Ming’s Supermarket

Very crowed during weekend. Lots of Chinese food that usually hard to find in other places. Easy to park in the weekends. On the flip side, in order to go to toilets, there is a long walk through their stinky storage smelt like bad meat. As the results, we won’t dare buying any meat there!

Out of convenience, my parents may do their grocery shopping here at Ming’s Supermarket, sometimes sharing one of their prepared foods rice plates for lunch first before hitting the aisles. When I had to pick up some balls as my contribution for a hot pot get together, my mom suggested I head over here.
In the freezer section I found balls of beef, fish, shrimp, but the one that caught my eye as something a bit different was the curious sounding Fish Pudding balls $ 3.59. Funny enough, it turned out to be a favorite of one of my hot pot companions — fish balls with a meat center — and I found them quite tasty myself! The shrimp balls $ 2.49 were satisfying as well. Their ball portions came in counts of perhaps 12 – 20 balls which was perfect for our small party of 6!
Remembering the fish noodles from Kaze Shabu Shabu, I took a walk through the raw area of the market and managed to find Fresh Fish Paste $ 4.29/lb in the refrigerated section by the prepared foods counter, plastic wrapped in a styrofoam tray. We spooned this into plastic ziplock bags, cut out the corner tip and squeezed it into the hot broth. Yum! Another hot pot companion happily identified the fish paste as having been made with her favorite fish — one with tiny delicate digestible bones — and wanted to know where I had bought it.
I later found out that the fish paste my mom buys are found in plastic tubes in the freezer section — yeah, that wouldn’t have worked for same day consumption… I lucked out finding this fresh stuff!
I was tipped off during the our hot pot meal that Jia Ho Supermarket, located rather centrally below Emperor/​Empire Garden, has the freshest meat in Chinatown, my guess being that their more convenient location keeps things moving.
And rumor has it that H Mart may offer a greater variety of hot pot meat balls, both in larger bags, and in a pick your own bin for not much more money.

This is the worst Chinese Market in town, super stinky scent, molded food. Asian people likes to buy food daily, so most of the Asian markets stuff are restocked daily. However, not this one! Their veggies are a mixture of fresh and molded ones packed in one bag, and the fish that seem fresh smells so bad already when you bought it the same day.
DO NOT COME HERE! And they smell stuff that are expired with the fresh ones together, every packaged goods you have to check the date, otherwise you may end up with packed food long expired and wouldn’t be able to return.
Let me say it again, go to the one in China town or the one in Quincy or H mart! Every other ones are better than this one.

The polar opposite of the nearby Foodies and Whole Foods. Dirty and cheap. I’m not Asian and limit myself mostly to the hot food section. $ 7 for a pile. If you don’t eat it more than once a week it will be tasty. Any more often than that and your body will invariably reject it. If you want to buy something else from the store you’ll have to wait in line at the front registers. While waiting, you will scan the signs in Chinese looking for an express lane while an old lady humps the back of your leg eagerly.

Cheap food

If you’re purchasing seafood from the fresh seafood section, make sure you’re not being overcharged. Check your tags; these slick workers can overcharge you and you’d never know it.

One major drawback in my experience that I think is worth warning other customers of:
Prior to visiting the store I scrolled through a few reviews, one of which cited issues with cashiers overcharging and advising other customers to carefully monitor the screen at check out. I decided to take this advice to be safe and sure enough at check out the cashier double charged me for two items which i had to point out to her and ask her to correct. As of now this hasn’t deterred me from returning but I plan to always keep a close eye on the checkout screen. This is the main reason that I am rating this place 4 stars and not 5.
Overall there are lots of good things about this store:
— Large Selection of produce, meat, fish, Chinese groceries, moderate selection of Korean, Japanese and Vietnamnese groceries
— Produce, meat and fish very fresh/​good quality, including selection of live fish and shellfish
— Plentiful free parking on Saturday and Sunday (in the Tufts lot next to the store)
— Good Prices
— Sufficiently staffed to keep up w/​crowds during busy hours on weekends
Other minor drawbacks:
— Most signs only in Chinese (although google translate does pretty well w/​food names)
— Limited parking on weekdays
— Not right in Chinatown, only about a mile away though

