Galleria Market
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: No
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: Yes
49 reviews
Palo Alto, CA
"I love this place, I really do. Douce France has great panini's, croissants, chai tea, cafe au lait, baguettes, and all the desserts one…" read more »
24 Reviews for Galleria Market
I like this supermarket because this is where I go to get pre-marinated meat. It's pricey but is a lot cheaper than restaurant food. It's soo good! :) I also like to get the little cases of prepackaged food without the labels. Seriously though, I went yesterday and today I was taking the food out to eat with my parents. And they were like, "What are those?" I'm like..uhh...I dunno...take a guess? But yah..other than those items, I don't really get anything else there because everything's in Korean. I watch a lot of Korean dramas, but uh..I still don't understand it. hehe..overall, it's not a bad place. They are nice and if they realize you don't speak Korean, they'll immediately talk to you in English. :)
I like this market--both the cafe/food court side AND the market side. They have lots of prepared foods, the place is clean, and also plenty of choices of kimchi! The best is the pre-marinated meat, which you can buy in whatever size container (ie. 1 pound, 2 pound), and then freeze until you're ready to eat it. It's like having a meal all ready any time. I often take the prepared foods to go as well. :)
im just rating the food court portion of this market, and i must say, it's totally worth it!
most of the items are $8 or less, & are an average $5-$7! they have tons of stuff like kalbi (korean bbq), udon, ramen, fried rice, tofu soup, bibimbap, & more (i'm not korean so i don't know many of the names, but they have TONS more korean stuff) and next to the hot foods they have pre-made things, such as maki, chicken wings, green onion pancakes & such.
my boyfriend ordered the kalbi at $7, which consists of kimchi, rice, salad, soup, the bean sprout banchan you get at most korean restaurants, & the kalbi. if you eat it in the food court, it comes in a cute bento box like the japanese restaurants! unfortunately for my boyfriend, he ordered it to-go, so no soup and salad came with it. (i hate it when places to do that!) but hey i think it's worth it & it tastes like a restaurant meal without tipping! yay!
the food court area also has a bakery area where there are tons of baked goods, and they also sell coffee, pearl tea, korean pancakes, & even self-serve frozen yogurt with fruit toppings, red bean, & such.
another awesome addition is the man outside who sells roasted sweet potatoes! how cool is that?! it's 3 for $2! mm i want me some of those.
im not sure about the market, it looks clean but i've been to han kook supermarket & that place is jaw dropping beautiful. this place does provide the mini stores that you often see in korean markets too, so i would recommend going here regardless!
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a mix of japanese and korean produce. Seems to be cheaper than Hankook. The food court is a very good deal, but the bakery less so. It seemed to have the same baked good available at any Sogo bakery.
The roasted sweet potatoes sold by the guy outside are amazing!! I can't get enough! He always gives you way more than 3.
Food court style Korean.
Fast. Cheap, worth goin' to if you're in the area.
Food is pretty good too. So far I've had... Kal-bi, tonkatsu, bi bim bap, the premade honey chicken wings and the korean style sushi. All fresh and quality tasting.
They got melona bars too.
I think my mom thinks she's Korean (she's Filipino) she comes here all the time to buy beef to make kalbi and the kimchi sauce to make a ceviche style crab dish. I went with her over the weekend, plenty of selection, although I don't know what I'm selecting. They have a section for prepackaged food and my only gripe is the label doesn't tell you what is, when it was packaged, when it's good until and what's in it.
After shopping we went to their food court area and got some food which was really good.
Galleria is my least favorite of the 3 Korean grocery stores on El Camino Real. From what my parents tell me, it's been up for sale a few times since it opened. Lots of parking available and a cool frozen foods section but thats the only positive. Fairly large but not that spacious, the aisles are cramped and theres just way too much stuff going on for me or for my mom to really get with it and if moms is not down with it neither is her boy!
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The market portion of this store has a decent selection of the usual and some times even the unusual. The prices are pretty good. I mainly spend my time in their little food court. They serve a mean lunch and dinner. They have a pretty decent menu of fresh and premade items. You can get everything from sushi, fried peppers stuffed with pork and even hot entres like bul gogi and soup. The lunch and dinner crowd can be pretty heavy but the lines are quick. Some times it may be hard to find a seat if you want to eat there. Over all it's a nice break from the normal lunch stops.
I love the food court here...great hot food for decent price. The only 2 items I've tried here are #32 - Sashimi salad, and #26 - some kind of beef soup....both are damn good!!!
Note: there is a man right outside the entrance selling roasted sweet potatoes or yams. LOVE IT!!! I must've stopped by to get some from him every other week. He prices at $2 for 3 but I have never gotten any less than 4 or 5. He doesn't really speak English but he is super generous!!
