Best Grocery Store: 99 Ranch Market
The TV-watching world was further clued into Houston’s culinary prowess and cultural diversity when Bravo’s Top Chef aired its latest season earlier this year. The program focused on Houston as a food city and the city’s food scene was abuzz for weeks as the esteemed cooking show gave Houston its due.
The talented chefs who worked their magic on the show found their ingredients in area supermarkets and 99 Ranch Market was featured prominently in those hunts. The nation’s largest Asian grocer has multiple locations in Houston, but our favorite is on the city’s west side at Blalock and I-10.
Those cooking show contestants were often under time constraints and they had to be highly disciplined to not be distracted by all the store has to offer. The perimeter of the market is like a mall, with a liquor store, a fashion store, a cosmetics store, a vision center and other non-grocery tenants. There’s a massive food court and some restaurants, including an LA Crawfish that looks like a good place to watch an Astros game.
When you finally get into the market proper, there’s fresh durian and those cute little bunashimeji mushrooms mixed in with whole banana leaf and nopales in a killer produce section. The star of the market is its astounding seafood department which boasts a virtual ocean of offerings, fresh and frozen. Maine lobster and Dungeness crab and live sea snails and amberjack Japanese Hamachi and Norwegian saba – the list goes on and is breathtaking for seafoodies. 99 Ranch Market is a place fit for top chefs and everyday shoppers, Houstonians of various backgrounds with changing palates who appreciate the variety it has to offer.
1005 Blalock
713-932-8899
99ranch.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