Ming’s is my favorite Chinese supermarket in Boston, not to say we have too many to choose from. The selection is great and besides all the essentials for Chinese cooking, they have some Southeast Asian ingredients that I was having a hard time finding at other Asian groceries (green papaya, pandan leaves). It is cleaner and the products seem fresher than Super 88 in Allston. All the signs for produce are written in Chinese, so if you’re looking for a specific variety of Chinese greens that you can’t recognize by sight and can’t read Chinese characters, you might want to look up the Chinese name beforehand and jot it down. Sure, it’s busy on the weekends, but I think that’s a good sign– besides, if you think this is crowded, maybe you should go to the zoo that is the Trader Joe’s in Brookline on a weekend.

I love their prices and selection. I needed this Laap seasoning which I could not find at the other asian store I go to, so had to order online. But I found it here and more affordable too. They have a good selection of rice brands as well. Atleast they have the one I wanted. :D

A spacious Chinese supermarket with all the staple needs for an Asian household. The meat section is questionable, but the fish area typically has a lot of fresh seafood. There’s more luxurious/​unusual seafood options here compared to a regular American grocery store. Prices here are also cheaper than Hmart, another Asian grocery store. All in all a good sized market. The snack aisle could be better stocked though as options are few. A deep scrubbing might do the place good too.

I tripped on this one, pass by it everyday but never realized it was an Asian market. Once you pass the doors it opens up to this huge market full of almost everything. It has cookware, dry ingredients, tea and vitamins for everything, fresh and frozen veggies. Huge gallons of milk and soy milk. Candy and Snacks and ice cream. You could get a little lost here, but no worries the staff are great at pointing you in the right direction

I went to this store twice in a week. I bought crabs & quohogs. The quohogs were filled with mega sand. The next visit, I bought quohogs & scallops. The quohogs were filled with mega sand & the scallops had sand in them as well. This last visit was on 4÷3÷15. The morning of 4÷4÷15, I began to throw up terribly along with diarrhea. It seems like that food was no good. It felt like I had been poisoned. I will never shop at this store again.

I went to this state twice in a week. I bought crabs & quohogs. The quohogs were filled with mega sand. The next visit, I bought quohogs & scallops. The quohogs were filled with mega sand & the scallops had sand in them as well. This last visit was on 4÷3÷15. The morning of 4÷4÷15, I began to throw up terribly along with diarrhea. It seems like that food was no good. It felt like I had been poisoned. I will never shop at this store again.

This is a classic and legendary chinese grocery! Has literally everything you need; every meat, fish, crustacean, poultry, vegetable, fruit, herb and spice, rice, beans, noodles, sauce, kitchen utensils and machine you could ever need. The quality is excellent. The prices can’t be beat. They even have barbecue meats and a prepared foods counter. This store has everything and any asian luxury you need.
Say hi to the officer at the door :)

