Dainobu

I needed sticky rice in a hurry and this place delivered. A lot of the merchandise is only really labeled in Japanese, though, so bring your phone if you can’t read it.

It’s small, but as you would expect with Japanese grocery stores. Aisles are very narrow, so a lot of trying to get out of each other’s way. As usual, prices are higher than at Chinese supermarkets, but it depends on whether you care about saving that extra dollar.
I thought it was really interesting that ice cream is 20% off on the 25^th of each month! Too bad I didn’t go on the 25^th… As others have said, the freezer section is on sale on Saturdays and Sundays.
I love collecting Japanese snacks, especially kinoko no yama and takenoko no sato! I was pleased that there was a flavor I have never seen before, in addition to a couple of other new snacks.
THEIR SALES! There aren’t as many (or any) at Sunrise Mart. I couldn’t help but notice the umaibo in their sale section! I have NEVER found umaibo in New York City, so I’ve been forced to go to Mitsuwa to stock up. Where have you been, umaibo… It IS more expensive here, at $ 6.49 on sale, but it’s worth not having to go to New Jersey. There was only corn potage though; there are at least two flavors at Mitsuwa at any given time. However, corn potage is my favorite, so I don’t mind too much!
In my opinion, Sunrise Mart has a larger selection of bags of candy and crackers.
While coming into the store, I somehow charged in, without looking to my left, where the prepared food was. I only noticed when I was leaving… I’ll have to try something next time.

I would say this might not be a two $ store lol.
Yet maybe I am just too greedy. All of the stuff there looks so nice that it is almost impossible to resist the temptation of filling the shopping cart!
And the service is terrific either. Once I bought a vegetable that is a little bit unfresh. And the cashier immediately pointed out and asked me whether I would like to exchange for another one. I were literally shocked by their great service.
I especially like their thin cut meat. The quality of the beef and pork just totally blow up my mind! I have to stop and eat really slow to fully enjoy the pure happiness of great meat flavor.
And of course, you cannot miss UNI. It’s so goood. A little bitter, yes. But that bitterness add a fresh feeling to the overall experience. And the wonderful taste that belongs just to the seafood slowly explode in your mouth. Just amazing.

Nice alternative to Sunrise Mart if you’re in the west village. They carry a nice selection of Japanese groceries and frequently have a lot of sales. Definitely check it out. The employees are very friendly as well.

This place IS the best. Amazing selection of imports at good prices. Heck of a lot easier than heading to Chinatown for Asian food items. Thumbs up.

This place is absolutely fantastic.
I had the Shrimp Chili Sauce Bowl ($ 6.99) and a Spicy Chicken Karaage Onigiri ($ 1.99) that I inhaled before I could even take photos (Sorry!)
The price is right + the food is mighty tasty.
Definitely will be coming back again!

This place is the best!
They have the Japanese sodas in glass bottles which I have such a hard time finding. They have a large selection of pocky, hi chews, rice cakes, and panda cookies (all the awesome sweet snacks I love). Their sushi is really fresh and reasonably priced. The hot food is also really good– both the karrage chicken and the chicken or pork cutlets over rice. I really love this place. They also have yummy cream puffs and cute stickers pens etc.
Great little grocery store. Awesome place to grab a quick snack or lunch.

