Variedades Veracruzana

This is the place to go if you want those hard to find spices and dried peppers to make traditional Latin recipes. The woman working there is such a cute charming character that brings life and warmth to the store.

2 things…
If you’re ever in need of a full sized… 2 liter Sidral Mundet (Mexican apple soda)… then this is the spot! I’ve never seen the large bottle only the small glass ones (I cringe at sodas in small glass bottles… this isn’t the 50’s). They also have large aloe juices. Now, if I lived around here… those 2 things alone would be justification enough for me to stop in here on the regular. The prices are great and more or less it’s under the radar.
Lastly, I think they have tres leches cake that’s sold in the Tacqueria across the parking lot. The past few times I’ve been in, it’s been sold out. Not sure where it comes from… but I dig it. I do want to come back and grab some kind of rare salsa… and maybe even a crazy pepper but I don’t know. It seems risky.

Variedades Veracruzana has become a frequent stop on my ingredient shopping sprees that lead me through the 9^th Street Italian Market and down Washington Avenue…
This tiny tienda has been taking care of all my Mexican hot sauce needs for some time now. If you’re lookin for it, they probably have it: Tapatio, El Yucateco, Cholula, Valentina, and on and on. Most are significantly less expensive than if you were to buy em at a Supermarket of sorts. For instance, the Valentina extra hot salsa picante, which we’ve been shakin on everything lately, costs less than two buckaroos for the giant 34 oz bottle. Glug glug! Similarly mas cheap than usual are ingredients like La Morena chipotles in adobo… all that good stuff I’m constantly needing to stock up on.
Besides my obvious love of Mexican condimentos, I frequently cook up a lot of sauces using ancho chiles, chiles de arbol, pasillas, guajillos, cascabels, look at me I’m just listing a buncha chiles… oh but there are more! These are what draw me again and again to this little shop.
The many varieties of quality dried chiles are available in the bins to the left of the counter. And once again, this ol’ bargain hunter is gonna have to make note of the good prices: They run $ 6.50 a pound, and for reference, about there are about 45 or so large dried guajillo pods in a pound. Que ganga!

I really enjoyed coming here the day before New Year’s eve. I wanted to make «Enfrijoladas» and needed a few items. A quick, easy ride from Center City later, I walked into a very small, but well-​stocked market with lots of wonderful items. Roving over the huge bins of various dried peppers was great — you can choose your own and they all looked nice and fresh. The next aisle surprised me — there was a silver cast-​iron tortilla press for $ 9.99 which I couldn’t resist (it has the word «Super» embossed on it)… Yes, there are a lot of Goya products, and a whole major ton of interesting drinks — it was a smörgåsbord of cool mexican drinks, including some cool coconut beverages I haven’t tried yet.
They offer a plethora of La Costena, Goya, La Morena cans/​jars of sauces and beans, and also I loved their wall of $ 1.50 spice packages — wow — that is a huge savings! They have fresh nopales, wonderful tomatillos, jalepenos and tomatoes, avocadoes, etc. in the fridge — can’t wait to make some nopales soon. Also, I was really impressed with the creamy, dense queso fresco they were selling. Really rich milk tasting… and their corn tortillas were thick as all get go. Their prices were on target, with most things extremely cheap (32 oz Tapatio for $ 3.50 — I used to buy this 5 oz at RTM for the same price), to a few things overpriced. I want to come here in the morning and pick up a nice pan de huevo with all the little diamond sugar piles on top someday. That won’t be hard, however… I hear they are open 7-​midnight every day, and are open holidays too. Awesomeness! Oh, and I recieved just about the nicest greeting ever by any store in Philly, and that’s saying a lot. The people working there were really intelligent, sweet, helpful and kind. Great place to adventure to near the Italian Market!!! It’s a real nice change of pace from shopping in the city — very lively around there!

Very cool. I like this place It’s not the biggest or the cleanest but you can find some harder to find things here (not just goya foods).
They also have more flavors of Jarritos than I’ve seen anywhere else.
The icecream case was all melted though, that’s knocking down a star.

Variedades Veracruzana isn’t a GREAT Mexican grocery store. But if you want to fill your pantry with real Mexican products (as opposed to American-​Mexican products), you can get what you need here.
The following are some essential items to try.
Boing! drinks: tasty, extra sugary fruit juice drinks.
Maizena: Mexican corn starch, for making incredible tortillas at home. The best tortillas are the ones you make in your kitchen.
Herdez salsas: Traditionally, tacos restaurants have at least two types of salsa on the table: one made of green tomato and one made of red, the latter being a little spicier. Herdez salsas are incredibly simple, with (I believe) only four ingredients. But I think simplicity is the way to go; all that junk they ad into those gourmet salsas– I think it’s overkill.
Tortillas: the packaged tortillas they sell here — and in the rest of the Mexican markets in Philly — are not the ones I used to buy in Mex. (My brand is Milpa Real.) But definitely try some of these blue corn tortillas to try; they’re better than the stuff you find in American supermarkets. (A quick tip: packaged corn tortillas will break easily if they’re not warm and moist, so wrap a bunch in a towel and pop them in a microwave for like 30 seconds before serving.)