How and where to buy Asian groceries near NU.

Story by Michelle Hwang

Design by Shinyi Ding

Photos by Kim Jao

When Weinberg third-year Jessica Jang arrived on Northwestern’s campus and tasted the dining hall food, she realized just how different college was from home.

Having spent half of her life in Korea and all of it eating her mom’s cooking, Jang was used to quality, homemade Korean food.

“I realized I have to eat rice at least once per day to sustain myself,” Jang says. “It’s essential.”

Often, dining hall food alone doesn’t satisfy many Asian students, including Jang. Other times, the craving for childhood snacks strikes. Whatever the case, many students at Northwestern eventually find themselves in front of an Asian grocery store to shop for ingredients to make their own meals.

Jang purchases most of the ingredients for her home cooking from Joong Boo Market in Glenview or the H Mart in Niles.

Both are well-known grocery stores among Asian students at Northwestern and carry a wide selection of mainly East Asian goods. Most students travel by car because both stores are at least 9 miles from campus. However, Jang prefers Joong Boo, and not just for its lower prices.

“The store layout of Joong Boo makes more sense to me,” Jang said. “I don’t want to get lost and feel rushed because with ZipCar, every time we extend [our rental], we have to pay more.”

As outreach chairs for NU’s Vietnamese Student Association, Communication first-year Matilda Le and SESP firstyear Anna Truong say food is a common element of club meetings. Both say that Vietnamese food doesn’t get much more authentic than Argyle in Chicago.

“[Argyle] is where actual Vietnamese people in Chicago get their food, and [the stores] are owned by Vietnamese people,” Truong says.

Le highlights Tai Nam and Viet Hoa as two of VSA’s go-to grocery stores in the neighborhood.

Like VSA, many of the University’s identity-based Asian student organizations frequently provide cultural foods at meetings and events.

Caitlin Wilcox-Cheng, NU Asian American InterVarsity’s campus staff minister, uses online retail options like Weee! and Chowbus to source Asian snacks.

“Going to H Mart with friends is really fun — being able to have a shopping experience with other people,” Lin says. Getting Asian groceries is about more than just shopping to Wilcox-Cheng as well. It’s about creating a sense of home and of being seen, she says.

“I think it feels really important to have more variety [in snacks] than even what we have in the fellowship,” she says. “That [way], one, our students can become a little more cross-culturally competent and two, when we do have new students come, hopefully there’s still something for them, too.”