Dainobu became my go-​to place for Japanese foods and one of the cashier calls me «Cool Lady» now. I want to share some items that I usually buy rather than store stocks many Japanese and so on.
«Shiho No Shizuku/​紫峰の滴»
If you are tired of usual soy sauce, this soy sauce is a great choice to try. The Umami is undeniable, light in color but strong in Umami. Fantastic with fresh sashimi and sushi, and as well as a dressing, with EVOO or sesame oil with fresh squeeze of lemon. Also, excellent to marinate fresh fish or meat with it. It enhances its flavors. Downside to some is it has a high content of salt. Usually this sauce is out of stock so don’t hesitate to ask to re-​order for more.
One staff that has a husky-​sexy deep voice for women knows a good knowledge of the items they have. Her recommendations has been on point. She also shares how she likes, add a drop to chicken soup, or noodles and so on. I don’t know her name but if you see a mature looking lady, usually on the floor, ask her any question on their items. She is very helpful. She has already introduced me to many new products.
Kimichi
I’ve seen Kimchi in a jar everywhere but I can find this particular one only here in my neighborhood; Sunrise or M2M don’t have it either. Some like Kimchi to be sweet, spicy, sour, or even garlicky. This Kimchi Pride & Foods has all of that. But nothing closer to a love-​infused homemade Kimchi.
Organic chemical free seafood granule stocks in a bag are another best picks for me. There are several of them. I mix few different kind, Konbu, Bonito, and a little fishy but amazing Iriko (anchovy), that were all granules, to create my special Umami broth (Dashi). Excellent for miso soup and anything asking for Dashi in a receipt.
Weekend frozen food sale is hard to miss, but I don’t know how long they have this special. My pick is cool packaged Yoshinoya Beef Don is a must. There are two components, beef, and rice packages. It is a frozen-​instant food but it is very tasty, just like any Yoshinoya in Japan. Yoshinoya is one of the Japanese fast food chain restaurants and only offers beef don.
Bentos and hot foods; I previously reviewed of Chirashi bowl and sushi to be not good enough but recently when I tried, they aren’t so bad, for price. They look small in size but were enough portion for lunch. What I like the most from bento is pork cutlet bento. The cutlet is like Japanese Tonkatsu size, small in a size but it is a thick cut.

Feels just like Japan! Excellent and extensive selection of takeaway food and Japanese products. I was very impressed. Everything looks fresh and the store is clean. There are two microwaves and a seating area for customers to heat up and eat their food. A must visit!

Convenient for me to get fresh Japanese veggie and lunch boxes ~ can’t complain. Love having this market nearby.

Love it here! Dine in bento or lunch bowl is always nice, my favorite is the cod fish. You can find all the basic grocery and snack needs in this rather tiny store slightly out of the Japanese town district, so it closer from Chelsea to get to. The staff is friendly, they are more than willing to help. I like their service better than Sunrise – my observation is that whenever the store staff is Japanese (especially ladies), the service tend to be more attentive compare to if it’s by a college students cashier aka most of the time at Sunrise (so basically average American store service, not saying you can’t get good service by them, but generally not as detail oriented or patient)

I’m so glad I found this place! Found this through Unilocal and read they had Japanese snacks. I got a few onigiri (salmon and soft shell crab) and it was delicious. I also grabbed some pocky because it was everywhere lol. Lastly, to my pleasant surprise they carried an Asian skincare line called Kose that I’ve been looking for everywhere in the city and was so happy I found it here!
Was very tempted to grab their prepackaged mini cream puffs and hot ramen (located in the back of the store), but I’ll def get it on my second and def not last visit!

heavenly convini-​like place in the middle of manhattan. awesome — had a bunch of pickup lunch options like karaage, sushi, bento, etc. Get all your japanese snack cravings satisfied here.

This little hole-​in-​the-​wall saved my life! I work close to University Place, and finding a quick lunch can be difficult. Thank goodness for Dainobu.
Five stars for
1. Good grab-​and-​go food
2. Japanese groceries
3. So. Much. POCKY.
4. Friendly employees
5. CREAM PUFFS

This is a small Japanese supermarket. Surprisingly though, they have a large selection. This place is good at fitting a large variety of things in such a small place. If you need a meal to go, this is the perfect place to visit. In the back you can order a couple of hot dishes, such as curry and in the front of the store you will find sashimi, sushi, bento boxes filled with okonomiyaki, katsu, etc. I found all their prepared food to be nostalgic from when I visited the delis in Japan. I would say their food is pretty authentic. Need to heat your dish? Dainobu has a microwave. I also saw a small selection of desserts, such as cream puffs and a few slices of cake. This place has only three chairs so don’t expect to sit down and eat with a large group of people.
I had the spicy tuna onigiri. It tastes good, but I thought it needed a little more tuna.
Stop by this deli at least once.

