"I'm excited to be able to cook with stuff I know how to cook with, instead of just boiling pasta," Kung said.
The lack of local Asian food supplies was also an inconvenience to the store's owners, Russ and Yiping Weed, who had to procure Asian ingredients from a market in Manchester.
"There is an Asian market in Lebanon, but it's more of an Indian grocery," Russ said.
Yiping's Asian Market stocks Chinese dry and frozen goods, in addition to a smattering of Japanese sweets and some Korean and Indian items. The couple plans to sell fresh foods in the future, in hopes of offering a wider variety of Asian cuisine to the Upper Valley community.
"We will get more Japanese, Korean, Indian and Filipino items," Yiping said. "The students also ask me, 'Can you sell some Boba tea?'"
Russ added that the market might also begin selling farm-fresh meat.
"We could even have hamburgers and steaks for people to barbecue," he said. "We're sticking to mostly Asian foods, but I'm thinking of adding Ben and Jerry's ice cream because it seems to be popular around here."
Operating a grocery store is a new experience for the Weeds, although Yiping was a partial owner of a grocery store five years ago.
"We've never done anything like this before," Russ said. "We're learning everything about opening a grocery store, and I have a full-time job as well, but we're just happy we can help students find food that they're used to having instead of eating McDonald's everyday."
The store's close proximity to the College motivated the couple to choose the market's present location because they thought it would help attract customers and generate foot traffic.
"There was definitely a need for an Asian market," Russ, who is also an employee of the Dartmouth Printing Company, said. "We just decided to go for it."
About half of the market's customers are Dartmouth students, according to Yiping.
"They come in and they're like, 'Finally, a place to buy food. Awesome!'" she said.
Nicolai Buhr '07 said the availability of the new market is a welcome addition to downtown Hanover.
"It's a little more useful for students than having a bead boutique," he said, referring to Razzberry Kiss, the store that formerly occupied the space now filled by the market.
Susan Blader, a professor of Chinese at the College, agreed that the market's location benefits both the owners and the Dartmouth community.
"We have waited a long time for a store like this," Blader said. "What is truly wonderful is that the store is right here."
