man working there asked me if I needed help finding something and he had his hands on his hips. He startled me, and I was trying to hide that, so I asked about Filipino coffee. He said, "We're closed." It was just after 7 and the hours listed on Google said that they were open until 8. I was anxious at that point and didn't want to seem confrontational by telling him about the hours, so I just quickly paid for the coffee candies I had found and left.

If they had decided to close early, I'm not sure why nobody said anything to me when I went in a few minutes earlier because at least three people who seemed to be working there saw me walk in. One of them even held the door for me as I went in and smiled at me, so I had no reason to think I shouldn't be there. The open sign and front lights were still on when I went in, too. Bad communication with each other?

I left 2 stars instead of 1 because the other people there seemed...

So happy they have everything I love foods n drinks wise my favorite the candy’s n chocolates 🩶 I love that they are never out of sushi wraps because lately that’s been my craving n favorite snack to eat with rice tuna and etc. first thing I do when I wake up is go straight to the store and grab 2 to 6 sushi wraps with my pregnant self or I send my man to buy it for me while I stay home or in the car resting my legs since I’ve been feeling so heavily lately cos I’m almost due… anyways I could go on and on about this place I love it and I love that it’s so close to...