Orient Market

I drove to the market during their posted open hours, but when I arrived, there was a sign on the door saying they were closed—even though the red neon sign said “Open.” What is going on?? 😡 They also left a note on the door saying they’d be back at 2:45 PM, but I waited until then and no one returned. Great selection of items, but very poor staff punctuality.

There were many things here that are hard to find in this area. I got all of my ingredients for pad Thai, mussaman curry, and Vietnamese pho and fried rice. They have the sausages I really like and all of the meatballs I like in soups. I got a purple yam jam that was SOOOOOO delicious! I'm glad I came here and now have access to many unique goods that I crave.

Good place to get your international cooking supply. They get fresh fruits and vegetables in on Friday and meat, seafood in on Saturday.

They have a huge selection of asian sauces that you can't get anywhere else

I went here for the second time and out of all my trips and experiences to Asian stores from Az and here in Idaho, I didn’t have to wait so long in line no matter how busy it is. I stop by to check out because it have good reviews but from my personal experiences with the cashier lady today I don’t like it at all with the attitude and in some type of ways I feel embarrassed by her attitude and the tone she used on me. I don’t know how this business still running but best of luck . With that customers will go somewhere else.

Update: August 2024....friends have gone in a dozen or so times since the original post. We even ventured back after they told us "she's a lot nicer now". Orient Market still has the best giant steamed buns in Boise, their kimchi is tied for the best tasting/best priced, and the 3-pack Ramen is the best in a Boise grocery aisle. So what's changed?? The customer service. Friendly on every visit. In all our years shopping here, this is the longest most consistent "nice customer service" we've ever had. Evidently someone said something. ************** Long story short: the attitude of the owner is driving customers away (read other reviews). After many years as customers we will stop coming here. We hope her nice son reads this and does something about his mother's "Angry Tiger" attitude. She could make Ted Lasso depressed. Read on... I have Asian relatives. I travel to Asia several times a year. I understand the cultural differences. What many think is "mean" really is just a stoic focused shy/introverted language barrier hard at work reality. I also know how difficult it is running a minority-owned business in a town like Boise. Feel free to shout at your spouse in the privacy of your own home. And not that child abuse is to be taken lightly, but go ahead and beat the disrespect and American entitlement out of your disappointing Asian kids at home. And by all means be passive-aggressive with your Asian friends behind their back. We know their pho uses packaged ingredients whereas you toil over a simmering pot for hours. Yes, be an Angry Asian all you want at home....BUT YOU CAN'T BE MEAN TO CUSTOMERS!! I've lived in Boise part-time for over 40 years. The owner of Orient Market is the reason I will stop shopping here, and I will make sure all my friends do the same. Many have had enough (again: read the reviews). Most of them go to the big market on Cole and Ustick or the small market on Fairview near Mitchell (but their parking lot is horrible, and the last thing you want to deal with is Asian drivers in midsize SUV doing 19 point turns). I've put up with the owner's attitude for years, often making a "game" of it to see if we can make her say "hello" with a smile. Heaven forbid if you make her come out of the office while she's eating to ring you up while crunching pickled carrots and cucumbers. The positives: Market has the best big steamed buns in Boise. Nothing else comes close. And many like their $2 baguettes. Her female employees are sweet. I believe her son works part-time on weekends to give everyone a break. He's super cool! But if you see a white BMW SUV in the parking lot you should just keep on going. Get your giant steamed buns another day (I believe she doesn't work Sundays, but you may want to verify with a drive-by). The owner's attitude will throw a wet blanket on your day. Go to these two places instead. We have NEVER had a rude customer service experience: Idaho Capital Asian Market 3107 N Cole Rd, Boise, ID 83704 Asia Market (the bad parking lot) 9975 W Fairview Ave, Boise, ID 83704

Love the produce selection on Friday mornings. When I need fresh vegetables or ingredients, I always find what I need at Orient Market! Great location too!

So far I've found everything I've been looking for. The help that I have received has been exceptional. They seem to know what they are talking about and their suggestions have been spot on. They 2 gentlemen I've talked to are quite humorous and I've really enjoyed my shopping trips there. Also the prices are very reasonable as far as I've seen on the items I've shopped for. I would recommend this store if you are looking for Oriental food!

[covidtime - 8/15/2020 visit] Seemed pretty standard, nothing to make it stand out. Average selection, nothing to say "come visit again", especially if you have another place that has the same or better selection. I had been checking out about 3 international grocers this day, trying to find a go-to. This one didn't make the cut; I didn't buy any items at this store. That said, there was nothing at all wrong with the store, which is why I give it 3 stars.

Orient Market has gone up in some areas, but down in others. It has been almost a year since I have shopped here. I have given it 4 stars based on what can be found in the Boise/Meridian area which is about 3 markets. Oh, for a 99 Ranch Market in Boise. Good points since last visit. Store looks cleaner and better stocked shelves. Looks like they have added some Korean items. Fresh fish still carried on Saturday's. Bigger selection of fresh veggies on Sat. Bad points: No prepared food any more, it seems. That is a shame. So in summary, still the most complete Asian grocery around, but lots missing do a city that once had a huge Chinese population.

