Hoa Mai Asia-Supermarket — Specialty Store in Friedrichshain, Berlin

Hoa Mai Asia-Supermarket is an independent specialty shop on Frankfurter Allee in Friedrichshain, and it has been part of the neighbourhood long enough that a twenty-year shopping habit here is unremarkable. The room is small; the stock is not. Shelves run with groceries from across Asia, and you will find things here that the bigger shops around Friedrichshain simply do not carry.

The two items worth coming for by name are candlenuts and Vietnamese coriander, rau răm. Both are the sort of ingredient that sends you across town when a recipe calls for them, and both are on the shelves here. Beyond those, the range covers Southeast Asian cooking staples in general, so a single trip tends to fill the gaps a specific dish leaves in your cupboard.

What you notice first is how much is packed into a small footprint. The shop works as a dense, shelf-by-shelf browse rather than a wide-aisle supermarket, and the everyday groceries are priced reasonably for what they are. Bring cash: that is the only way to pay here.

It suits anyone cooking Southeast Asian food in Berlin who needs a specific ingredient rather than a full weekly shop, and anyone who values a shop with real history in its neighbourhood over a polished one.