Seiwa Market — Local services in Torrance

There are the Big 3 of Japanese markets in Socal: Mitsuwa which veers toward a higher end feel by having more exclusive satellite stores at their flag ship store in Torrance.  Tokyo Central née Marukai main store in Gardena has concessions for Japanese fast food. Nijiya market chain is the most similar to Seiwa in that it is more like a traditional, standard supermarket.

Located on busy, wide Hawthorne Boulevard, Seiwa has a good stock of Japanese food items.  Ready made Bento's, Nigiri Sushi & more traditional style rolls as well as Inari Sushi/"footballs" made of texturized soy bean braised in sweet Sho-yu/soy sauce. Onigiri (oh (nee ghee ree)/rice balls are also an option.

It's late August, and what attracted my nose was the Honey Dew melon with orange flesh that exuded such a compelling deep ripe, sweet, flowery perfume that I couldn't resist buying the pale whitish orange orb.  This melon went absolutely well with Prosciuto di Parma symbolizing the crescendoing harvest that marks the end of summer.

Prices here are a bit higher than Tokyo Central, but people living in the more western & southern end of the South Bay will find it convenient in terms of saving time & gas. Another nice option for accessIng East Asian foodstuff &...

Convenient less crowded Japanese grocery store.

South Bay has the world largest Japanese community. That means you have multiple Japanese grocery stores in few mile radius. So things gets competitive.

I am not sure what’s happening with Seiwa market. But it is always less crowded than other markets. You can find almost the same items as others and sometimes but cheaper.

One of them main reasons I shop here is you almost never have to wait at the check out lane. It might not good for the business but great for consumers.

And some items are less expensive than other markets. If you don’t care about expiration date, you might accidentally find a...

I gave a one star because today I found out that this grocery store sell expired Pocky chocolate (two months past expiration date).

They also marked down products that is expired the day I visited. It's unforgivable, to me personally, because the expiring item that marked on sales was a snack for children. Attached picture for proof.

It's not unusual for supermarket to put items that are about to expired with lower price, but the supermarket usually put them at a special area, not on the regular shelf.

I will not buy anything from this supermarket because I don't want to check the expiration date on each item I want from there. It's an...