SeeWoo Supermarket

Given its location on the insalubrious Saracen Street (the gastronomic highlight of which appears at first glance to be a Subway sandwich shop), you may well be unaware that Glasgow is home to the largest Asian supermarket in the country. All 60,000 square feet of SeeWoo are dedicated to every fresh, chilled, preserved Malaysian, Thai, Chinese foodstuff you could ever desire. Would you like your shark fin frozen or dried? Your catfish live or canned with chillis?

Slipping through the automatic doors, the first impressions are of a deeply sanitised and Tesco-fied Chinatown. Brightly lit aisles swarm with trolley pushers accompanied by the drone of endlessly looped pan pipe tunes, the sort of music that would play in Mike Oldfield’s head as he slipped into a catatonic state.

The customer base is refreshingly mixed. American-Asian students gasp with Proustian joy upon spying the koala biscuits they last had when they were seven (clearly the Spangles of the East) and there’s also a burgeoning selection of Eastern European staples for homesick Poles. In the interest of true multi-culturalism, SeeWoo also gives you the opportunity to bulk buy crates of Irn Bru and those giant tubs of instant Nescafe you last saw when you were temping in that office in 1998.

There are plenty of chances to get your wide-eyed Western gawping out of the way. A brief giggle at Cock Sauce won’t make Edward Said turn in his grave and the packets of immaculately crafted meat substitutes are a real work of art, the baby beancurd squids replete with vegetarian eyes and flesh-free tentacles. I’m also pretty sure you shouldn’t be able to buy a 25kg sack of pure, uncut MSG without some sort of licence.

The fresh produce section heaves with supersized bunches of lemongrass and Chinese chives and offers the chance to pick up a basketball-sized prickly Durian fruit. Yep, that’s the one that smells potently of vomit and yep, you really do need to use the cartoonish oven mitts provided to handle them. Over at the fish counter is a seething tank of live eels and an army of naively cheery langoustines, waving their claws passers-by. The frozen food section is epic, with entire aisles devoted to different gradients of frozen raw prawns alongside packs of frozen duck tongues and the euphemistic-sounding ‘chicken paws’.

In the far corner, the bakery churns out hallucinogenic-hued confections for those with a sweet tooth that would make Willy Wonka blush. The glutinous rice balls o-mochi, bright pink and stuffed with red bean paste, will give you proper sugar shivers as you reach for your third, unnecessary bite.

There are some serious bargains to be found at SeeWoo. Air-dried mushrooms, roasted cashews and miso soup are all available for pennies, compared to the prissily-packaged versions that you may find for half the volume and three times the cost in a West End deli. It’s also a great starting point for those wanting to broaden their home-cooking repertoire, with authentic pre-made matsman curry and pad thai pastes and neatly packaged trays of soup base kits, its dried ingredients portion-controlled so you don’t overdue the ginseng or dried pear. The freezers also host banquet-sized trays of pre-wrapped dim sum dumplings and spring rolls stuffed with minced pork and shredded veg, needing nothing more than a quick blast in hot fat and a dip in some spiced vinegar to transform into the ultimate easy comfort food.

And if this still smacks of effort, then on-site is also an 600-seater restaurant dishing out roast duck with eel, soft-shell crab to be devoured whole and, if you have no heart, some of those happy-go-lucky langoustines. SeeWoo is a foodie’s day-trip in the heart of the city. Pop in for udon, lose the next two and a half hours. Bliss.