Lunar New Year is coming, and at our local Costco stores here in Southern California that means pineapple cakes, mochi, glutinous rice cakes, red and gold willow arrangements and a New Year collection of frozen dim sum. There are also products specific to the zodiac calendar, like the Lego Auspicious Dragon set, Year of the Dragon gold and a Napoleon XO bottle of brandy shaped like a dragon.
Surprised you can find baijiu (Chinese sorghum liquor) at Costco? Frankly, we are constantly surprised by the Costco offerings that one might assume could only be found in Asian markets, and it sparked a burning question: Which Costco is the “most Asian”?
On Jan. 12, we sent a call-out and asked readers to help us find SoCal’s most “Asian Costco” for Lunar New Year. We received 78 passionate responses and read through everyone’s stories about how surprised they were to find bird’s nest soup (currently only available in Southern California); how they wish the freeze-dried mangosteen and mullet roe they’ve heard about in other Costcos were at their location; and how their Costco has the Taiwanese peanut candy that you can’t even find in San Gabriel Valley Costcos (not true).
According to the membership warehouse club’s official website, there are 602 Costcos in the U.S. and 135 (22%) are in California. And according to the data company Numerator, Costco shoppers skew toward Asian and Latinos residing in urban communities: In the Pacific Northwest, Costco shoppers are 52% likelier to be Asian; nationally, they’re 83% likelier to be Asian.
Costco warehouses carry about 4,000 SKUs (stock keeping units), and there’s a semi-permanent collection of goods that can be reliably found in most locations: the $4.99 rotisserie chicken, the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, the Kirkland clothing that comedian Sheng Wang jokes about in his Netflix special. (“When you buy pants from Costco, that’s when you don’t care anymore,” he said. “That’s when we let go of our egos and we begin our spiritual journey.”)
But the inventory continuously changes, and different Costcos carry different items depending on the demographics and buying patterns of the shoppers. Costco die-hards who go multiple times a week to multiple stores can tell you the differences between the Marina del Rey Costco near their apartment, the City of Industry one near their parents’ house and the Irvine one they stop by on the way to San Diego.
But what makes a Costco Asian? Frozen dumplings? Curry? Pocky snacks? No, that’s in most Costcos! We’re looking for items beyond the types of Asian food you can also find in a Ralphs.
We’re looking for abalone, grass jelly and red ginseng drinks, lumpia, paneer, multiple choices of oyster sauce and a variety of seafood.
Christopher Yu, from Diamond Bar, thinks it’s the variety of dried goods and shelf-stable items in the four or five rows between drinks and the snacks and pharmacy that determine how Asian the Costco is.
“Bro, when I saw Chinese cured pork belly — lap yuk for my fellow Cantos — that’s when I knew we were in a new era.” (He found it in Chino Hills.)
Some other signs:
1. The durian trifecta: Most shoppers probably remember being shocked when they saw durian ice cream at a Costco. But that was so 2023. Now, you gotta see if the store has these three durian items in the freezers: ice cream, pulp and the full fruit.
2. The alcohol selection: Many Costcos don’t have a lot of Asian alcohol. But the Asian Costcos will have Yuzubay sake, Good Day soju, Tsingtao beer, Hibiki Suntory whisky, Kweichow moutai and other baijiu.
3. The Lunar New Year offerings: In the past few years, Costco has upped the ante on Lunar New Year products. The more Asian the Costco, the more likely it is to have a standalone, prominently placed Lunar New Year display with a plethora of choices for gifts. This year, the collection of mini-bottles shaped like Zodiac animals is only available in 13 Costcos in the L.A. area.
But it’s not a (real) competition. The benefit of living in California, which boasts many of the largest Asian diasporas outside of each home country, is that there are not only a lot of Asian Costcos, there are the Chinese Costcos, the Korean Costcos and the Vietnamese Costcos. And most of them will reliably have South Asian and other Southeast Asian offerings.
Based on the 78 responses we received from our call-out and our own Costco shopping research, we present the top 11 Asian Costcos in Los Angeles and Orange County for Lunar New Year.
