On a recent Saturday night shopping trip, Masahiro Kiriyama examines a selection of fresh fish with his wife, Mieko. Their cart is filled with a package of saury fish, sliced salmon, packs of fermented beans, tofu, miso paste and Yakult, a Japanese drink for their daughter.
Welcome to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa, the largest Japanese supermarket in Orange County. Last year, the store did more than $10 million in sales of Japanese groceries and other items,a 10% increase from 1998. Mitsuwa counts 60 employees.
“Thanks to Mitsuwa’s variety of Japanese food, we never get homesick,” said Kiriyama, a Japanese expatriate who said he and his family make the trip to Mitsuwa from their home in Anaheim twice a week. They spend nearly $100 each time.
“We are not an Oriental supermarket, but strictly Japanese,” said store manager Tomohisa Kato. “Our goal is to provide the feel of contemporary Japan without any American twist. Our customers feel like they are in a typical Japanese store.”
Strolling around the 12,569-square-foot store on Bristol Street near South Coast Plaza, all the typical Japanese staples and ingredients are available. You’ll see a seasonal Japanese mushroom called matsutake, roughly equivalent to a truffle, priced at around $70 per pound.
One whole aisle is filled with instant noodle products. Nearly half of one side of an aisle is dedicated to Japanese tea products.
There are also 200 to 400 kinds of seafood available, depending on the season.
Mitsuwa is big on sake. Nearly 70% of its liquor counter is allocated to sake, with prices ranging from $4 per bottle up to $75. Japanese beers, including Asahi and Sapporo, also are available.
Mitsuwa stocks other items from Japan: toasters, coffee makers, vacuum cleaners,even rice cookers adorned with Sanrio Co.’s bubbly Hello Kitty character.
But Mitsuwa isn’t geared only to Japanese shoppers, Morita said. The majority of shoppers are other Asians. While Japanese shoppers make up about 40% of the store’s clientele, the number of Japanese expatriates has dipped slightly in the past five years, he said. Among the 38,000 customers per month, about 30% are Chinese, 10% are Korean, 10% other Asian and 10% Caucasian, he said.
Seventeen other stores and stalls have set up alongside Mitsuwa, including a bookstore, an appliances and toy shop, a barber shop, a video shop, a pharmacy, a Japanese china shop and Japanese restaurants.
More than 70% of the food court’s customers are now non-Japanese, fueled by the increased popularity of healthful and Asian foods.
“I like the variety of food here,” said Claude Case, an air travel industry worker, on a recent lunchtime visit to the food court. “I think Asian foods such as raw fish are healthy.”
On this particular day, Case ordered a Tampopo ramen soup noodle. Case said she also enjoys shopping for Japanese china, raw fish and sushi at Mitsuwa.
Some customers come to the food court to break from their normal lunch routines. Engineer Ian Varley was eating a box lunch of teriyaki fish with his co-worker on a recent visit.
“I have lived in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and the Philippines,” he said. “I miss Oriental food.”
The Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa dates to December 1989, when it opened as Yaohan Plaza. Its parent company, Yaohan Japan Corp. filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and re-emerged as Mitsuwa Corp., which has its Southern California base in Torrance. n
