Frozen Asian food shipped nationwide?
September 17, 2020 12:12 PM   Subscribe

I'm planning to move to a new city in the next few years which, for all its other virtues, is 3 hours away from a decent Asian grocery store. Are there any online distributors that will ship frozen Asian convenience food like dumplings and dim sum via overnight courier? Or other creative solutions for getting my fix?

I'd be moving to western Montana (specifically Missoula). I've already checked out the Asian grocery in Kalispell and it doesn't really stock frozen prepared foods. The local organic/specialty food store is a godsend but doesn't carry "authentic" Asian frozen foods either. So it looks like I'll be trekking to Spokane, WA, 3 hours away.

But this is 2020... surely there are online Asian food distributors that will ship frozen food for the right price?
posted by serelliya to Food & Drink (8 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Goldbelly seems to specialize in regional foods shipped across the country. It's not cheap, though.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:26 PM on September 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Creative solution: Learn to cook your favorite meals in the next few years before you move. Most of the ingredients you need are available online without need of freezing.
posted by lothar at 1:12 PM on September 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


If you go the route lothar suggests... I was really missing Chinese vegetables, so my mom found some (a lot, actually) seeds and mailed them to me from Canada in the late 90s.

As a consequence, there's a small private liberal arts college in the middle of Iowa with a botanical unit devoted to Asian vegetables. Damned, but they do well in Iowa spring/ summers.

Stuff like dim sum wrappers can be made by hand, but it's a huge pita. Prepared wrappers have a reasonable shelf life at 4'C, and as you know, prepared dumplings are good in the freezer for months. There are fancy ice packs now with newer formulations that last a lot longer, to make the 3 hour (6, both ways) trip more worthwhile. Otherwise, dry ice.

Seitan can be made by hand as well.

Sauces and spices are shelf/ refrigerator stable, as are preserved ("lap"-ed) meats. I missed stuff like Chinese BBQ (oh my, how I missed it) but didn't have the wherewithal to do it myself. I did try making Peking duck once and half of it was "close enough." Seafood is big in Cantonese cuisine, so being in scrod country hurt a lot.

The brands were sometimes different in the US (I made trips to Chicago for my fixes) and the flavours/ textures were different than what I was used to, though.

Amazon is actually really good for finding brands that aren't available in the local market. Can get very pricey indeed, though.

But yeah, I honed my Chinese cooking skills more in college than ever I did growing up or since.

I'd check out <$ethnicity> restaurants in college/ university towns and see if they have any tips - there was a surprisingly decent one (and familiar to my palate) in Ames, when I was expelled and had exiled myself to the Iowa State U.
posted by porpoise at 2:01 PM on September 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


So back in the dark days before the internet, we'd go to the place that might have something but didn't and ask if they could order it wholesale. Some times that meant we had to commit to a case or two of something. You can also ask restaurants if they would wholesale something for you.
posted by advicepig at 2:13 PM on September 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


For what it's worth, Missoula seems to have a Costco, and Costco sometimes has a variety of frozen Asian foods and sauces. (Your mileage may vary depending on the particular Costco, and some of the dumplings are absolutely not as good, but I've found Chinese sausage, bulk soy, and even oyster sauce at the one near me. And there was the glorious month of bulk Melona bars.)
posted by Comrade_robot at 4:25 PM on September 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


Maybe I've been overthinking, but isn't this something that a craigslist/gigs or jobs.metafilter posting would solve?

Once you've established a business relationship, then Bob's your uncle, no?

I'm over the federal border, so there's customs Hell for shipping foodstuff but otherwise (somehow, my family managed shelf-stable stuff with no problems), that's something I'd gladly do for a friend (at cost on my schedule, for pay if on friend's schedule).

Shipping on dry ice is going to cost a bundle (at least, it is up here) because of the hazard transport charges. Blue ice will require true overnight service. Covid has royally disrupted delivery service, and the Western wildfires has basically shut down Canada Post deliveries the past couple of weeks. Overnight/ 2-day service isn't what it used to be. Hopefully that won't be the case in a few years.
posted by porpoise at 7:30 PM on September 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


What I would do is look up contact info for relevant student clubs at UMontana (there's almost certainly something like an 'asian students association') and email them. I bet there are plenty of students who have had the same question, and they may have found a workable solution.
posted by kickingtheground at 12:12 AM on September 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


I left an area with bountiful ethnic cuisine and am currently in an area that has a smallish international grocery and a costco....but the nearest store that carries some of my favorite brands/foods is almost exactly a 2 hour drive away. The (pre-covid) solution has been to fill up the car with a couple of coolers, grab a good friend and take a road trip to restock every 2-4 months (depending on weather/necessity/availability). We have it down to a bit of a science now but we both make lists ahead of time and pack the coolers with ice from a gas station prior to or just after shopping for the trek home. Sometimes we make it an overnight trip, but more often just a long day, usually stopping at one of several restaurants and/or other shops and/or a museum or other attraction to round it out. For us (pre-covid) it was a good excuse to get out of town and bond. I haven't been since covid and genuinely miss it. I've made do with ordering a few dry goods online, placing specialty orders at both my local grocery and at the local international store and stretching out the stuff from our last run and while not perfect, that helps to scratch the itch while I wait for things to get a little safer out there.
posted by AnneShirley at 1:34 AM on September 19, 2020


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