Asia's Best Brings a Pan-Asian Hub to Fortuna 

At roughly 8,500 square feet, the newly opened Asia's Best grocery store in Fortuna (727 S. Fortuna Blvd.) can be a little overwhelming in a county accustomed to small Asian food shops with narrow aisles, much less a town formerly without any Asian food stores at all.

To the left, pallets of drinks are stacked and shelved, from canned sweet coffee to bottles with cubes of nata de coco drifting in pastel fruit juices. The back wall is lined with freezers, three doors of which are packed with meat buns and dumplings, while another pair holds back a half dozen kinds of lumpia and, beside those, packs of Filipino, Lao, Hmong and Chinese sausages. The free-standing freezers hold tiny squabs, black chickens, stock bones and offal, and whole, salted and fileted fish. There are chilled shelves stocked with dragon fruit, fresh stalks of lemongrass, coconuts already punched with straws, and bins of taro and fist-thick bananas. And in between stand aisles of snacks, dry rice noodles, condiments and a dizzying corridor of instant noodles.

Feda Ignacio smiles and waves her hand at the space, admitting, "All of my family, my friends, they know at first I hesitated to open a big store, but my husband, he loves the challenge." Having had success at the Eureka Asia's Best, despite its small space and hidden spot (2085 Myrtle Ave.) tucked behind the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, she and husband June Ignacio were on the hunt to expand. While Fortuna seemed an unlikely choice, the Ignacios have found welcome and culinary cultural exchange with new customers and ones they already knew.

"I was born with this because of my parents, says June in his buttoned Asia's Best vest. In Pampanga, the mid-sized city on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, where the couple attended high school together, June's parents ran a grocery store, as well as its attached meat processing and wholesale distribution business. June and Feda also had a grocery store in Las Vegas, importing and distributing food to other shops and casino kitchens.

After coming to the North Coast and with an MBA from Humboldt State University under his belt, June and Feda opened the small Eureka shop, testing the waters. He says he was wary of focusing on Filipino foods, given the small Filipino community he found here. Instead, they broadened their stock to include foods and ingredients from all over Asia. "At first when I opened in Eureka, I was nervous," he says, because of the small Asian population. "But we have a lot of customers that are not Asian," particularly those who'd served in the military overseas in places like the Philippines and Japan, and developed a taste for Asian foods not widely available.

"We try to get a little bit of everything for the Asian [food]," says Feda, who adds most of the frozen prepared foods, like the small section of Malaysian paratha and Indian dishes, are customer requests. In the Eureka store, which the Ignacios say will remain open, they have more Lao, Hmong and Micronesian customers, the latter of whom come in for white and red betel nuts and leaves for chewing. Not so much in Fortuna, where demand is higher for Korean products and sushi-grade cuts of fish, as well as the Tomahawk steaks in the freezer. The Filipino avocado ice cream he says some Mexican customers found surprising at first has grown on them to become a favorite item.

The Ignacios' say their own tastes are simple. Among snacks ranging from crunchy fried chilis to novelty potato sticks with a fine dusting of something like lime Pop Rocks, they both prefer to munch rice crackers wrapped in nori. "That's why we're so compatible," Feda says with an impish laugh. But they also trade recipes with customers, sometimes trying out items from their own stock for the first time or in a new way, like the spiced vinegar some white customers have been making salad dressing with or the deep-fried turkey tail recipe they got from a Micronesian customer.

"You can do it in an air fryer, too," says June.

Feda, an accomplished cook and erstwhile caterer, scrunches her nose. "Deep fried is better."

Walking between the stacks of beverages, June explains plans for a fish counter in the back corner and a kitchen for to-go foods. These will take some time but he says plans are in the works. Asia's Best has also been a supplier for restaurants and food trucks, which June says he hopes to do more of in the Eel River Valley. In the meantime, Feda has a meeting today to finish the process of making the store EBT ready.

A regular customer, first from Eureka and now closer to his home in Fortuna, comes in with a bag of tomatoes for the couple. He and June bump elbows and June offers a "Thank you, brother."

The new location, June says, doesn't feel like starting from scratch, since the couple are seeing regulars they hadn't known were driving up to Eureka from the Eel River Valley and Southern Humboldt.

June grins at Feda as he recalls the freshly caught fish and other gifts customers who've become friends have brought by to share. "We're here because of them."

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.