Asian Grocery Stores in Dubai
Although I’m quite keen on learning how to cook Indian and Middle Eastern food while here in Dubai due to the wide-spread availability of key ingredients and spices, I still crave some of my mom’s Chinese and Vietnamese homecooking as well as other Asian foods that I am used to eating in New York.
Since my mom’s not here with me and Dubai isn’t New York, it’s up to me to re-create my mom’s most scrumptious recipes as well as those dishes that I can’t get in Dubai’s restaurants.
Thus my foray a couple months ago to Karama which is about a 20 minute drive North from my apartment (on a good day). I had heard that in Karama there is a Korean supermarket and that it was “behind the post office,” and that there is a Thai grocery “next to Venus restaurant.” Yes, all great and wonderfully precise directions…uh, NOT. Again, I lament on the lack of a real postal system here!
Anyway, I did drive around in circles…not just on one occasion but maybe two or three separate ones. Eventually, through the help of google and a few phone calls, I found both markets as well as the Chinese groceries in Deira (photo above) and even another Thai (possibly Singaporean) grocery in the Karama fish market.
To help future shoppers out, I have pinned the locations to these markets on a google map. Please click here for the map and if you know of any other places where one can get Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Thai products, please let me know!
PS - Still no luck in the search for bubble tea even after wandering all around Al Attar center in Karama.
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Depends how obscure the items you’re looking for are, but the supermarkets including Lals, Choitram, Spinneys, Carrefour, Geant have sections with products from all those countries.
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thanks seabee. there are some Asian ingredients that I need that are pretty obscure and then others are available at the hypermarkets (C4, Lulu, etc) but not the authentic brands.
I stumbled upon your website after my long search online for a chinese grocery store. So I must thank you for pinpointing it out on the google map! I could hug you right now!!! I just got to Dubai not so long ago..will defintely bookmark your website and if I find Bubble Tea I will definitely give you a shout.