Shopping At The Asian Market - 99 Ranch Market and Sam Woo's

As I have mentioned several times before, one of my son's best friends, was born and spent almost all his preteen years, in Vietnam. In the past 5 or so years, he has had to learn a new language, a new culture and go to school at the same time. It truly amazes me how far he has come, in so short a time. Anyway, last year, on one of our many runs to the Van Nuys Army Navy store, he mentioned in passing that there was an Asian restaurant that he goes to quite often. Would we like to go sometime? So we said yes and the next time we did our Army Navy run, we made sure it was around lunchtime and we finished our errands and then headed over to the restaurant, Sam Woo's BBQ Restaurant. Have I mentioned that my son could eat Chinese Food, 3 times a day? :-)
So we tell my son's friend to order for us and along comes some of the Chinese food you would expect, fried rice and vegetables with noodles and chicken and then there was this earthenware bowl filled with all sorts of seafood in a liquid. Calamari was one of the many that turned up in this bowl and since I cook squid for Christmas Eve, this was no problem for us. So we eat lunch and on our way out, I see that over on the side of this restaurant is a sort of cooked meat take out counter and deli. Not what I expect at a restaurant, but interesting to see and I took a picture or two (see above).
Then he mentions that right next door is an Asian Market and would we like to go into it. My son wanted some Sriracha (it's a hot chili sauce), that he gets at his friend's house, so we go in and though it is definitely different, it is an Americanized Asian Market, not so strange at all. Many products that you would expect to see in a store...and so much more. We are fascinated! I go off to the frozen fish area and check out their products. I find lots of the fish I make on Christmas Eve and vow to come back next year (which I did). The guys are doing their own looking around. Finally we come to the hot sauce and get told to choose the container that has a Chicken, not a Bird on it. So we buy the one with a rooster on the front of the bottle and go to pay for our purchases. They do take credit cards, which made me happy and the staff was very nice. As a matter of fact, when we returned on our own this year, they even gave us an ad for a future trip. I guess we are considered regulars now. :-)

The Market is the 99 Ranch Market on the corner of Sepulveda Blvd and Victory Blvd. The restaurant is just to the right of the market and be warned, is a cash only establishment. Enjoy.