I saw some reviews about fresh fish being sold here every week so we went in to get some tuna. I'm just going to upload a couple of pictures for you to see, an explanation is not needed. Needless to say, this fish is not fresh and it tasted horrible.

Saturday is the can't-miss day at the Orient Market. That's when they get fresh produce and fresh fish in and the scene seems like a farmer's market, inside a small grocery store. On that day they also carry such treats as Vietnamese egg rolls, buns and yau ja gwai, fried Chinese bread sticks. The store also carries a large number of Asian sauces and seasonings, canned Thai curry bases and the like.

Much nicer store than it used to be now that they have moved. They carry every kind of fish sauce in the world. The kind of stuff you need to mix with pineapple and cilantro or you will puke. Lots of fresh herbs including galangal. They have 3 sandwiches at the lunch counter. BBQ pork, beef, and mystery special. They owners are also opening a sandwich shop on Franklin and Orchard by Fred Meyer.

This market is the little engine that could: throughout this past year the owners have made sure that Boiseans of all stripes can get vital groceries and the supplies that say "home" to so many families from Asia, Africa, South America, and more. In the face of great hardship the owner and their dedicated and knowledgeable employees stood the course--and they continue their tradition of friendly excellence. I love their Saturday morning selection of fresh veggies and fish flown straight in from California. Thank you Orient Market for being there for all of us.

I love Orient Market! I try to come there every Saturday morning before the madness starts. They have fresh produce, fruit & fish every Saturday morning. They can even clean your fish for you; very convenient!

I like this little market. It has quite some selections of Asian food. It is nice and clean. It seems having more Vietnamese and Chinese products than others, but I don't mind at all. Produce on Saturday is pretty fresh.

I had been incredibly nervous about a move to Boise (from NYC) - in part, b/c I didn't know if I'd find all of the ingredients I needed to continue cooking Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian dishes. But I did ... Orient Market endeared Boise to me + made me feel "right at home!" It had almost everything that was on our list - and several great things that weren't. There's no glitz or glamour here, but that was part of its charm. If you don't read any of the languages in which the product labels are written, staff is incredibly helpful. I love this place!

As with an online date from match.com, you can't expect too much walking into an Asian grocery store in Boise. Sure, the guy's profile pic looks hot, as are the reviews of the grocery store on Yelp, but when you come face-to-face with either one, it's usually, "Gawd...how OLD is that guy/can of black bean sauce", or, "Hey! What's that weird rotting vegetable/seafood smell?" Compared to Asia Market 2, which is on the other end of the strip mall that Orient Market occupies, Orient Market is like a godsend. A beacon of all Asian marketry goodness in Idaho. A mixture of Asian foods - Filipino, Chinese, southeast Asian - Orient Market is probably one of the few that stocks fresh veggies and seafood. They get their goods on Saturday mornings, and by the time we'd arrived, most of the good stuff was gone. With most Asian grocery stores, I dare you to find anything you're actually looking for. After several rounds of looking for dried shitake mushrooms (they didn't have them fresh) - the friendly cashier found a bunch hidden underneath some tree fungus. Another customer was also walking around like a zombie, looking for cookies, which were right in front of his face, hidden behind a dozen cans of something he didn't want. Saturdays also the day the owners make stuff up fresh - like deep fried sesame balls, Vietnamese boxed lunches and the Chinese fried yiu-tao - long, doughy salty concoctions people have for breakfast. Except all the fresh food here was out in the open - like, in makeshift open boxes for you to reach your hand in and take (with tongs). And yes, the seafood out in the open on ice did smell, though we didn't see any flies or bugs swarming around. Can't say that of some of the guys I've dated on match, though. One interesting thing Orient did have were a big tub of whole asparagus spears - the brawny pickled type found in Asia, not the rinky dink green ones we cultivate here. A truly interesting mish mash of hard-to-find and things-you-don't-want-to-find, and probably one of the better stocked Asian markets in Boise.

Every Saturday morning the fresh fish and fresh produce arrives. This is the best time to come. The boxes of produce replenish all of the items being purchases, which you can watch the produce disappear. Hard to find items, like chayote, rambutan, baby pac choi, thai basil, mangosteen, mango, papaya are all fresh. Also of note are the green onions, Chinese kale, fresh chives, fresh cilantro, pomelo, long beans, cucumbers, ginger, garlic, yucca, daikon, napa cabbage, etc. There are fresh banh mi sandwiches made in the back, and fresh sesame balls, fresh baguettes, and a variety of Asian pastries and other desserts. Yen Ching brings their baked goods here, so it's really one stop shopping. Amazing meals can be found in the banana leaf wrapped banh chung and banh tet - both include sticky rice, mung bean paste and pork. Banh tet has less pork, and banh chung has much more. These are traditional Vietnamese New Year foods. Canned and dried goods worth noting are cheap and high quality rices in bulk, Indonesian, Thai and Japanese spices, kombu, curry paste, coconut milk, noodles, vegetarian meats, quail eggs, kim chee, and I could go on. Hoa is the owner and often works at the cash register. He and his staff have helpful hints and are always ready to tell you what something is. This market is always bustling on a Saturday and is a great place to meet people, make new friends, learn something new or just people watch. I truly love this market. I debated the difference between four and five stars on this one, and I think that the only things I'd like to see is a larger store, additional produce deliveries (like possibly on a Wednesday so my pac choi doesn't go bad), and I'd like to see some additional prepared foods served. I know that Orient has yet to hit it's stride, and I am looking forward to the awesomeness continuing. You should go the next Saturday you have!

