Located in Chinatown, you’ll find Aji Ichiban, full of confections from Hong Kong. 

This store is fun and unique, offering everything from snack foods, authentic candies, to dried seafood. Everything is self-serve and priced by weight, so you’re able to try lots of things without having to commit to a whole bag. 

They have candies from H.K., spanning from fruit hard candies to milk candies to sesame bars.

There are lots of compartments full of dried fruits, nuts, beans, and an entire section dedicated to variations of dried plums. On one side you’ll find dried meats, including seafood items like fish. 

The other great thing is, each bin has a little dish of samples of the food so that you can try before you buy. I got Dried Spicy Squid (left) and Dried Sesame Fish (right). It may not be a treat for everyone, but I really loved both of these. The squid is shredded, but chewy, and has a salty, fishy, spicy quality, unique to other jerky type snacks. The fish is a bit tougher, but still with a chew. It’s savory, sweet and a bit smoky. 

And, with dozens of different gummy candies, I mean, I had to get a bag of that too. Plus, you can’t find large, soft blue gummy sharks at CVS. 

The Shorts:
Name: Aji Ichiban 
Location: 37 Mott Street, NYC
The Long and Short: Would I go back? Oh yeah, I’m a bit addicted now to this dried fish jerky. 
Would I recommend it? For sure. Even if you just check the place out and sample a few things you’ve never had. You know, for research.