Too tired to cook? San Fernando Valley markets with great ready-made dinner options

You just got off work, and while you have every good intention to cook for the evening, that quietly died a slow death somewhere along the 405 during your commute home.

Tonight, dinner’s at the deli.

Every market has at least a few quick-serve options. Out here in the San Fernando Valley, the deli counter deserves more credit than it gets.

Sabzee Mediterranean Market (Encino)

The Sabzee in Encino feels like an Iranian-American Whole Foods. The produce section is full of fresh herbs, fruits, and some of the most well-curated Persian cucumbers around. There’s a full-service butcher offering grass-fed beef and cuts of halal lamb in traditional marinades. All great for meal prep — but tonight, we’re hitting the hot food line.

Their steam tables are full of khoreshs (stews) like bademjoon (with tomatoes and eggplant), fesenjoon (with walnut & pomegranates), and their signature ghormeh sabzi (with herbs & kidney beans). On the far side, there's rice dishes like sabzi polo (with herbs), sweet shirin polo (with dried fruits and nuts), adas polo (with lentils), and squares of the famously crunchy tahdig (caramelized rice).

You can also order from their succulent kabob grill, which serves skewers of chicken, salmon, beef barg and koobideh. Many people are buying for families, but don't overlook the single skewer — it comes with rice, bread, a roasted tomato and a roasted poblano pepper.

Make sure to hit up their bakery and take home the 3-foot-long scrolls of sangak, the more circular tuftoon, or the seeded barbari flatbread.

Vallarta Supermarkets (various locations)

Vallarta has 60 locations in California.

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Josh Heller

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There are so many options at Vallarta Supermarket. Founded in Van Nuys, this Mexican-American grocery store now has 60 locations in California, and they just opened their first out-of-state store in Arizona. The Valley has a number of locations, but my favorites are the recently remodeled stores in Van Nuys on Sherman Way and Woodley and Canoga Park on Roscoe and Topanga.

For dinner, go first to the in-house tortilleria, where they make several sizes and varieties, from blue corn to Sonoran-style flour tortillas. They also make tortilla chips and those tasty chicharrones de harina — puffy, deep-fried flour puffs that evoke pork rinds but are fully vegetarian.

Since you've got chips in your cart, head to the fresh guacamole bar up front. Pull a premade container or have one made to order (pica o no pica — spicy or not). Grab some salsa while you're at it; the salsa verde and pico de gallo are worth it. This could be a snack on its own or an appetizer for what's coming.

Head to La Cocina and add a torta or burrito to the mix. The steam tables have caldos, costillas, and chile rellenos. Feeding the whole family? The family meal deals — like the Pachanga or Fiesta Vallarta — come with beef birria or carnitas, respectively, plus rice, beans, salsas, and tortillas.

For something lighter, there are ceviches, sushi, and fresh juices. At the aguas frescas stand, they'll blend Erewhon-style smoothies (at non-Erewon prices) with add-on supplements like pea protein and collagen peptides for just 75¢ more.

Greenland Market (Van Nuys)

Greenland Market's Korean food offerings.

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Josh Heller

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Greenland Market is a Korean grocery store at Sherman Way and White Oak. It’s a place where I regularly buy my rice, ramen, seaweed, kimchi, and honey butter potato chips. Comfort food for our family. My mother-in-law has been shopping here for decades, often bringing her grandchildren boxes of Choco Pies and Butter Coconut Biscuits — she's always uncovering something new.

My trick for dinner: make a pot of rice at home, then let Greenland handle the rest. My kids love the Saengseonjeon (pan-fried fish fillets coated in egg and flour) and kimbap (seaweed wrapped around rice, vegetables, and fishcake.) They’ve also got grab-and-go options including prepared kimchi pancakes, fried dumplings, pork cutlets, grilled fish, japchae glass noodles, and hearty soups like kimchi-jjigae and doenjang-jjigae (fermented soybean stew.) There’s also a refrigerator full of banchan side dishes like seasoned soybean sprouts, spicy cucumbers, stir-fried squash, and potato salad.

For dessert, we’ll always bring home some red-bean paste-filled sesame balls, or some Dokil German Bakery pastries. Of course there’s also all those boxes of Choco Pies and Butter Coconut Biscuits in the cabinet, which we’re still eating our way through.

Gourmanoff International Food Market (Encino)

Gourmanoff's Russian offerings.

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Josh Heller

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LAist

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When our kids are with their grandparents my wife and I get a date night out. Sometimes for us that just means checking out new grocery stores together without our children. It’s romantic, I assure you. One night recently we ended up at Gourmanoff, a gourmet Russian market in Encino. We checked out their collection of cookies, and teas. We perused their frozen pelmeni dumplings, smoked salmon case, imported Czech cakes, Italian patnettones, French butters, fancy mustards, and jars of caviar. That night we had just eaten, though, so we ended up just leaving with just a Dubai chocolate bar.

If you happen to feel a bit hungrier you can get a full plate of Eastern European dishes. Stuffed cabbages, chicken kotleti, pilafs, buckwheat kasha, duck legs, and grilled fish. You can take home containers of chicken noodle soup or borscht. If you need a quick bite you can pick up a Georgian khinkhali dumpling, creamy cheese blintzes, a beef samsa hand pie, or a fried potato pirozkh bun. They’ve also got an impressive lineup of signature sandwiches like the Maestro (hot pastrami, munster cheese, sauerkraut) or the South Beach (chicken schnitzel, grilled eggplant spread, havarti cheese) both served on Dutch Crunch bread. I’m pretty sure we’re going to get both, next time my wife and I have a night out on the town.

