In the refrigerator case farthest from the entrance, across from the six-packs of red Sharpie-colored salted duck eggs, next to a few cans of Coco Rico soda, sits an unmarked plastic pint of pumpkin-hued something. No name, no price.

When it’s time to check out, the grandmotherly woman behind the counter says, “I made it last night. Eat it with vegetables and rice.”

It’s prahok ktiss, a Cambodian dip of ground pork, chiles, marble-size pea eggplants, and, of course, prahok, the classic Cambodian fermented fish paste. Later that day, I will take the dip home and eat it warm, with raw cabbage and cucumber slices. It’s slightly funky, a creamy, concentrated ragu-like concoction.

This version of prahok ktiss comes from a grocery store occupying a small strip mall off International Boulevard in Oakland’s San Antonio district. The store’s name is Mithapheap, formerly Sonteheap, and I’m here because I like to make laab and curry pastes. I’ve shopped at Mithapheap with lists of ingredients — fish sauce, shallots, makrut lime leaves — but this is the first time I’ve bought anything on a whim.

Along with auto shops, salons and taquerias, Southeast Asian groceries and cafes dominate the section of International between 14th and 20th avenues, a sparser swath than the comparatively dense blocks west of 14th Avenue, toward Lake Merritt, where most corners seem to sprout a Vietnamese grocery.

A woman with an incandescent Lana Turner hairdo and a white mini-dress slinks across the street toward one of the many discount furniture stores. A father, with a baby on his shoulders and a preschooler bobbing around his knees, bellows in a melange of Khmer and English as he navigates the pocked sidewalks. The scene is a little desolate, the storefronts not infrequently threadbare or barren.

There are restaurants too, like Souk Savanh, known for a spicy Lao sausage. But Mithapheap and its neighbor grocers, Mekong Market and International Lao Market, give Oakland residents curious about trying to cook Lao, Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese food three opportunities to find the ingredients to suit their inspiration, all within one minute’s walk.

Back to Gallery Snapshots of the Southeast Asian grocers along... 6 1 of 6 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 2 of 6 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 3 of 6 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 4 of 6 Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle 5 of 6 Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle 6 of 6 Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle











At compact Mekong Market, dusty VHS tapes overlook rows of produce, cans and bottles. The woman behind this counter watches a Western on a small television as she chats with a few women sitting in chairs. Most days, a movie is on — sometimes a Thai or Cambodian film, sometimes an American classic. You can grab fresh makrut limes, shaved green papaya and carrot for salad; cups of cooked purple-black forbidden rice; and plastic bags of sliced mushrooms, cabbage and squash scraps destined for quick curries and soups. Premium Red Boat fish sauce sells for a bargain price. Baggies of house-toasted rice powder for laab are piled up like a drug dealer’s stash.

When I approach the register, the woman coos briefly at my baby. “Nam prik?” I ask, pointing at an unrefrigerated and unlabeled container filled with a sticky, maroon compote. She nods. “Lao-style, with pork.”

There are innumerable variations on the intense, sometimes incendiary condiment, which is often paired with blanched and raw vegetables as well as fried pork skin husks. I stack the container on top of the bamboo pickles I’m already buying.

“You will need sticky rice,” she announces.

On another visit, the same woman tells me how to grill the stubby, magenta sausages I have unearthed from the freezer. Another day, she looks at my armful of items and does some detective work.

“Ohh, you must be making laab.”

She’s right. She doesn’t take credit cards, though, and when it turns out that I only have a little cash, she kindly helps me downsize my haul of herbs, rice powder, shallots and chiles.

She’s unwaveringly friendly, helpful and clearly enthusiastic about food. Yet when I mention a story I’m writing and my interest in conducting an interview, she abruptly shakes her head.

“No. Thank-you. Goodbye.”

She nudges my bag across the counter in a polite gesture of finality, uninterested in self-promotion, telling stories or even sharing a name — a sentiment respectfully echoed by every employee and proprietor with whom I spoke.

Customers at International Lao Market, which is directly next door to Mekong Market, are as likely to be in search of lottery tickets as long beans. On Saturdays, a television suspended above the counter shows college football. Boisterous regulars cycle through, making a stop for groceries. On one visit, the man behind the counter banters filthily with (hopefully) a friend, who laughs and hurls back equally scathing insults — all to the amusement of a third party, a woman hunched over a plate of rice and vegetables behind the counter.

For ingredient-seekers, Lao Market has pillow-size bags of dried red Thai chiles, the tiny reddish-brown shallots ideal for Lao and Thai cooking, and a refrigerator filled with chile pastes and pickled mustard greens layered in stacks of plain plastic half-pint containers bearing no mention of names or prices.

If you investigate the freezer case, you’ll see unmarked bags of what appear to be fluffy chicken heads in ghoulish contortions, the beady eyes peering pensively from behind the plastic. At the rear of the store, you’ll find plain white slippers in various sizes, and mortars and pestles capable of reducing shallots, lemongrass, galangal and chiles to pungent slurries.

Around the corner on 14th Avenue, Mithapheap’s counter protrudes from a backdrop of DVD cases. The bright spines form a mosaic alongside the rows of hair products and baby oil. From the ceiling, shirts and shawls hang like a vivid awning over customers waiting to check out. Here, sausages dry in loose coils on makeshift racks next to the betel nuts. Customers snap off links and drop them in bags. The refrigerator case yields whole chickens and packages of bitter sadao flowers. The produce is particularly fresh, with tight bundles of sawtooth herb and mint, gnarled carrots and whole green papayas. The papayas also come salad-ready, peeled into spaghetti-thin strands, or sliced and pickled with carrot. The aforementioned grandmotherly woman who works here most mornings and afternoons suggests adding a little sugar to the latter for sweetness.

A close scan of the shelves always produces surprises — durian paste, salty fish skin chips, wicker sticky rice steamers and a box of plain quart jars brimming with gelatinous gray-pink goop.

Pickled salmon, says the cashier — what I understand to be a classic Cambodian preparation called pa ork.

Steam lightly, she says.

I wouldn’t have it any other way, I think, as I slide the jar toward the register.

Andrew Simmons lives in Oakland. He writes for the Atlantic, the New York Times and other publications. Twitter: @adlsimmons Email: food@sfchronicle.com

Mekong Market: 1613 International Blvd., Oakland

International Lao Market: 1619 International Blvd., Oakland

Mithapheap Market: 1400 14th Ave., Oakland