Touch your heart and tell us you don’t love a good deal – bet you can’t, not in this economy. Well, we love stretching our cents, so we headed down to A-PRICE Singapore, a recently opened Japanese wholesale grocer in Tanjong Pagar to see if it’s worth the trek.
Spoiler alert: it is, and we’ve rounded up some of the best-priced deals you should get here.
This one goes out to everyone whose favourite sushi order is salmon – the Norwegian salmon at A-PRICE retails for $40/kg, though we hear they’re currently running National Day promos that will bring that price down even more.
It may cost a touch more than your whole fish from FairPrice or Sheng Shiong, but bear in mind that this is sashimi-grade quality, so you can have it raw, either as sashimi or in your poke bowl.
Dessert lovers, you’ll want to stock your freezers up with the Mini Yukimi Daifuku Mochi Ice Cream ($4.20). There are 9 daifuku in each box, and they come in 3 flavours: Vanilla, Mango, and Strawberry.
We’ll math this for you – each daifuku costs just $0.47, and they’re made in Japan. Do we need to say more?
For some variety, A-PRICE is also stocked with 7 kinds of ice cream and sorbet, all similarly made in Japan. The Premium Vanilla is priced at $20 a tub of 2L, while everything else is $23.
Flavour-wise, there’s Hojicha, Chestnut Marron that’s made with Italian chestnuts, Matcha, as well as Grape, Yuzu, and Peach Sorbet, crafted with real fruit and juice.
If you, like us, scour the various supermarket and specialty grocer chains in town for the best deals, you’ll know that the Shimadaya Frozen Inaniwa Udon is almost $10 a bag elsewhere. Here, though, you can cop this at just $6.
Otherwise, the Shimadaya Frozen Ramen Taikoban is also $6 a bag of 10 portions, perfect for ramen nights.
For an even better deal, check out A-PRICE’s house brand, East Bee – their Sanuki udon is $4, also for 10 serves. If you were wondering, Sanuki is probably the udon you’re more familiar with, with thick, square, chewy noods; an affordable everyday comfort food from Kagawa Prefecture, which was formerly known as Sanuki Province.
It’s one of Japan’s 3 famous udons, alongside Inaniwa udon, which is hand-stretched, thin, flat, and silky smooth, historically presented as gifts to nobility and the Imperial court.
We’re all more familiar with Kewpie mayonnaise, but we recommend you skip that at A-PRICE, because the variant you’ll find there is the made-in-Thailand version. But yes, if that’s what you’re looking for, it is definitely cheaper than getting it at your regular supermarket.
Instead, we think you should check out the made-in-Japan East Bee Mayonnaise, which is $8.80 for a 1kg bottle, and is made with pure egg yolks for a richer flavour. Alternatively, the East Bee Multi Mayo Sauce ($6.80/kg) is made with whole eggs, so it’s relatively lighter, with what’s said to be 50% fewer calories than the yolk-only mayonnaise.
Then, there are the eggs, which at $5.90 a tray of 30 eggs works out to be just $0.20 an egg. For comparison, Pasar fresh eggs are $6.65 a tray. If you’re buying eggs in bulk, that 75 cents a tray can easily add up.
One of the best deals we found was A-PRICE’s house brand drip coffee, Toho Coffee Drip Cafe, which retails in a box of 30 drip bags. This entire box of house blend coffee, roasted in Japan, is priced at $25, which makes your cuppa $0.83 each. Cheaper than your kopi-O, so what are you waiting for?
Let’s be honest – most of the fast-casual Japanese eateries, or kopitiam Japanese eats that you have, serve Japonica rice, AKA a broad subspecies of short-grained pearl rice that’s not typically grown in Japan. Why? Because it’s a lot cheaper.
If you aren’t that fussed about your pearl rice, then Japonica is the way to go, and A-PRICE is where you should buy yours. A 2.5kg bag of their Matsumai Premium Japonica Rice is $4.50, while the 25kg bag is priced at $44.
Just so you have a better idea of the difference in price, the cheapest bag of Japanese rice at FairPrice is $16.50 for 2kg, discounted from its usual price of $19.
House brand things will always be the more economical option, and when it comes to sesame dressing, East Bee delivers again with their $8.80 bottle that’s, yes, we checked – made in Japan.
At 1kg a bottle, this is way more worth it than the other sesame dressings you’ll find at your regular grocery store. We did a quick check, and those retail for about $8 a 300ml bottle. Sesame dressing, ICYMI, is awesome with salad, and even better as a hotpot dipping sauce.
For the more serious home cook, you’ll know that dashi granules or powder don’t come that cheap. The commonly found Shimaya Bonito Soup Stock retails for $6.76 a box of 120g at FairPrice, but at A-PRICE it is $11.20 for 1kg. ‘Nuff said.
There’s also a halal version here, sold for $5/kg.
A-PRICE, originally founded by Japanese food distributor TOHO Group, was always meant to be a B2B concept helping food businesses get their hands on pro-level ingredients. So it’s no surprise that you’ll find 1kg bags of condensed soup here.
At the moment, they only have Vegetable Soup in red and green variants, good for 10 to 12 diners. It’s a lifesaver for parties, if you ask us, since it’s just $10/packet, and all you’ll have to do is add 1L of milk and heat it up to serve. Think Campbell’s soup, Japanese veg version.
A-PRICE does sell Kewpie mentaiko mayonnaise, but you might want to consider making your own, since they also stock Frozen Mentaiko Tube ($18), where the egg sacs have been removed, and the roe conveniently packaged in a squeeze pack.
The possibilities are endless: you could make mentaiko pasta, mentaiko aburi salmon, mentaiko anything with these convenient 500g packs. If you’re familiar with the online retailer, Zairyo stocks a similar item at $28.50.
Trust us when we say that $6 for a 270g bag of East Bee potato chips is a good buy. Let us list out some reasons why:
If, like us, you’ve tried making the viral Nobu-style miso black cod, you’ll know that you need a good deal of the fermented soybean paste each time. You’ll appreciate, then, that the white miso that you need for the recipe is $5.50/kg at this Japanese wholesale grocer.
The red dashi miso, on the other hand, is $5/kg. For those unsure about the difference, red miso has a much stronger funk and flavour, and is more suitable for darker meat or heavier dishes such as stews and braises.
The store is not big, but it makes up for it with a good variety of produce at extremely competitive prices. You do want to check the labels for country of origin if you’re particular about where your groceries come from, but bear in mind that each one of these products has been curated by the TOHO Group as profesh-grade, and are items that chefs use. Ergo, this is what you’d likely have eaten at a Japanese restaurant too.
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Photography by: Ashley Hoon
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