National Foods Mart (Itaewon):Another Halal Meat and Groceries Store

We have now another store (actually two stores) - called National Foods Mart - a one-stop store selling halal meat, Indian- Pakistani masalas or spices, dals (lentils), teas, curry pastes and even vegetables such as ocra (lady finger) and karay-lay (bitter cucumber) plus rarely found tempeh etc.

 National Foods  is one of the oldest and top quality brands in Pakistan specializing in spices since 1970 and now it covers almost everything one would need in a South Asian kitchen. Every kitchen in a Pakistani household has one or the other product of National Foods.  Their website is very elaborate and even provides wonderful recipes on how to use their products in making delicious dishes.

Inside and outside of NFS is loaded with food stuff of all sort

 National Foods have been brought to Seoul solely with the effort of a Pakistani businessmen. National Foods do NOT run any store anywhere  but sold products to retailers. In the US, National Foods products are easily available in all South Asian grocery stores.

This National Foods Mart (NFM) which is across from Foreign Food Mart (FFM) has another branch, across from the mosque too, both the stores have a good selection of nuts, cheese, ghee, meat, sea food  and frozen vegetables n fruits. They also have a wide variety of food stuff from other areas such as Russia, Middle East, Central Asia and the US.

They have a huge selection of cheese as you can see above.

Lentils of all types and achars (pickles) are found there and so is the halal meat of various kinds.

Dry powered milk is also sold there if you wanna make gulab jamuns and other desi sweets!

All sort of ready- to-use curry pastes can be found in this store aside from ready-to- eat- 2 persons servings in  masala dals, qorma, biryani and koftay etc.

You can see National Achar and chutneys with red lids besides custards and jelly packs!

They even had these leather socks (I forgot their name) - pretty unique thing... and  I also found avocado

This store has everything one would need. They have a huge selection of products from other Asian countries and below you can see Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese stuff.

Thai green, yellow and red curry!

Thai 'Healthy-Boy' brand from Thailand: oyster and fish sauce plus the Thai soya sauce - students from Thailand like this sauce and I've seen them using it in almost everything.

Sambal Sauce and some Singapore paste for Laksa!

Rice Noodles.

All of these stores have a big selection of stuff from Costco, hence, if you do NOT have a membership  card or if a store is far away from your place then just drop by National Foods Mart or Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon. You might not need to go anywhere else for foreign stuff even pastry dough and baking related stuff is there.

Some of the products at NFM are 500 won (50cents) to 1000 won (1USD) higher in price than Foreign Food Mart (FFM) however, the meat bags are cheaper in National Foods Mart than FFM. I think that FFM has more things and very typical stuff at their store, after all, they have been around for 10 years. NFM  is hardly a year old but still they have done a good job.

If you are new to Seoul then stop by Itaewon and look for these store. They are located on your way to Islamic center and the Central Mosque of Seoul. I'm sure you will find a thing or two of your use!

Here you see Uzbek breads and chapatis 

Tea selection

A bag of Fried Onion

    Fried onion is a product of Pakistan..;-) I was so happy to see this, I never saw it in Pakistan!

French beans and Bengali mirch...(red peppers, they are super hot).

Green peas (mutter) and mixed vegetables from the US and China grace the counters of the freezers.

Halal beef, mutton, chicken, ducks, bones to make juice

National Foods doesn't have much of the fish/sea food variety. Foreign Food Mart stands out in this - since they even have fish from India or Thailand and other countries . Rare types such as Rahu...etc. are sold at FFM.

By the way Foreign Food Mart is expanding in size on weekly basis....which is great. They have a section of old/used cellphones, card , pre-paid phones etc. Prices start from 20,000 won to 500,000, and National Foods don't deal with cell phones.