For months and months — dare I say it’s been more than a year — I’ve been waiting for Micronesia Mart on the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Kapiolani Boulevard to open.
Why?
Why not!
I mean, how often do you get to wander the aisles of a convenience store that’s stocked with all things familiar in Micronesia — without leaving the Islands?
So when we drove past the other day, I turned to my boss and said, “One of these days we gotta check out this place.”
To which he said, “Let’s go now.” He snapped the steering wheel and, before I knew it, we were walking through the door.
Some background: This is a family-run business and many of the items in the store are purchased from local vendors. The shop does have a fair share of products directly imported from Micronesia and other islands in Polynesia, as well as Japan and Thailand.
The store is the retail outlet of Sarau Distributors, a local wholesaler that exported Hawaii products to Pohnpei. But as the Micronesian community grew here, the company decided to open the market to cater to their needs. There are items like canned mackerel, curry sauce mix flakes and some kind of all-in-one detergent called FOM.
Just walking around and seeing all the different kinds of products the store had was fun in itself. But we also sampled a few, too. Let’s just say I’ve been back twice since that first visit. That says a lot.
So here’s a peek into Micronesia Mart:
7 Comments
Impulsiveness makes the world go around. Let’s go now! Love it 🙂 When I was bouncing around Palau and assorted other Micronesian destinations saw a lot of folk chewing the beetle nut. They also love their kava ceremonies… seemed like they were always celebrating something. In a nutshell they got high a lot down there. The beetle nut stains the teeth quite a bit so it was not hard to tell the difference between the bettle nut lovers and the none lovers.
Met a guy in Palau who had a grocery export company based out of the bay area. There is good business moving products around the region.
CAT: I wonder if they had a different brand of “SPAM”?
Hello Cat, now I want to go check out this place.
Hey Cat: … thanks for the tour!!! … I see some of the Micronesian stuff at small corner markets (i.e. betel nut, etc.) … always curious to know what’s in these unfamiliar stores …
… hey, that would be a great idea for a series you could do … visit all the different ethnic markets around the island … and show us some of the different or unusual items they have for sale … and ethnic foods … haha, sorry I know that would be a lot of work …
… Micronesian market … check …
… Samoan market … there’s a few in Kalihi I’ve passed by …
… Korean … of course Palama, Queen’s or that Keaaumoku one … or Woori …
… Vietnamese … maybe Chinatown??? …
… Chinese … duh, Chinatown …
… Filipino … Kalihi or Waipahu …
… Japanese … Nijiya … must be many others … I remember the kind like Shimaya …
… can’t think of any other ethnic markets …
Vienna Sausage bites? I thought one Vienna Sausage was a bite! lol
Interesting products. Thanks for sharing.
Very cool. I will have to try that kim chi tuna.
Hello Catherine,
Thank you so much for stopping by. We love your online tour, and I’ve shared it on our MicroMart FB page (if that is a problem, I’ll take it down). My wife and I wished we had met you. If you don’t mind, we’d like to give you a couple of Micronesia Mart T-shirts and some free samples of whatever you’re interested in. Please let us know what and how we can get ’em to you. By the way, back home the hibiscus (the inner bark) is used by us Pohnpeians mainly to squeeze pounded kava roots with; as a secondary effect, the juice from the bark softens the bitterness of the kava. Here in Hawaii, we simply blend it (pun intended, as we literally use a blender) with kava powder and some root to recreate the taste we are accustomed to. Again, Kalahngan (means Mahalo nui loa in Pohnpeian).