As the holidays arrive, international students at SCC, attending school thousands of miles away from comforting foods and traditions, find themselves turning to local sources for familiar dishes from longed-for homelands. The Seattle area affords a bountiful restaurant selection of chef’s delights from Viennese to Vietnamese, Japanese to Somali, and Szechuan to Soul Food.
On a student budget, restaurants are too expensive to frequent with regularity. That leaves home cooking — even on a hot plate in the dorm — as the best way to manage scarce funds after books are bought. Where can students go to stock up on ingredients for their family’s secret recipes and delicacies from the homeland?
Of the nearly 1,000 community and technical colleges in the United States, and the 34 in Washington state, SCC ranks 15th overall this year in international student attendance, according to the Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. By the same measure, over a quarter of International Students hail from China, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.
Luckily, due to the popularity of Asian cuisine here in America, we don’t have to search far for some familiar foodstuffs. Right in our very own backyard here in Shoreline, we have a wonderful spot called Asian Family Market. It is a popular destination for Asian International students, which features as the name suggests, a wide variety of ingredients sourced from all over Asia.
One such student that frequents this place is Tony Chen, from Guangzhou, China. He relates to that feeling of homesickness many people inevitably feel when being distant from home for so long. “I missed my family and I missed my friends. But I also really, really missed the food.” He said, recalling his first time in America. “I did attempt to make a few dishes, including one of marinated pork, as well as, I believe, the Coca-Cola chicken wings.”
Chen visits AFM roughly every other week, and says that his favorite aisle is the snack aisle. “I like some of the flavored chips, actually. Those Lay’s chips, they’ve got hotpot lobster flavor, and they’ve even got mushroom flavors.”
Some other noteworthy aisles include the fruit aisle where you can get exotic fruits like durians and buddha’s hands, the frozen aisle with a variety of frozen dumplings, interesting ice cream flavors, and hotpot ingredients such as meatballs and wontons, as well as live seafood in the meat section. The spice section is extensive, offering a variety of instant seasonings for a range of Asian dishes; including furikake, a salty umami topping usually sprinkled on top of rice.
If you are interested in checking out the Asian Family Market, you can take the free Campus Shuttle service provided by SCC that runs from the dorm to 160th and Aurora, from which you can take the King Country Metro E-Line Rapid Ride service to 130th and Aurora where the Asian Family Market is. The shuttle runs from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays Or you could also take King County Metro bus 345.
Once you arrive, the Asian Family Market isn’t the only destination worth visiting. Other places recommended by Chen include baked sweets at Kiki’s Bakery, dumplings and roast duck at HK Dim Sum, and bubble tea at Rain cafe, which are all within the same block as AFM.
