In my search for Vietnamese fish sauce, I visited numerous Vietnamese supermarkets and found some favourites to keep my pantry well stocked on Vietnamese perishables like rice paper (banh trang) wrappers for making Vietnamese salad rolls, rice vermicelli for soup noodles and fresh Asian/Thai basil.

Vietnamese grocery stores in Canada:
  •   Lucky Supermarket
  •   T & T Supermarket

T & T Supermarket is an Asian grocery store that carries a variety of Asian produce and goods from Chinese vegetables like bok choy, Japanese seaweed like nori, Korean kimchi to Vietnamese fish sauce and Thai peanut sauce.

Vietnamese supermarkets within Silicon Valley (U.S.A.):
  •   New Wing Yuan Market (Sunnyvale, CA)
  •   Asian Live Seafood (San Jose, CA)
  •   Shun Fat Supermarket (San Jose, CA)

Asian Live Seafood carries a variety of fresh seafood – from the common fish tanks of live lobsters and crabs, and to the unusual, like fresh frog legs and blood clams (also known as blood cockles).

Between March to June, many of the Vietnamese grocery markets in the Bay Area have fresh jackfruits.

Fresh jackfruits are the size of large watermelons and look like prehistoric dinosaur eggs (rather, how I imagine dinosaur eggs to look like ;)). I haven’t found a friend interested in trying and sharing this large fruit yet. Fortunately, there’s canned jackfruit. It is readily found at Vietnamese markets and gave me an opportunity to try this exotic fruit without having to make a large commit 😉

P.S. If you’re looking for fish sauce, Red Boat Fish Sauce is all natural, and one that we’ve enjoyed – perhaps you may too.

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  •   The Guardian: How to make perfect Vietnamese summer rolls
  •   Our Daily Brine: Fish Sauce Taste Test, 13 Brands Compared
  •   Spoon Wiz: Fish Sauce Tasting