After coming here for the past year, grocery shopping with my husband and toddler daughter, I finally tried the prepared hot foods in the back part of the store. OMG — someone in that kitchen really knows how to cook! My husband and I normally just glance over that section of the market because while the dishes may look good, prepared hot foods from Chinese places is usually not very tasty, often times too salty and oily. However, I was so proven wrong when I came here with my mother-​in-​law for lunch.
It’s $ 6.50 for 3 selections, soup, and rice. I went for the eggplant, fish cooked with the corn/​pea/​carrots mix, and what appeared to be a Asian greens/​bean salad b/​c it had edamame, marinated tofu slices, mustard greens, and possibly others greens. I was floored by how tasty and well prepared the dishes were. Each selection had it’s own taste, well but not over seasoned, and was very fresh — probably b/​c we went right around noon time. Definitely, good quality restaurant style food but served in food court like setting, with available seating. The quality here reminds me of Phở Viet’s in the Super 88 complex in Allston/​Brighton.
It’s a pretty substantial portion, but I finished the whole thing! I didn’t have breakfast that morning and didn’t eat until dinner time around 9PM. After eating here, I said to myself that I needed to Unilocal this place. It’s definitely a hidden gem. In noticed quite a few non-​Asian folk, who would probably not normally shop there, eating as well.
Let me also share my thoughts about the super market itself. My husband and I enjoy coming here for the most part. Firstly, there’s adequate parking, and they more or less have what you’re looking for when cooking Chinese cuisine. I think they have the best seafood market among all the super markets. We often get a live, fresh fish to steam for dinner. I LOVE their wide selection of veggies. I try to stock up on my preferred meat cuts, especially the short ribs for making kalbi and pork bones for making porridge.
The down sides are that the aisles are quite narrow, and store employees tend to be stocking during the busiest hours of the day. It’s probably similar to Market Basket in this way, constant turnover necessitates this kind of set-​up. Also, I purchased the frozen oxtails once, and they weren’t as good as Market Basket’s.

I have a grocery list of pros and cons for this place (get the pun?) but let’s make it short and sweet:
Pros:
–Cheap Asian groceries with an abundance of variety due to the vastness of the store
–Has a small parking lot across the street on the weekdays, but on the weekends you can use the adjacent parking lot typically reserved for Tufts
Cons:
–Not at the center of chinatown (for you asians who are looking to double-​dip in your parking/​restaurant/​shopping)
–Cashiers are either unethical or not trained
Let me elaborate on my last bullet for my cons list — multiple times, and I repeat multiple times, the cashier has incorrectly entered an item, and strangely all those times they were markups, never markdowns, in price. The most obvious and recent example was a $ 0.50 carrot I bought ending up as a $ 11 package of raw shrimp. I politely pointed this out, stated I had not purchased shrimp and that it should instead be a carrot, multiple times and in fluent Chinese (they asked if I spoke Mandarin so I switched to a language they’re more comfortable with) before she understood. Which took about 30+ seconds. Yupp.
So, moral of the story. Audit that damn cashier as she scans each item and brings the price up, and compare that against your mental note of how much you should be paying for the item based on the tag you saw advertised (as there were also instances in which items were tagged incorrectly «by mistake»). If you have poor memory, or are just buying stock large enough to survive nuclear warfare, I suggest typing them down on your phone to compare during check-​out.

Finding Mings in Boston was like finally finding a new good friend after moving to a new city where you don’t know anyone.
Mings is one of those places that plays a magic trick/​optical illusion on your eyes and is much bigger inside.
Inside they have multiple whole walls dedicated to rice and aisles dedicated to noodles. They have a really big selection of cookware too. The spices/​sauces/​condiments are aplenty and they have a very nice selection of produce and meat/​fish. They even have a prepared food corner and herbal medicine corner. The only thing that may be a little lacking is their frozen section. The staff are nice too and it’s not too messy inside like some other Asian markets. I have a feeling Ming and I will be good friends.

I stop by all the time on my way home from work – Ming’s is fabulous. The produce selection is an A±-there are carrots there the size of my forearm, and also carrots the size of my pinky. Additionally, for the exotic fruit lover, you can find lychee, papaya, dragonfruit for reasonable prices.
They also have fresh conch, live frogs, live eels, and live crab available to purchase, along with a giant selection of fish.
Though there are dire warnings that your bags must be given to the front desk, I’ve never had to do it… though there is what appears to be a shoplifter’s wall of shame by the checkout counter.
I am a Chinese speaker, but I can’t read or write – this can be a bit of a problem when it comes to purchasing produce/​seafood. If you do not read Chinese, you should come here being able to identify the item that you want by sight.

Been here lots of times. Very big selection of food from tons of Asian countries. Prices are cheap to moderate depending on what you’re getting. Has pretty much everything you need for any East Asian dish/​drink. The only except (which I was really surprised about) is that they don’t carry Ito En tea. It’s a Japanese brand is at basically every Asian supermarket regardless of what kind it is, but for whatever reason this place doesn’t have it. Anyway, despite that, Ming’s is still a great place I’ll be coming back to in the future. Would also recommend the seafood section for fish.

