Pan-Asia Supermarket (6910 W. Greenfield Ave.) in West Allis was slammed on its first day open. I shouldn’t have been surprised. There are Asian grocery stores in the area but none like this.
When I walked in and saw that the lines to check out ran all the way to the back of the store – a 36,000-square-foot former Kmart – I decided this would not be the day I buy anything. But I wanted to look around. If you’re a terribly indecisive shopper, don’t go to Pan-Asia – maybe forewarning is enough. Say, for instance, you’re looking for specific Asian noodles, a bottle of fish sauce, an unusual tea, a bag of MSG, miscellaneous spices, or a set of chopsticks. They’ve got it all and not just a couple varieties of each thing – shelves and shelves of it. Just inside the entrance, look right and you see a continuous line of coolers that starts with various kinds of fresh greens, and progresses to vegetables in different colors of the rainbow. In the foreground are gradient displays of monochromatic produce. The aisles are so tightly and neatly packed with rice, condiments, snacks, canned goods and on and on, it almost looked like if you took just one item off, it would collapse like a Jenga tower. Where the traffic flowed, I followed. That put me back at the fresh seafood counter. Lots to see here: live clams and snails, baby octopus, shrimp. I stood next to a man who stared mesmerized at the live lobster and Dungeness crabs lolling inside huge tanks of saltwater. I kept moving, breezing up and down the aisles. Besides the seafood area and those long check-out lines, a lot of the other action was centered on the food vendors on the southeast side of the store. Fresh sushi, a boba tea café, a bakery, and a counter serving various Chinese, Korean and other Asian dishes. It was around lunchtime, and not a table was free of someone sipping boba or slurping noodles. I cut through the checkout lines on my way to the exit. Not a fan of crowds, I’ll try to hit this place again right when it opens – with a list of exactly what I want. Hours: daily 9 a.m.-8 p.m.More Photos:
