H & L Asian Market — Local services in North Charleston

Visit to H & L Asian Market in North Charleston, South Carolina. Although I did not photograph the store aisles, rest assured that this store has pretty much everything the larger stores in New England, and New York will have perhaps tho in reduced quantities. I was satisfied that my wife would have felt right at home shopping here. With fresh meats, and seafood, and broad kitchen & restaurant supply, as well as good produce, frozen, and dry goods this probably serves many local restaurants as a major supply store. With an included restaurant cafeteria menu, and seating, I found no faults here with one exception - unfortunately they do not prepare sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf - a personal favorite of mine which I sorely miss. H & L Asian Market even had frozen, and whole Durian fruit - which puts them right at the top of my list ! I did add one 360° photo just inside the front door to give you an idea of the store size, double-click on the photo to view in 360° degree vision. Service was courteous, and friendly, although as an English only speaker I did have to approach several employees before finding one who would speak to me. I highly recommend this business for asian supermarket shopping, and only Saigon Market about three miles away comes close to this in size, and variety as best as I can tell. With only a 1.8 % Asian population here in this area, there just are not as many good markets to choose from as one might find in Boston, New York, Seattle, San Francisco or more populous areas. It is good to know that there are places here to fulfill the needs of this...

Yesterday was my birthday and I had the day off, so I planned a tour of culinary delights. I started here, because I have been meaning to check this market out for some time. This place is amazing! Aisles loaded with every variety of Asian fresh, bottled, canned, and dry good! It is extremely well-organized and has nice wide aisles. Masks are still required, which I appreciate.

I didn't bring a cooler so I had to walk past so many delectable refrigerated and frozen treats and the incredible seafood section, but I will be back for them another day! I did grab a jar of kimchi that looked irresistible and stayed cool til I got it home.

There are plenty of regular kitchen staples, so I grabbed some garlic I needed too. Loaded up on spicy Ramen and fun snacks and then I found the canned and bottled beverages! I want to try one of everything, so this will definitely require multiple visits.

There are oils and vinegars and sauces and dressings, herbs and spices and coffees and teas! Dried rosebuds and lavender, just so much glorious stuff, and reasonably priced.

There's a huge kitchen section with quality restaurant necessities like woks and salt shakers and strainers and sake cups and just everything you can think of. You can bring your own bags or they will give you a box like at Costco. I ended up with a pretty big box LOL

Can't wait to try all my goodies and go back for more! You'll find all your old and new favorites here. It's a...

Amazing selection of food, mainly Chinese, although with Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese as well. (I did not see anything I recognized as Thai or Filipino, but it might have been there.) Most products are not labeled in English clearly, but the price tags have it, and a lot has the English in the fine print. If having things in other languages bothers you enough that you wouldn't be able to enjoy it, I have a feeling this place isn't for you, either - this is not the place for takeout-style Asian food, it's the place for actual Asian food, from at least the locations mentioned above, and if you can't tolerate a different language I doubt your culinary horizons will be much broader. There aren't aisle labels, but you can wander freely - everything feels wide and free. It's VERY clean - the cashier we had even wore gloves to touch everything, and wiped the counter off between each transaction. The fruit is even specially wrapped if it is easily bruised in a lattice-type foam, so you know it's been taken care of!! This store is one of my favorites in Charleston. (I also have it on good word that the pho here is really good, although I have not yet tried it.) Oh, and the prices are lower than HT and BiLo here for pretty much whatever they have, sometimes dramatically. Definitely...