Hämeentie Food Shops

19.06.2008 at 11:56 | Posted in Buy Food, Buy Stuff, Show a Foreign Friend | 2 Comments
Tags: food, hämeentie, helsinki, international, multicultural, shops

Probably some of Helsinki’s most multicultural areas in terms of small (and big) immigrant shops are the proximities of Hämeentie street and the streets adjacent to it. There are African, oriental and middle eastern shops with an exciting abundance of spices, grains, sauces, herbs and other food products from all around the world.
Pictured here is the Vietnamese supermarket Vii Voan located next to Hakaniemen Kauppahalli. There works a friendly, old man who always runs off into the shop to show me where to find the particular ingredients that I’m looking for. I’ve recently been there to get some Korean kimchi for making kimchijeon and he found me five different kinds of it. After that I supply myself with basmati or jasmine rice and spices like turmeric, cumin, cardamom in a nearby Indian shop. Then there are also the dried beans, peas and lentils, the soya sauces and rice vinegars, the different teas and herbs and so on…
If you have curiosity for foreign foods I strongly advise to pay a visit to these places. The shop assistants tend to be very sympathetic and who knows, they might even share some recipes

p.s.
I also found a nice Arabic wholesale shop a bit further towards the shore, close to Kalasatama metro station.