Housed in a former Lunds & Byerly’s on Suburban Avenue in St. Paul, Ha Tien’s second location offers a well-curated selection of fresh meat and produce, plus a refrigerated section with noodles, dumplings, tofu and vegan meats, and more. The market’s deli has a hot bar for lunch, as well as banh mi made with crackly baguettes from the in-house bakery. Order the Lao sausage, laab, or roast pork and sticky rice — and don’t forget to ask for extra jalapeños.

A sprawling shopping center just south of Lake Phalen, Hmong Village has an excellent produce section, and is a great place to stock up on lemongrass, fresh chiles, mangos, and hefty Hmong cucumbers. Sidle over to the food court for Hmong sausage with purple sticky rice, steaming bowls of khao poon, and chicken wings stuffed with bean thread noodles, herbs, and ground meat. Get there early on weekends — the parking lot fills up fast.

On one end of this Eastside St. Paul store, there’s an entire wall of fridges stocked with vegetables and herbs. On the other are towering shelves of dry goods like coconut milk, canned lychee, tea leaves, and shrimp snacks. You’ll also find packages of mohinga (fish soup with rice noodles), fresh salads, and mote let kauk (chewy rice-flour donuts with a hardened brown sugar syrup). Burmese restaurants are scarce in the Twin Cities, despite the approximately 20,000 Karen people who live in the state — all the more reason to stop by the Original Karen Market.

Housed several large warehouses, Hmongtown Marketplace has an indoor/outdoor green market and vendors selling everything from clothing and ceramics to imported snacks and dry goods. Nestled in a back corner is the can’t-miss food court, which dishes up searingly spicy-sour papaya salad, balls of vermicelli waiting to be dunked into simmering pork broth, roasted duck rubbed with chili and herbs, and sweet, refreshing bubble tea.

This spacious grocery store has been serving St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood for years, and it recently added mochi donut and Korean hot dog counters. Soga Mochi Donut sells a rotating selection of rice-flour sugar bombs — a chewy, exciting new entry to the Twin Cities’ doughnut scene. A few feet away, grab some crunchy-topping-covered hot dogs or cheese on a stick.

With a specialty bakery, butcher shop, and cold deli attached to a large selection of produce and grocery items, this Mexican restaurant and marketplace is well worth the southward trek to Richfield. You’ll find some of the best tamales, tacos, and tortas in the Twin Cities metro at Andale. Whatever you pick, top it off with a selection of housemade salsas, from a fresh smoked-jalapeno to the eye-wateringly hot chile de árbol.

United Noodles’ UniDeli may be retired, but the pan-Asian grocery store still sells freshly made banh mi sandwiches for lunch and dinner. This former warehouse building also has aisles upon aisles of fresh noodles, frozen dumplings, meat and fish, and tropical produce like Thai bananas, Korean melon, and dragonfruit. If you’re looking to stock up on rice, this is the spot — grab a 25-pound bag.

This local seafood mainstay is bigger and better than ever following a recent expansion. After moving into the same warehouse as United Noodles, Coastal’s Minneapolis location now boasts a counter-service restaurant in addition to its classic fish counter and upscale grocery wares. It’s a joy to investigate the catch of the day, dine on crab cakes and lobster rolls, and peruse the classy cookies and olive oils.

At this Persian grocery store near the University of Minnesota, sweets are king. The market offers a wide variety of imported cookies, dates, yogurts, and canned goods. At the airy cafe in the back of the store, there are options for vegetarians and meat lovers alike, from charbroiled kebabs to herbed grape leaves. All entrees come with velvety hummus, saffron-spiked basmati rice, grilled tomatoes, and warm pita.

After a challenging few years, Holy Land’s flagship location in Northeast Minneapolis is still serving Middle Eastern and Mediterranean staples to the local community. On the grocery side, this Central Avenue spot is stocked with fresh produce, labneh, olives, and spices, plus butcher cuts from the halal meat counter. The counter-service restaurant has an extensive menu of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, from baba ghanoush to kufta kebabs and falafel salad.

A Korean grocery store located in Columbia Heights, Dong Yang crams its aisles with imported snacks, shelf-stable condiments and spices, and a huge selection of rice and packaged noodles. At the small deli attached to the store, a rotating selection of banchan accompanies your meal: vinegary daikon, top-of-class kimchi, sweet fish cakes, and bean sprouts drizzled with toasted sesame oil. Order the dolsot bibimbap and get a heated stone bowl of crispy rice, salt-pickled vegetables, and a fried egg still sizzling when it reaches the table.

Plenty of African stores and delis line Brooklyn Boulevard in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis, and Waterside Market — named after the biggest market in Monrovia, Liberia — is one of the best. The grocery stocks plentiful plantain chips, fufu flour, palm oil, and frozen fish. At the adjacent Waterside African Kitchen, enjoy flavor-packed dishes like toborgee (Liberian stew), roasted fish, and goat meat soup. The menu rotates daily. It’s worth noting that on Sundays, Waterside serves jollof rice, a West African specialty.