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Located above St. Mark's Bookshop, the East Village location of Sunrise Mart is half supermarket and half community center for the Japanese enclave that has popped up in the neighborhood over the past decade. The bulletin board in the elevator lobby is plastered with ads for services and housing leads for the Asian expat population. Inside the bright second-floor space, several spacious aisles offer groceries and snacks, health and beauty items, housewares such as rice cookers and ceramic tableware, and drinks—even the infamous Pokari Sweat, a Japanese version of Gatorade. This is a fantastic place to come for fresh foods—tofu, Asian fruits such as nashi (Japanese pear) and kaki (persimmons), shabu-shabu beef, and exotic delicacies like flying fish roe or octopus tentacles. For a quick, inexpensive lunch, the kitchen's soba noodles, miso soup, and bento boxes are hard to beat. If you don't read Japanese, the friendly staff will happily identify the contents of all those enticing packaged goods, and even give you some idea of what to do with them. And for customers closer to Soho, the second Broome Street shop offers an identical selection of goods in a slightly larger space. — Simon Spelling

Along with edibles and home accessories, the store has a whole wall of Japanese videos and magazines.