Gelson’s (various locations)

 My family has been shopping at the Gelson’s since I was a kid. I loved going with my mom because I got to have a say in what we would eat at home. If I was lucky, after the staples she'd let us hit the salad bar — and maybe, just maybe, the macaroni & cheese from the service deli

Over the years, Gelson’s has “home-cooked” our family passover dinners, birthdays, and Saint Patrick’s day. (They put together a nice corned beef and cabbage spread.)

Sometimes it's just an easy family meal — bring the kids to the counter and let them build a hodgepodge of chicken tenders, potato wedges, and slices of Wolfgang Puck pizza. My wife will always get the tuna salad, which she swears is the best in L.A. Me, I go straight for the pre-boxed Spago-inspired Chinois Chicken Salad and a demi baguette. Their chicken noodle soup and vegetarian chili are worth a mention too.

Every birthday cake in my wife’s family is catered by the in-house bakery, Mamolo’s Fine Pastries. We’ve eaten every cake they make, but are still working our way through the pastry case. Our family favorites are probably the fruit tart and Princess cake. If you’re not in the mood to bring home an entire cake, the rugelach and alligator pastry are always a winner.

99 Ranch Market (Van Nuys)

99 Ranch Market. It’s totally okay to eat that shrimp shumai in the parking lot.

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Josh Heller

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I’m often in this parking lot at the corner of Sepulveda and Victory slurping down lunch at Pho So 1, getting a boba (sweetened 25%) at Ding Tea or trying to figure out how many friends I’d need to eat that whole barbecued duck at Sam Woo Village.

This plaza is also home to 99 Ranch Market, the largest Chinese supermarket chain in the United States. The San Fernando Valley is not the San Gabriel Valley — this Van Nuys branch may be your only option for Chinese groceries in the region.

The shelves are stocked with fish sauces, mulberry vinegar, Indonesian curry packets, agar agar powder, braised abalone with shiitake mushrooms, and at least seven brands of canned quail eggs. The seafood counter has live fish and crab aquariums; the freezer section stocks hot pot staples like fishcakes and lobster balls.

Hungry now? Head to the back for hot food — Chinese American combo plates with orange chicken and chow mein, dim sum-style shrimp shumai, chicken rolls, and char siu buns, plus braised pork belly bowls served with pickled mustard greens and hard-boiled eggs. Up front, an 85 Degrees-style bakery turns out croissants, red bean buns, and roll cakes.

It’s totally OK to eat that shrimp shumai in the parking lot, but don’t go too far, because you might want to get another one.

Jon’s International Marketplace (various locations)

Get a range of international foods at Jons.

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Josh Heller

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LAist

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I’m a fan of Jon’s, the grocery chain that originally opened in 1977 out of an old Von’s and has grown to 13 Southern California locations, half of them in the San Fernando Valley. It's a full-service supermarket with national chain staples and international products. The kind of place where you can buy Armenian basturma, Ukrainian banana-flavored Minions-branded chocolate, boxes of Guatemalan chao mein, Colombian soft drinks, and Salvadoran sour creams. It’s also a goldmine for after shopping bites.

At every location, you can buy their deli-packed dolmas, hummus, babaganoush, gigante beans, purple sauerkraut, and some farmer’s cheese or Bulgarian feta. All of these side dishes pair perfectly with matnakash, Armenian fingerbread, which you can easily eat a whole loaf of in the parking lot. Jon also sells warm Mexican-style tamales chicken, beef, and sweet corn tamales that are pretty tasty.

The Reseda and Van Nuys Sepulveda locations also have the micro-chain of Sasoun Bakery in the store. There you order Armenian pastries like beorek triangles, meaty lahmajune, za’atar-laced maneishe, and tahini bread. The Jon’s on Sepulveda also has a Market Grill, a hot food line serving Iranian stews and kabobs alongside enchiladas and Hawaiian chicken. I recently had a hearty bowl of lentil soup with a piece of sangak flatbread straight out of the oven.

For dessert, there’s bread pudding and sugar cookies from pan dulce cases or some of the sweet cakes and baklavas made by Lilit bakery. Or since it’s a grocery store, you also have the option to hit the freezer section for your favorite brand of ice cream.

Island Pacific Seafood Market (Granada Hills, Canoga Park)

This plaza in Granada Hills is stacked with dining options, like the Lebanese flatbread shop, the Italian delicatessen, and Island Pacific, a Filipino-American grocery chain. There are currently two locations in the San Fernando Valley in Granada Hills and Canoga Park. The mid-sized grocery store has a large meat and seafood counter in the back, with whole fish on ice. There are so many types of Filipino chips, condiments like banana ketchup, and several flavors of SPAM I’ve never seen before, plus they have that viral mango ice cream.

For an easy dinner, head to the food court at the front of the store. Of course, there’s a branch of Max’s Restaurant, the fried chicken chain founded in 1945 in Quezon City, and a San Honore Panaderia, which features various Pinoy pastries like ensaymadas, hopia, bibingka, ube cheese rolls, and steamed buns. But the main hot food line is called PhilHouse.

It’s stacked with items like barbecued skewers, deep-fried crispy pork pata and lechon kawaii, grilled pompano and tilapia, and chicken inasal, a cooked wing and breast that’ve been marinated in vinegar, calamansi and annatto. You can eat this a la carte or, as a combo meal served with rice or pancit, or as a family package. For a quick bite you can get the viral Ilocos empanada, a bright orange deep-fried hand pie filled with ground beef (though it is often made with logganisa), shredded papaya, mung beans, and a fried egg, to be dipped in a vinegar sauce. You’ll probably also need something sweet, so don’t sleep on theturon crispy fried caramelized banana lumpia. Simply delicious.