Once upon a time, there was the mother of all strip malls, the Concord Park and Shop. Here’s the humungous sign (they took down the letters but oddly decided to leave the tower behind, which still stands):

The Woolworth’s which you can just make out in the photo was gone by the time we moved here. In the 80s it was C. Markus Hardware and then Simon’s Hardware. As new homeowners we spent a lot of time and money since that location was the main game in town. Eventually Simon’s moved and Officemax slid in. Officemax slunk away, the old Woolworth’s space stood vacant for a couple of years until this morning, when 99 Ranch Market, a big Asian grocery, opened an outpost here in Concord.

Parking lot packed, lines stringing from the cash registers into the food aisles, it was a zoo.

Here’s a quick tour:

The excellent produce selection looks pretty fresh. Here the pig looks at bags of ong choy, a wonderful green that should be more widely known here. (One of these days I’ll put up a recipe.)		Many times, when “exotic” fruit shows up at a market, it looks wan and jet-lagged. Not so with this dragon fruit.
	This was a little puzzling…what exactly is “buddhist” duck? You’d think it was some tofu creation, then why are the head and feet attached?
The fish fryer is something I’ve been wanting to have nearby for a long time. It’s great to pick out a whole fresh fish, have it cleaned and fried and then to bring it home for a quick trip in the wok to finish it off.		And a place to go for roast duck is certainly a plus.
	I was hoping for a better selection of fish sauces, but it’s hard to argue with the array of soy sauce, which goes from the pig all the back to where Tom is standing.
Not everything is impressive, but I guess somebody has to be eating this stuff.		The bakery is tasty-looking and it’s fun to watch the cakes being decorated before being whisked into the display cases. This one is a black forest cake.

A hand basket was all we could manage in the crush of people so we came away with just a few things. Just a couple of hours after the official opening, so much had been sold that the register tape needed refilling on our aisle. I guess they’re doing well.

Seriously though, the freshness and variety of the produce and proteins is going to have a big effect on the way we cook.

If you’re in the neighborhood, scoot over to Willow Pass when you get off of 242. Otherwise, you can check their website for other locations:

all locations of 99 Ranch

Later this fall, a Filipino-leaning supermarket called Seafood City, is going into the old Circuit City building on Diamond. Better yet, it’s bringing a Jollibee with it.

Yum.

Posted on 11:14 pm September 15, 2009