This is a chock-​a-​block full of Japanese goods Japanese grocery and goodies store with hot food in the back!
They hand you your credit card back to you holding it in both hands, Japanese style, as if your money is important to you (it is!).
No tip necessary — another Japanese custom — and you do not see the ridiculous «Tip» line on your credit card receipt for just getting what is sold in the shop.
Delicious hot food, or choose one of the «heat later» options in the front on the left… like Spicy Karaage Chicken and the beef with onions. Yum Yum!
Beer beer beer!
Choux pastry, too!
I love Dainobu!

I am so glad that I found this place. Prior to this Japanese goodie store, my morning meals around this area would have been okay bagels or PopTarts at the Grab & Go. While I do like PopTarts, I much more prefer to have Onigiri in the morning.
The only thing that they don’t carry here maybe Apple products (tech not the fruit).
DECOR/​SPACE: resembles a mini supermarket in the front and regular deli in the back. Towards the back of the store where they cook and package the Onigiri, Bento boxes, etc is where the hot meals are made as well. I believe it is only open during late afternoons because when I went in there at 11:00am, it wasn’t open. I’m anxious to come back and try it for lunch very soon.
FOOD: 1 word. ONIGIRI. Although, they carry a lot more items. The Onigiris I tried were the SPICY CHICKEN ($ 1.99), KOMBU ($ 1.99) and the SOFT SHELLED CRAB ($ 2.49). All were DELICIOUS. There is no wrong choice here.
PRICE: West Village prices are a bit higher than other locations. For sheer convenience, it’s right on point.
Overall, GREAT.
FAN.

Dainobu, Dainobu, what happened? Did you pastry chef leave or did the rising price of eggs force you into a new frugality. I raved about your cream puffs just a month ago, gained some weight by visiting you, but fickle you cast my accolades into the dust. And now I have to give your star pastry two stars. I sent family and friends for your cream puffs, and they have reported (as I have noticed), that the little gems are indeed getting littler. And more tragically, the cream puffs are also hollowed out, like a shell stuffed with cream, but the shells are now soggy. I had that experience myself. My sis, who told me about you originally, was so shocked when she tasted what my other sis had brought home. She actually thought they were from another bakery, in taste and size! So until your cream puffs regains their former glory, Dainobu, I shall have to boycott them and come by only for your Japanese groceries.

After a search for uni, I finally found a supermarket that sold it in sashimi form. There are many other items in this shop, sushi, ramen and hot foods area in the back, small bakery area up in front. I was pretty excited as they offered more exclusive items that I wouldn’t find at sunrise mart but they had similar products to mitsuwa. I thought i wouldn’t need to trek over to jersey anymore for japanese groceries.
Wishful thinking. Nothing could ever top Mitsuwa. Items here are slightly higher compared to Mitsuwa and you really do get what you’re paid for.
11.99 for a platter of uni but it definitely was the lowest grade I’ve had. Pieces are quite small too. I also bought their salmon sashimi, which was meh for $ 6.99.
They have a huge selection of snacks such as pocky and pejoy and japanese chocolate.
There’s sale items too such as matcha tiramisu, but it was meh for $ 3.00. It had a sponge cake at the bottom which ruined the cake, if it wasn’t for the matcha cream, this cake would’ve been awful.
I don’t think I’ll be back, I prefer sunrise mart over this even though they have more exclusive items but I guess I’ll live without it.

Thank you for opening an outpost in lower Manhattan. I love the Uptown locations, but it is always hard for me to get there since I live and work in Lower Manhattan, so I rarely get to go to the other Dainobu locations, but now I am deprived no more.
So when I saw that this place opened up, I immediately made a mad dash for it this past Sunday afternoon.
I love Japanese food, even more so than my native Chinese food. After all, the Japanese have the longest life span in the world and for good reason. Tasty food and healthy. Yup, that’s what I live for…
This place has all the onigiri you can ask for. I got one with salmon, tuna and kombe to take home to eat for dinner and lunch for the next few days. I also tried a package of frozen takoyaki (frozen foods are 40% off on the weekends minus meat, fish and ice cream). I also like that they carry the mini mochis also. They also offer specials during the week from Ito-​En teas to Pocky to Srichacha sauce.
Staff here are friendly and helpful. They apologized profusely for the long line and wait and packaged up my goods nicely.
I will definitely be back many times for my weekly grocery shopping and to satisfy that Nippon craving I get every 2 days or so…