Seiwa Market has recently popped up in a couple of disused Fresh & Easy stores in Torrance and Costa Mesa. Formerly an American expansion of Tesco, a British supermarket chain, they are now outposts of Don Quijote, a chain of Japanese/Hawaiian discount stores. Whew, it’s so hard to keep up!
Seiwa is very light on produce and only carries frozen meat and seafood, but they win with their highly discounted Japanese groceries. Natto was 79 cents! Their Torrance location is going to be a great complement to Mitsuwa, Marukai, and Nijiya.
Costa Mesa Store
3151 Harbor Blvd,
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel 714-852-6980
9am - 9pm, 7 days a week
Torrance Store
21815 Hawthorne Blvd,
Torrance, CA 90503
9am - 9pm, 7 days a week
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We wandered around the Torrance shop a couple of months ago.
I have never seen gallon-sized tubs of Kewpie. I’m still trying to recover from that one. I like Kewpie, but cannot quite wrap my pea sized mind around consuming a gallon’s worth of the stuff.
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Yeah, that gallon jar of Kewpie Mayo was flabbergasting! Must be made for an oogui (gluttonous) eater like Yuka Kinoshita:
Yeah. At first I thought that was the only size they had and was very disappointed. Finally found ‘normal’ ones in a completely different place in the Costa Mesa store. That store has a major competitor nearby with Tokyo Central. TC is huge and has lots and lots of seafood and meat besides everything including a very large sake selection. More typical market layout rather than warehousey.
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Tokyo Central & Main in Gardena has the gallon Kewpie along side the regular sized one. It was the first time I ever saw it.
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When I saw that gallon of Kewpie part of me wanted to buy it just to say that I have a gallon of Kewpie at home.
Then I realized that it would mean I have a gallon of Kewpie at home.
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The gallon jars of Kewpie Mayonnaise reminds me of the gigantic tin can of soy sauce that my grandparents squirreled away in their pantry. Needless to say we NEVER ran out of shoyu.
I guess I know where all the cool kids were hanging out - Tokyo Central & Main. Jeez, just revoke my Nisei membership. How did I not know about them before? And having seafood and a great selection of sake is alluring.
Digging up some info, I guess it replaced that old Marukai in Pacific Square, which I was never really a fan of. And it’s part of that Marukai/Don Quijote/Seiwa conglomerate. The plot thickens.
Oh man, our family went through those tin cans of soy sauce at a rate of about 1 can per month. Sometimes 2 per month depending on how often we were eating at home (versus the restaurant).
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Ha, you too! Is it any wonder my grandparents had high blood pressure…
Admittedly, I can’t live without soy sauce.
For those who haven’t seen the gallon of Kewpie, I took a picture when we were at Tokyo Central where they have it.
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Nice! I contemplated buying the gigantor size of gochujang at S-Mart today.
What makes the gallon size Kewpie even more comical is that, at least according to the Japanese Kewpie website, you’re supposed to use it within a month after opening. LMAO.
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