Melting pot: Where to find global food ingredients in Belgium

Turkey

Lodos opened only recently, on Grande Rue au Bois in Schaerbeek, bringing together everything you would previously find in the little shops dotted around the commune. Fresh fruit and veg, fresh meat, cheeses galore, spices, sauces and snacks. Upstairs there’s cookware and kitchen equipment. Zon Firat in Dambruggestraat in Antwerp has a full range of Turkish goods, and also a selection of Asian products, because why not? Closed on Mondays. Ta-Ze in Ghent is a specialist in olive oil, and you might think you’ve wandered into an alchemist’s lab by mistake. Ramazan Goktepe came here in the 1970s and worked in the restaurant business before narrowing his scope, working closely with a Turkish cooperative. If you’re at all interested in oils, this place is a treasure trove.
www.ta-ze.be

America

US readers will doubtless know many more addresses, but one that was recommended to us is the American Foodstore in Wilrijk near Antwerp, which was described as “not exactly for gourmets, but stacks of childhood memories”.
www.theamericanfoodstore.com

Latin America

Productos Raices Latinas: If you just want to dip a toe into the waters of Latin American cuisine, go for the home-made empanadas with veggies, chicken or beef. If you want to go deeper they have plantains, sweet potatoes, maize, papaya and mango, cassava and prepared dishes like ceviche. It’s at 45 Avenue Chazal, Schaerbeek.

South Asia

City Express on the road to Nato and the airport used to be a simple corner grocery, but now it’s become the place to go to find what you’re looking for in South Asian cuisine, according to Bombay-Bruxelles food blogger Apolina Fos. “I even found green coconuts there,” she reports. It’s at 17 Boulevard Leopold III, in Evere. Meanwhile, Jamil Brothers Cash & Carry in Molenbeek, she says, “is huge and clean; I do most of my grocery shopping there.” The store is at 33 Chaussée de Gand, not far from Porte de Flandre and Comte de Flandre metro.

Central & Eastern Europe

Since their country’s accession to the EU, Polish shops have been springing up like mushrooms, but Smak Supermarché Slave in Schaerbeek is slightly bigger and slightly posher than most. Here you’ll find a hundred different smoked sausages, pierogi and poppyseed cakes, plus fresh horseradish and some very appealing vodkas. It’s on Avenue Chazal at the corner of Rue Auguste Lambiotte. Also wide-ranging, also keen on good vodka is Magdalenka on Rue Bara in Anderlecht, popular with Polish expats for good reason. And Matrioshka at 23 Avenue de la Chasse in Etterbeek is Russian-Armenian, with a wide selection of products.

Italy

Italian products seem to be completely integrated into our supermarkets, until you visit somewhere like Antichi Sapori Italiani on Rue du Bailli and realise the store has two or three floors above the floor we all know. Casa Italiana on Rue Archimède is the same: you’ll find things here you’ve only ever read about. Attenzione, though: this level of quality and research doesn’t come cheap.

East Asia

Rue Sainte-Cathérine, running parallel to Rue Antoine Dansaert in the centre of Brussels, is dotted with Asian food shops, but the flagship is the Kam Yuen supermarket on the corner of Rue de la Vierge Noire. Originally Chinese, it now sells products from across the region: Japanese condiments and bonito powder; fiery Korean gochujang and ready-to-eat kimchi; Thai curry mixes and noodles. And of course everything your Chinese cookery adventures could ever need, from acid-coloured bonbons to lambs’ tongues to chicken feet. Its open every day. Xuân Minh on Avenue Georges Henri down the hill from Boulevard Brand Whitlock offers a range of Vietnamese ingredients as well as prepared dishes, salads, whole roast duck and more, not to mention condiments and a small kitchenware range. Tagawa on Chaussée de Vleurgat has been around a long time, with a mix of fresh and prepared dishes on the ground floor, including sushi, and all manner of ingredients, noodles, some kitchenware and books and magazines (on the upper floor).

Lebanon

Naia is a bustling, overcrowded grocery store on Chaussée de Louvain in Saint-Josse, stuffed to the rafters with spices, olives, rice and couscous, canned goods and fresh fruit and vegetables at unbeatable prices. Fresh Med, on Rue de l’Escadron near Boileau metro, is slightly more expensive but much bigger, and as well as Middle Eastern products also has a wide range of other foods, fresh meat and prepared dishes, and a produce section that’s a joy just to look at.

Spices

Louna isn’t a shop at all, it’s an online business, but we’re assured by food lovers it’s an indispensable address to bookmark. They specialise in salts from around the world and rare types of pepper like red Pondicherry, Tasmania, Madagascar and blends. They also offer a newsletter, recipes and, for the beginners among us, a handy 61-page lexicon explaining (only in French, unfortunately) what all those exotic names refer to. Louna also works two markets in Brussels, in Stockel on Saturday morning and in Watermael-Boitsfort on Sunday mornings.
www.louna.be

Shops are in Brussels unless otherwise stated. This article first appeared in The Bulletin Newcomer, spring 2016