Hondo Trading Co

Hondo is a legendary Asian supermarket found in Liverpool’s Chinatown district.
It’s been around forever and is both a supplier to many of the nearby restaurants, Chinese community and Liverpool population at large. It’s a place to come to just find some new curiosities for your kitchen cupboards or specific ingredients to recreate your favourite dishes. It’s always a well stocked place in which you can find all sorts of dried, packaged and frozen goods although not neccessarily fresh food. But with the city’s increasing trading partnerships with China more and authentic items can be found here.

If you want to try and recreate one of Wagamama’s signature dishes at home, Hondo Trading Co is a great place to stock up on ingredients.
An oriental supermarket across the street from China Town, they stock a good selection of fresh herbs, vegetables, fruit and fish and lots of store cupboard essentials like noodles, rice and soy sauce. As the shop is used by lots of local restaurants and take aways, a large percentage of the stock seems to be available in extra large bottles and packets too.
Whatever you’re planning to make, don’t forget to buy chopsticks and green tea too. Or even better, a bottle of sake.

Hondo Supermarket may look like your average everyday unassuming Chinese supermarket, but when you step into it, you immediately feel as though you’ve entered another world — a world where you can buy frozen rats, and something with the rather charming (and very probably poorly translated) name of ‘Balkan Brand Essence of Cock’.
However, if you divert your eyes away from the various weird and wonderful food products on its shelves, you’ll find that Hondo Supermarket really is the only place to go for all of those interesting and hard to find ingredients which make up the core components of Asian cooking. Best of all, it’s all shockingly cheap — last time I was there, I managed to pick up a huge bottle of Chinese Rice Wine and a large pack of Szechuan pepper corns and have change from a fiver.
Hondo Supermarket reminds me of all the great Chinese food outlets I used to frequent back when I lived in London and was a regular visitor of its China Town. It’s definitely a place that every Scouse foodie should visit at least once — even if it’s only to pick up some ‘Essence of Cock’.

Hondo is one of three main oriental supermarkets in Liverpool. By far, it is definitley the smallest and dated. From observation inside and outside, the place could do with a bit of renovating.
In terms of the produce it sells, there is a wide variety of Asian foods to suit all tastes. Anything from canned meat to frozen fish and dried delicacies is reasonable in price. It is also an ideal place for buying products in bulk, especially for those running a business, such as a take-​away. There is the large storage warehouse situated at the rear of the building for all customers to freely access.
One disadvantage is that the car park is quite frankly awful, being very tightly crammed and short of parking spaces. It is dark and has annoying pillars making it awkward for drivers to manouvere in and out of the cul-​de-​sac.
Apart from that, it is your average far-​eastern supermarket where you can find more of the exotic ingredients that your local stores won’t offer.

This is the only place I can find Kicap Kipas Udang Malaysian soysauce; I tend to go to Hondo to stock up of this product.
Don’t fancy the parking. Not the best selection of Japanese produce, but having said that, there are not many shop stoking up Japanese product in NorthWest (mind you, I am comparing it with The Japanese Centre at Piccadily Circus London one of the best Japanese grocer/​restaurant/​bookshop/​shopping outlet under one roof!)