Great East/​Southest Asian grocery store that distinguishes itself from Super 88 by carrying more East Asian products. (I find that Super88 is good for Southeast Asian products, not great for China products.)
Strangely small boxed/​canned drink section… verging on non-​existent. But great for lots of other dried goods, including tea and instant hot drinks, and great prices. (Prices are only slightly higher (10%) than what I paid for things in Singapore, including products from Singapore.)
If anyone is looking for Sichuan peppercorns, they carry both red and green varieties, which I haven’t seen elsewhere. Can’t comment on the quality yet.
Wide variety of produce that was hit or miss in terms of quality.

Fast food can’t get no classier than this. Three entrees with a rice and complimentary soup for $ 6.50. This is my go to place for that braised beef, sesame chicken, green beans, fish, squid, all those yummy dishes at just the right portions. The soup varies from seaweed and egg, chicken soup, or just what the chef wants to make. This is where I get my chinese food fix when home cooking is still far far away. It’s almost the next best thing on the fly.

Been shopping at Ming’s since I was a teenage (recalled their original location Essex Street? Yes now it’s Chau Chow City). This place can be overwhelming — crowded on the weekends, esp before a storm hits, large selection of goodies, etc. If you’re a «sauce» person, this place is heaven. They have at least 4 aisles of them — hot sauce, soy sauce, sweet & sour sauce, you get my point! Don’t even get me started with the noodle section — OMG! Over 50 varieties. The prices are significantly cheaper than any other Asian Markets (example: Reliable market in Cambridge totally mark up the prices). Around closing time, they mark down the fruit prices by half. Near the seafood section you can also find discounted veggies/​fruits (turning bad soon) in a bag for a buck. If you’re lucky, you can find good selections. The staff at the veggie section can be rude, dont even bother asking them for help. A good addition is the fast food area near the BBQ station. Now you can eat cooked food after grocery shopping. I believe 3 items combo for $ 6. Yes, the layout of the market is dated but if this place gets rennovated, expect to see increase in prices. Bring cash if you not planning to spend more than $ 10 (credit card min is $ 8 or $ 10, I forgot).
I feel bad for the parking garage attendant — he/​she is usally very old and probably doesn’t speak English, hence no choice but to work there. After loading your groceries into your car, PLEASE return the shopping cart close to the market. I see people leaving the carts all the way at Tufts Medical Center T stop. Insane! Imagine your eldery parents/​family members or any old people collecting those carts…

I miss being close to Asian supermarkets that have awesome produce that are cheap! This place isn’t that close to me, and the only public transportation near it is the SL5 :(
From the outside, it looks pretty small. However, once you step inside and it’s like… WHOA. Where did all the space come from? They have like… everything! Kitchenware, house ware, cheap (er) produce that is fresh (er), large frozen foods selection, large seafood selection, a whole aisle dedicated to teas, lots of dried goodies, and aisles and aisles of groceries in between. I mean, they had ONE WALL dedicated to HOT POT SOUP BASES. I’ll be picking up quite a few of those when it starts getting colder.
Prices are pretty reasonable IMO and I love how they have pictures of people who have stolen from the store before posted in clear view of the exits. Haha…
I would come here more if I had a car… Sigh.

I had read a few reviews of Ming’s before on Unilocal and had passed it regularly when I was leaving work so I was excited to finally check out the South End Asian grocery store with my boyfriend.
When we came in this past Friday afternoon, the store was not crowded. This gave us the opportunity to explore the supermarket’s offerings which ranged from housewares to fresh fish to herbal medicines. I found items to be very reasonably priced, and what’s more impressive is the wide range of products arranged neatly and in clearly labeled aisles.
Most workers appear to be speaking Cantonese, but I think they will speak to you in Mandarin as well. I also found the number of check out lanes to be another plus.