Out of all Korean markets in the area including;
Galleria, Hankook, Kim's, Kukje, and Pusan,
I like this place best. Prices are reasonable, and good selection of food.
Hankook has most of varieties, Kim's has best Korean veggies.
Kukje has advantage of being close to SF,
Pusan in Oakland is.. I don't really know. Been there once, and couldn't go back.
No nonsense, no frills, fast service and you get to watch some Korean Soap Operas on the big flat screen tv. I've dropped by for lunch or dinner to get my Korean fix and never been disappointed. A bargain for 5 - 7 bucks for daeji bulgogi or kalbi tang. Maybe I'll take a pic of it the next time. I like the ahjumma who works the cashier... always nice and friendly and always takes my discover card!!
Review for the old Korean dude who speaks Chinese, who sells these wicked bad ass roasted sweet potatoes only.
Right outside the Galleria Korean supermarket at this location, on certain days, and I believe today might even be the last day of the season, is an older Korean man who uses an old school oven with various trap doors built inside, to ROAST these Japanese style yams/sweet potatoes. If you have ever tasted these at a night market in Taiwan, you will know what I'm talking about; this man and his yams recreate that flavor!
The best are these little runt yams that hold the highest amount of sugar content and not the bigger sized ones. Roasted till the skin is so soft that you can just bite into it with a big grin on your face that will last the rest of the day. While you can sometimes find a prepackaged and pre-roasted sweet potato from Nijiya deli (yaki-imo) why not make a trip down here and get it FRESHLY ROASTED. Unfortunately I read that the man might stop doing this now that it is super hot, so may have to wait until November before he sets up shop again.
The old guy can sometimes be pretty nice as he did throw in an extra runt for us. A little extra runt is A LOTTA LOVE. Oh yeah baby, good things come in small little packages! (well not everything.... heh heh evil grin).
I can only imagine how much better these will taste if organic Japanese yams were used, like the satsuma-imo or beni-imo (like the ones from Nijiya), and roasted up old school like this guy does.
This man deserves a Nobel Prize for taking a runt piece of root from the ground, blasting it with heat inside this old skool oven, and making people smile. In fact I could use this dude, his gear and materials, in my kitchen...
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its a big korean/asian supermarket. lots of selection and fairly clean. Decent prices too.
Had lunch here at the deli. We ordered the #31 bulgogi. It came in a little bento with kimchi, some spicy picked radish, slimy seaweed, hot steamed rice and hot soup. What I liked about the place was for $6 you get pretty good kalbi (BBQ Hot), nice cold kimchi, hot rice and soup. I like how the hot things are really hot and the cold things are really cold. Gave it a fresh taste.... not bad for 6 bucks worth of food.
Galleria's food court is cheap. $5.00 omu rice w/ a side of miso soup. Yummmm. They usually add ground beef to the rice, but today, mine didn't have any. This was a very thoughtful gesture, but I am not vegetarian.
OK, it's not fine dining but more like Korean fast food. It's located to the side of Galleria Market. There's also a Korean pastry bakery immediately next door .
The cafe's dishes are $5 or $6 and served hot (unless you order a cold dish) and tasty. You don't come here to "dine" but to chow. It beats burgers and fries or Mr. Chows. I think there must be about 30 dishes on the wall. Pick a picture. It's no-nonsense Korean food. Sure, there's better tasting Korean restaurants on El Camino, but it beats cooking at home. :D You can take it home and do some no-nonsense chowing.
5/1/08 update:
Wanted to try the food court. Ordered the Kalbi, the beef ribs, around $7. The meat was flavorful but very fatty. They call out your order and you pick it up. Came with Rice, miso soup, two types of banchan, kimchee and fried seaweed. There was free water on the counter and you bus your own tables. Ok for $7. Would be willing to try other items.
Took some photos of the bakery,which had baked goods, coffees, and frozen yogurt, the lady, I assume owner was questioning me why I was taking photos. I got the impression she didn't want me to and thought I was stealing her bakery ideas.
Did stop off at the sweet potato man's kiosk outside of the front of the store. 3 small yams for $2, they were so good! Carmelized and slightly burned skins.
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True on a medium sized store but the bakery and deli is nice. But I noticed on the refridgerator cakes, the strawberries were looking grey but the cookies and pastries did look fresh.
I still like Han Kook Supermarket better, larger, more selection and clean. http://www.yelp.com/bi...