I love this place! I feel like I could spend hours here and look at every item. I can find things here that I can find anywhere else. My kids loves when I go to the Orient Market because it means treats for them. I also found that they are the home of the amazing Baguette Deli. I came on a Saturday for the first time today and I was almost giddy. The fresh fish and produce and the delicious eggrolls. It very well may be my favorite place to be on Saturday morning.

Friendly staff and better selection of Chinese food items than I had expected. Owner was very helpful and understanding of customer needs. Definitely coming back for those hard to find seasonings and sauces you normally can't find in the larger chain grocery stores.

Stopped by to pick up some coconut milk curry paste and rice noodles they had everthing I needed WAS GLAD TO SEE THIS NEW AND MUCH CLEANER LOCATION the girl working was very friendly and she also told me about their new sandwich shop One thing I did get was a tin of Coffee with Chicory for $5.99 from Cafe DU Monde in New Orleans which I needed for my french press was surprised to see they even carried it! Store was clean freezer section full,shelves a little barren.owner was bopping in and out of the office and they had a table set up front with new years items After shopping downtown san fran nothing here even compares and prices here are higher?

This is my favorite oriental market. people are nice and its clean. i would recommend this store to anyone

Just moved here from Hawaii and found this store with a few items that I used for cooking back in Hawaii. Yay!

The good: it's an Asian market in Boise. They have restrooms, and they are clean. They have a large selection of Asian sauces and powders and instant-type soups. They had lime leaves in the freezer section. The freezer section was decent sized and they had frozen fish. I didn't try these so I can't speak to their quality. They take credit/ debit cards. Lots of different kinds of noodles -- rice, mung bean, etc. The bad: There were no sandwiches, and I went at 11 a.m. Many of the shelves were half empty, including the refrigerated section. they hardly had anything fresh that was edible. There were a few things of rotting produce, but most of the produce shelves were empty. why try to sell things that are slimy and going bad? It made me worry about the freshness of other things in the store. They did have purple yams that looked like they were in good condition, and the small type of taro (not the kind polynesians like). They didn't have coconut cream, but they did have coconut milk. I ended up having to go to Asian Market for several things, like Aloha soy sauce, and Savoy and Chaokoh coconut cream, and I was much happier with the selection there, but with our slim pickings here in Boise, I hope they are able to start stocking things again and become a viable business in the community.

It had already been going on for a good while now, but I've finally grown weary of not only the frequency of barren shelves (and I'm talking entire rows of shelves sometimes) but having to wait and wait for those shelves to be restocked. Keeping items consistently in stock has become a major weakness with this store. I don't care if it's the distributor's fault or the owner's fault for never ordering enough, but this resupplying issue has now become unacceptable for me. If something is out of stock there, it's been available for me at Asia Market more often than not. My prior comments about them offering all of the necessary okonomiyaki and takoyaki items can be scrapped now. Asia Market and Asian Grocery Outlet have become the better and safer bet for Japanese groceries, but still......that's like saying Keystone is a better beer than Old Milwaukee. Care packages or online ordering from grocery stores like Mitsuwa or Marukai are pretty much mandatory for those who had previously shopped regularly at Japanese markets. Truth be told, I'd rather come here than take the extra time/expense to go to Asia. But when I'm let down repeatedly and Asia helps fill the need, what is the more logical option?

Great customer service. The man behind the register was very helpful. I was looking for a couple items that you can not find at a grocery store, and with the help of the owner I was able to get everything I needed.

This is definitely the biggest and best asian market in Boise. The owner is vietnamese but it has little treasures like sichuan peppercorn!! I am from Sichuan, China so I was thrilled with this. Has fresh veggies and market style meat/fish every saturday which is very very busy. Prices somewhat expensive but not rip-off bad, as good as it gets for Boise :).

Orient Market is still going strong just move a few doors down. They now have a handy little restaurant on Franklin and Orchard where you can get their delicious Saturday sandwiches any day of the week. It is another world on Saturday mornings. Crash meats, fish and produce as well as a good selection of prepared foods. Oh do try the coconut-rice-bean pudding!

Items are Expensive, and Pls double check receipt always before leaving the shop! Went to the shop today to buy some food, we thought why we bought so little things but so expensive. On reaching home, we realized two items on the receipts were double counted. We bought 5 items but were charged for 7! And the items are the first and fourth, I find it very weird. If only one item is double keyed I think maybe is a mistake, but twice and not subsequent?? So we double paid and were charged double tax! I don't think that's very fair. Well, blame it on ourselves too, our baby is hungry & crying his head off & we left in a hurry, if not i would definitely have checked and know, NEVER will I step back again!