02-23-10 – 1:30 p.m. - It's the season of Chinese New Year—actually, the Spring Festival—and I'm fresh out of Mooncakes. And our Asian restaurant options are, putting it politely, limited. So it's either Kam Man Grocery on Canal Street in Manhattan for provisions, or I can go to the brand new, right out of nowhere, astonishing oasis in upstate New York's culinary desert that is the new Asian Super Market on Central Avenue in Colonie.
Durians, Italian chestnuts at $2.50 a pound, and ginko nuts for yakitori. Fresh quail, believe it or not, at six for $8.50, which should raise a few eyebrows over at D'Artagnan and Dean and Delucca. |
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Blue crabs. Oysters at $6.99 a dozen. A variety, so help me, of fresh ducks, including Muscovy, as well as frozen ducks and Cantonese BBQ ducks hanging in the window, giving you hope that one of these days, some more for real Asian kitchens (to complement the wonderful Van's Vietnamese down the road on Central Avenue) will open in a nearby zip code. Sturdy, serious woks and cooking implements, white melon seeds, sauces, huge bunches of flowering chives, cooking wines, nori, Japanese yams, Hawaiian sweet potatoes, dragon fruit, and every conceivable curry paste and powder—all under one roof. It doesn't take much to make me happy.
Asian Market is located at 1245 Central Avenue in Colonie. Phone 518 438-8868. No website as yet, but Ben, the manager, promises one soon.
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