99 Ranch Market Reviews

“Although the name suggests cowboy hats and horses, Ranch Market is more coolie hats and SUVs and it's not a ranch either. With only the tiniest of nods toward western tastes - chips and salsa, squirty Kraft cheese - it's an entirely Asian supermarket, heavily Chinese with some Japanese and Korean, and it sells dog food but not cat food and nobody likes to ask why.

Prices are generally on the shelves and in the right places, not always the case with Asian stores, and these days almost every item carries a label with an English description of some sort or at least an ingredients list. So you might not know what you're handling first time around, but you learn quickly.

The clientele is as close to being 100% Asian as you can get, given this is not Asia. Shelf-stockers probably don't speak English because they aren't at the point of sale, and if you bump into another customer by accident there's a good chance you'll have no words of apology that they'll understand. It feels very foreign, but in a way different to Japanese stores. No one thing, just a lot of small oddnesses that add up.

The range of foods, both fresh and processed, is pretty good and mostly unpretentious. Lots of instant noodles. Lots and lots. Bottles and cans of gluten and peanuts, sardines in hot sauce, gallons of soy sauce, all weekday store-cupboard stuff. There's little here that's on offer to attract the passing tourist, but much that you won't have seen before, haven't yet tried, but should you do so, probably won't ever try again. On the other hand, the average student could survive for a year on the instant noodle range alone.

There are large fresh meats and produce sections, with good prices, constantly being restocked so everything looks pretty fresh. You can get dragonfruit here, and more instantly recognizable Asian varieties, but the western staples are also on offer.

There's a chilled foods section, where you can get fresh seasoned boiled eggs (look ]
\o[pappalling, taste wonderful) and tofu, seaweed root salad, spiced gluten snacks and an awesome red bean paste and sticky rice dessert. You need to get there when the shelves are stocked, though, because this stuff seems to run out fast.

Lastly, beware - the place is CROWDED almost all the time. I've been there before 9am on a weekday and there's already been a line at the doors. Avoid peak shopping times if at all possible, unless you enjoy literally rubbing shoulders with the Chinese community. To give them credit and unlike some (cough)Safeway(cough) supermarkets, when things get busy they open all the checkouts that they can. But even so, there may be long waiting times due to the sheer volume of trade.

I've never been to China but I'll bet this is as close to the Chinese supermarket experience as you'll get in the middle of Silicon Valley. I know of nowhere else to find scallops at $70 a pound alongside a $2000 brandy, alongside gluten and peanuts and instant porridge and a huge tank of live fish, which occasionally escape but don't plan well enough in advance to make it out of the building.

There's a bakery section with fresh baked goods, largely from the SOGO bakery, and including some really good pork sung rolls, raisin rolls, garlic rolls, etc. The pork sung 'sushi' roll and the hot-dog with green onion and custard ones are particularly good. Also go here for a range of flavored bread in those swirly colored sliced loaves that you also find in Japanese supermarkets. They have a big range here, including both the regular red bean breads and green breads and cheese bread and even sweet pineapple bread.

Lastly there is a small cafeteria style restaurant in the store, which is entirely Asian of course, but which I haven't tried yet because I'm broke. It looks OK but I can't comment on hygiene or menu. And next to that, a stall with freshly cooked meats and poultry hanging around, which again I haven't experienced myself. But it's another busy spot.

Overall, this is a very busy working-class supermarket, lacking the antiseptic gleam of Safeway or Lucky, but doing better business. It's foreign, and feels more so for a lot of small reasons, and none of the staff are going to ask you if you need any help if you don't look Asian and probably don't speak the same language. You're on your own. It's also my regular supermarket, and I could live off it were it not for the McDonalds down the road. Which oddly enough, also has an entirely Chinese clientele on weekend lunchtimes. I guess none of us can do without McDonalds, west or east, but as a supplement to your Big Mac, this is not a bad place to shop, at all.”