If you're going for seafood, don't let the short old guy with a cap pick anything for you. If you take his advice or the crabs he chooses, you're guaranteed to wind up paying the most for the lowest quality ones. I went to buy in-shell scallops and he said to "pick the heaviest ones, they have more meat" but what he really means is they're packed with sand. Funny enough, he didn't try giving me this advice the next time I went to buy and looked in the crack to see if they're full of sand. Also went to buy female blue crabs and he wanted to choose them, he spent like 5 minutes digging through the bucket and 5/6 of the crabs were totally empty inside (you can feel if they're hefty when picking). No idea why customers aren't allowed to pick their own crabs but he can dig and dig and throw them around. I'm familiar with picking seafood and gave him the benefit of the doubt two separate times before I realized he's trying to sell off the worst products and that benefit of the doubt is undeserved. He got an attitude real quick when I told him I'd like to grab my own blue crabs so I left. Spend your money elsewhere. read more

C.T. Seafood Mart Corp - