Supersize Asian supermarkets are booming in the Bay Area, selling fresh pandan, ready-to-eat sushi, and fancy imported rice cookers. For this series, the Standard’s food team visited six of the newest, from San Jose to Emeryville, to find out what each does best — and where you should head for your next grocery run.
When Jagalchi, the Korean grocery store in Daly City, opened last year, it drew long lines and became the main event at Serramonte Center. Now it’s settled into a more useful role: a place to tack onto a Target run. Still worth the trip, just not always the star of the show.
Inside, there is everything from $18 Korean Shine Muscat grapes (with an accompanying sign that says “goes so well after eating meat”) to eomuk (fish cakes), boldly labeled as “Korea’s favorite street snack.” In fact, most everything here is spelled out for the Korean culinary novice, a fact that has garnered mixed responses. There are maps, definitions, and pronunciation guides. Should you feel like you know your gochujang from your gochugaru, it can come across as a bit much. But if you’re still confused about the difference between kimchi and kimbap, it will make shopping your way through the store far more accessible than, say, its H Mart counterpart or Tokyo Central.
The skin care section takes up an entire corner of the grocery store
The Beauty & Health section stocks dozens of Korean brands. What to add to the cart
Don’t expect the store to replace your weekly farmers market run — or really come here for vegetable at all. The produce selection is limited and mostly dotted with “oh-wow” items like mangosteen, individually wrapped honey pomelos, and ready-to-drink fresh coconuts.
You’re really here to go hard on the shelf-stables — the MSG bombs and the specialty fall flavors of Pocky (pumpkin spice, anyone?). There are bags of seaweed “nachos” ($5.99), deep-fried and showered with kimchi and wasabi flavoring, banana-flavored rice crackers to pair with boxes of banana milk, and a selection of dried seafood snacks including butter-flavored dried squid ($6.50).
The extensive instant noodle wall is a work of modern art. Warhol would have had a heyday with all the cup noodles, noodle bowls, spicy ramen, mac-and-cheesy ramen, dry ramen, instant tteokbokki and even freeze-dried bibimbap. Shin Ramyun is a classic, but have you tried the purple-packaged tom yum flavor? Everyone’s had Original Hot Chicken Buldak ramen, but how about the Quattro cheese?
The impressive wall of ramen comes in all forms and colors.
Premium roasted Korean seaweed has its own display. 
The prepared food section is one of the biggest draws.
The refrigerated banchan section goes far beyond the typical side dishes at your favorite Korean barbecue spot. Wander the rows of kimchi, from red to white, and if you’re not familiar with the different types, varieties like baekkimchi (white kimchi made without red chili flakes) and chonggak kimchi (made of radishes with their tops on and known as “ponytail” kimchi). After choosing your kimchi, there are plenty of other sides to complement your meal, including three different preparations of octopus, cold and creamy potato salad, and a variety of pickled vegetable.
Another place Jagalchi shines is the booze section. Of course there is soju — which, should you want to relive middle school — comes in blueberry, watermelon, and green apple. But there is also makgeolli, the creamy, lightly fizzy unfiltered Korean rice wine, and its clarified and filtered cousin yakju. For the next morning, you’re going to want Condition, a “hangover solution” jelly (that, rumor has it, works very well).
In the frozen aisle, pick up some samgak kimbap, a triangular Korean version of onigiri. And, as an ode to TikTok’s favorite street food, grab a mozzarella-and-fish-cake corn dog.
What to eat there
There are plenty of ways to eat at Jagalchi. One is to dine in. All of the store’s aisles lead to Pogu, a modern, full-service restaurant which sits in the center of the sweeping space. It offers a $95 tasting menu of five courses, created by Tony Yoo (Korea’s first Michelin-starred chef), including stalwart dishes like buckwheat noodles, pumpkin soup, and grilled galbi. Nearby, there’s a raw bar with chefs shucking shellfish and serving the store’s signature kelp-aged sushi (which you can also take to go from the adjacent seafood section).
You can also buy a bite from the prepared foods section and have a seat at one of the many tables or booths near the checkout aisles. There’s vegetarian japchae ($7) with its slippery sweet-potato noodles, rosé tteokbokki ($8), a modern twist on Korean street food, with bouncy rice cakes swimming in a sharply spicy pinkish-orange (yes, rose-colored) sauce.
Jagalchi’s honey-garlic fried chicken gangjeong ($15) is best eaten on the spot (a to-go container threatens to steam the crispiness out), but gejang ($18), the popular raw blue crab marinated in soy sauce, is better brought home where you can enjoy the messy salty-sweet crustaceans in close proximity to some hand soap and a kitchen sink.
The extensive and relativley affordable to-go sushi options.
Behind a glass wall there’s lots of action: workers folding mandu bursting with ground pork and glass noodles, stir-frying japchae, and baking sweet potatoes on volcanic rock. The to-go sushi section is also extensive and relatively affordable. There are typical options like salmon nigiri and yellowtail sashimi, but also upscale offerings like uni and o-toro. However, skip the musubi. You can get better pretty much anywhere else, except maybe Target.
What else?For Korean sunscreen addicts, an entire skin care section spans a corner of the store with hard-to-find options such as Medicube and Round Lab. If it’s your first time looking at Korean skin care, the staff seem happy to share tips as well.For those who are gluten intolerant, Basquia Rice Bakery serves breads, pastries, cakes, all made from rice flour. The sulpang, a soft, steamed bread, has a springy texture and is filled with buttercream or cream cheese. Should you want your own filling, you can buy it on the side. Try the savory gochujang buttercream or for something sweet, strawberry or matcha.Jagalchi Opening hoursMarket: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, Pogu restaurant: 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily, Basquia Bakery: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Dining and Cooking