Wellmart Asian Food Market is an Asian grocery supermarket at 31 Tennyson St in Mount Cook, central Wellington, holding a 4.5 Google rating; its Korean name, 웰마트, hints at Korean staples among the wider Asian range.
Good Asian supermarkets earn their regulars on two fronts: the pantry and the fridge case. Rice in bigger bags, kimchi, gochujang, soy sauces and noodles usually cost noticeably less than at the big chains, so many shoppers split the weekly shop between a mainstream supermarket and their local Asian grocer. The fridge and freezer cases are where freshness shows — fresh noodles, tofu, dumplings and kimchi all sell on turnover, so the busiest shops tend to have the best stock. Expect plenty of packaging printed only in Korean, Chinese or Japanese; at the good ones, staff know their shelves well, so asking beats decoding labels.
On Tennyson Street in Mount Cook, Wellmart puts that kind of shopping within easy reach of central Wellington.