Seemingly overnight, the new food market, E&Z Asian Mart, popped up on Market Street. In the skinny storefront where Oppa used to be, E&Z had the quiet opening we didn’t know we needed (or maybe we did, if, like my flatmates, you travelled to Dundee for quality Asian food ingredients).
The window features a tantalising array of colourful ramen packets and bottles of sauce, and its brightly-lit interior reveals an abundance of nonperishable, fresh, and frozen goods. Crackers and candy, bok choy and mushrooms, sodas and seaweed–E&Z offers a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth. And, while of course we have reason to be incredibly grateful for how it will enrich the taste buds of our town, it also begs the question: what do we need next?
Mexican
The first answer that comes to mind for a lot of people is Mexican food. The student-run taco business, Lo’s Tacos, attested to this fact when created last year. Collectives like LatinFlow and the St Andrews Mexican Society have also taken off recently, highlighting the growing interest in Latin music and culture, which go hand-in-hand with food. Although these groups are doing what they can to give us a taste of the beats and bites we crave, it’s safe to say that the people of St Andrews want more.
Picture this: it’s a brutally short January day that you’ve spent mostly in the library, and you’re in desperate need of some dinner. What better option could you ask for than comforting, warm queso and zingy, freshly-made guacamole with some salty tortilla chips, followed by a sizzling quesadilla, taco, or burrito with a side of rice and beans? The selection of Old El Paso meal kits from Tesco simply can’t compete, and nor can a trip to Dundee’s Taco Bell, I would argue.
Sushi
Another seemingly obvious food group that St Andrews lacks is sushi. Yes, we have Combini, which offers salmon nigiri and cucumber avocado rolls, or gyoza if you want something warm, but that’s about it. Where are the spicy tuna rolls, the California rolls, the vegetable tempura, the miso soup, the noodles?!
Sushi checks so many boxes. Need something to sustain you between classes? Sushi can give you vitamins and protein in its various types of filling, as well as carbs from the rice that binds it together. Thus, it makes for the perfect fuel for your academic endeavours. Need something to eat on a date? Sushi provides dinner and a show as you sit back and watch your prospective partner pretend to master the use of chopsticks. With its multitude of filling possibilities, sushi is a fan favourite for good reason, and that quality would not be lost in St Andrews.
Bagels
I realise I might be biassed with this one, but I think that we desperately need a quality bagel place. I don’t mean the flat-ish, hard-ish, store-bought Warburtons bagels you can find in the grocery store. I mean handmade dough, boiled and baked, covered in salt, poppyseeds, asiago cheese, everything seasoning! I mean soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, filled with cream cheese, or butter, or bacon, egg, and cheese!
The bagel is the perfect food for the morning after a night out. Its beautifully carb-heavy nature fills up your stomach and sops up any remnants of last night’s libations. It’s also versatile with toppings and fillings you can cater to your desires and needs (because sometimes, a plain bagel with butter is all you can handle). Some of you may remember the occasional homemade bagel sales that took place in a flat on Muttoes Lane, where transactions were made through an open ground floor window. This was short-lived but dearly missed, and it underscores the need for bagels that is not being met. A good bagel place is always a good idea, and with all of the Americans–dare I say, all of the New Yorkers–at St Andrews, it’s genuinely shocking that there isn’t one here yet.
A Morsel of Hope
Although E&Z Asian Mart is only a small, singular storefront, it opened the door for more food-choice freedom and possibility of other delicious cuisines to pop up in town. One small bite for Market Street, one giant buffet for St Andrews – or however the saying goes :)