Talk about a global marketplace.
Fanta City International Shopping Center is practically a United Nations of commerce, and the majority of the stores sell food.
The center is on West Market Street. It seems only fitting that it's down the street from three of Greensboro's most popular Asian restaurants: Rearn Thai, Seoul Garden and Binh Minh Vietnamese restaurants.
Fanta City, anchored by the Super G Mart grocery store, has about 70 spaces for businesses plus a community center. About 50 spots are occupied. The center has its share of nonfood businesses: hair salons, tax preparers, jewelers and clothing retailers. But among the Super G, a couple of other markets and a handful of restaurants, Fanta City is a destination for foodies.
The Super G Mart building is 73,000 square feet. The market occupies about 35,000 square feet. The rest of the building is filled with small vendor stalls and an indoor flea market. One of those vendors is a Vietnamese café.
Other restaurants in the center are Sushi Republic, Dasarang Korean Restaurant, Purple Yam Café and Apple China. Purple Yam, a Filipino restaurant, and Apple China, which serves Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine, are in an indoor food court.
For many people, the main draw of the center is the Super G, which specializes in Asian food. But it also sells a lot of Hispanic, European, African and Middle Eastern specialties. "We get the stuff you can't find at Harris Teeter or Wal-Mart," said owner Stephen Kim.
Kim opened Super G in 2008. The son of a Korean diplomat, he had seen international markets thrive in Washington, New York and other large cities. He decided the concept could work in midsize cities, too.
The Super G is similar to the Compare supermarket in Winston-Salem, which specializes in Hispanic foods. But Super G is much broader. And Super G's Asian selection, in particular, is much larger than Oriental Oasis or Asia Grocery in Winston-Salem.
Super G is known for fresh produce. You can get fresh bamboo shoots and water chestnuts — items most Americans buy in cans.
The store has fresh cactus, fresh chickpeas and fresh banana leaves. Small Thai bananas and green plantains sit next to regular bananas. Yuk choi, Chinese celery and other Asian greens are displayed alongside Southern collards. Indian bitter melon is sold as well as Vietnamese durian fruit.
Even people not looking for hard-to-find ethnic foods may find Super G worth a visit because of the prices. Last week, the store offered three bunches of cilantro for 99 cents — about the same price for one bunch in other supermarkets. Avocadoes were $1.29 each — compared with $2 or more recently in a chain supermarket. Four limes for 99 cents, compared with 70 cents or more for just one.
The meat case offers many items that are rare in this area, including cured pork feet and fresh pork hearts, chicken feet, beef tongue and tripe. Mexican chorizo is displayed next to cured Hungarian sausage.
The large selection of whole fish includes fresh carp, catfish and tilapia, as well as lesser-known belt fish and butter fish. "We're working on getting a live tank," Kim said, "because our customers really want live fish."
Live conch are sold alongside clams and oysters. Fresh smelts and sardines are next to rows of dried anchovies and shrimp.
More meat and seafood are frozen. The freezer case also has more than 50 kinds of dumplings, and many unusual vegetables and fruits, including the pulp of borojo and lulo fruit from Colombia. The large selection of frozen, prepared meals includes everything from Vietnamese octopus soup to Indian masala dishes to Jamaican beef patties.
Pantry selections include 50-pound bags of more than a dozen types of rice, more than 50 types of dried mushrooms, rows of dried beans. The store has aloe soda from Korea, chocolate from Belarus, dried meat from Croatia, olive oil from Syria, lutenica (red-pepper spread) from Macedonia, and uziza (herb) and alligator pepper seeds (spice) from Ghana.
Some items appeal to restaurateurs who often shop here: half-gallons of soy sauce, gallon jugs of peeled garlic, 5-pound bags of ground chilies.
This kind of selection is just what developer John Kim had in mind when he recruited Stephen Kim, who is not related, to open Super G.
John Kim, a retired AT&T engineer, bought the property from Guilford Mills in 2002. He opened it as an international shopping center in 2007. "I didn't see any shopping areas catering to ethnic people," he said.
He soon realized that food businesses would be the key to the center's success. The center has been growing slowly, but the pace has picked up since Super G opened.
"Ethnic people want to eat what they were used to eating in their homeland," John Kim said.
Stephen Kim, who opened a Charlotte Super G Mart in 2010, said that Greensboro's is the busier of the two stores.
"Before the center was kind of quiet, but now it is getting going," he said.
Sushi Republic, which also has a location on Tate Street, opened just two months ago in the center. Two new restaurants, a deli and a Mongolian grill, are coming soon.
In addition to the Super G, the center has a Hispanic tienda, or market. It also has Indu Convenience Store. Despite the name, Indu is a food market larger than any of the Indian markets in Winston-Salem. In addition to many shelf-stable items, Indu offers fresh produce and locally made baked goods.
Just two weeks ago, D&H Tofu Factory was opened by Huong Vu, a native of Vietnam.
Vu makes tofu on the premises. She sells it fresh, fried and in a kind of pudding that is served with a sweet ginger syrup.
"My mother used to do this at home in Vietnam, so she thought she'd try it here," said Vu's daughter, Quynh Diep, who works in the store.
Another shop making an Asian specialty is Yeaga Korean Rice Cakes. Owner Huyun Cho opened it two months ago. She makes an impressive variety of about 25 sweet-rice cakes. They come in all shapes and sizes, and such flavors as walnut, green tea, honey, pumpkin, sesame, red bean, mung bean and coconut. She also sells savory dumplings for soup.
"These are all-natural," she said. "Every morning, we make them fresh."
Joseph de Leon, a Filipino who opened the Purple Yam Café about a year ago, said that it is mutually advantageous for so many ethnic restaurants to be gathered near ethnic markets.
"If I run out of something, I can run right down there (to the Super G)," he said. "There are a lot of Filipinos who live in Winston-Salem. They come over on weekends. They'll shop at Super G Mart first, then they eat here.
"The reason I put the restaurant here is because of the market."
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