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The way to properly fatten up clams for eating is to wash them frequently in salt water, scatter corn meal in their tank, and wait till their necks get fat and lolling before you pop them open and gobble them down. But, you don't want clams that don't retract their neck when you poke them, because that mean's they're dead and rotting. I poked them all. Dead. Not to mention the prevalent fishy smell, crowdedness, and wimpy selection. It is likely I won't come back. Han kook down the street is far superior in every way.
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Not as big in size as Han Kook across the street and about a couple blocks down, Galleria has everything the Korean cook would need and more. Great selection of produce and seafood, plus the newly opened food court/bakery is just another reason to shop here. I used to be a Han Kook devotee, but will now split my shopping trips between the two. Definitely improved its standing with the new food court and bakery (which is connected to the Galleria Houseware section).
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my friend and i were seriously craving some good ole korean food, but lacked time and cash. we headed on over to the galleria food court area. I ordered the kal-bi and my friend order the don-kas (battered and fried pork)... that hit the spot!!! the soup was delicious.. tasted sort of like udon soup (the soup came with it) ... and all the other little ban-chans were great... the place wasn't busy at all, but it was gooodd.
This market on El Korean Real has a great variety of fresh produce, kimchee, marinated and unmarinated meats and a cute litte deli/bakery. I'm not a fan of the bakery but they have a shaved ice dish that kicks butt. Their deli is also really good for cheap $5-ish Korean (you know you're sick of paying 10 bucks for bibimbap)
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I've accepted the fact that many of us become like our parents, whether in part or in whole, however, I'm still conducting studies on the actual transformation process. For example, is it gradual? Are there certain life stages you must hit before picking up the phone and asking the same question 100 times? Or will it come like the apocalypse, where one morning the dawn shall seize you from your slumber with the sudden urge to whip up breakfast to feed 3 times the number of people in your family while singlehandedly creating enough noise as humanly possible to rob said family members of their basic right to sound sleep, and then you realize you ARE your mom. Will young women today all someday relegate their daughters and granddaughters to the unsolicited *poke, poke* "hallelujah, we were so afraid those m&ms would never grow in" boob check? I could have sworn that I was VERY explicit as a teen when praying about being delivered from certain senile/embarrassing behavior, but I think God must have either been on holiday or Margaret Simon was talking his ear off the day I kneeled in reverence.
CASE IN POINT: I was at Galleria picking up the usual suspects (ie: japanese mayo, starchy vegetables, cheese Pocky, Yakult and other renegade pickings outside the FDA food pyramid). As I was dragging my heavy basket to the check-out station like a maimed animal, cursing at myself for not grabbing a cart (my eyes are bigger than my stomach -- I should know that by now), I noticed that an adorable halfie was working the lane. I mean, he must have been 13 years old? And then he proceeded to speak in Korean, and he had me at "Yeh".
"Are you half Korean?"
"Yeh." (Yes)
"Were you born here?"
"Yeh, yugisuh tewunassumnida." (Yes, I was born here)
"Wow. You speak Korean so well! Your accent is better than some of my friends."
"Gamsamnida. HYUNG! Iguh ulmaeyo?" (Thank you. HEY OLDER BROTHER! What's the price of this, please?)
He was not expecting a son-in-law screening, and my curious gaze was obviously making him uncomfortable...I don't know how, I don't know why, but somehow I was able to stop myself before confessing to this poor boy that I wish I could clone him for my unborn daughter.
?!
What is happening here? I thought these antics weren't supposed to surface until at least 2015. Lord, have mercy.
THE REVIEW: Galleria's aisles are slightly claustrophobic. The shelves are stacked precariously high and I hope I'm never caught here during an earthquake. They have more inventory than there is room available, but the organization and cleanliness has generally improved a great deal over the last couple years. The snack aisle is AWESOME! The bakery seems to have more variety than HK's Bakery, and the food court is decent. Avoid shopping on Sundays -- it is mayhem.
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cluttered korean market...narrow aisle...random arrangements and piles for "sale".....the prices seemed a bit on the higher side...
*korean sweet potatoe "aj"...blasting the "ppong-jak" music on the ghetto blaster outside the exit..talk about taking me back to the 70's...
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average Korean supermarket, they have taken out the fridge section in the back, so not as much (?) marinated meat that you can buy by the lb.
good variety, and best of all that makes me frequent this one more than the other Korean supermarkets nearby is the more moderate price!... yeah, better value over all!
Though I still have to admit that Ranch99 is still the best value for the items they also carry, maybe due to economy of scale?
~~ the best part of Gallaria market is the attached Korean fast food stall, fast and convenient, not your best tasting fancy Korean food, but good hearty meals of enough variety to make you want to come back..
~~ I also buy the prepackaged rolls and stir-fry noodles and other Korean fast food snack.... Oh, don't forget the dessert/bakery station!
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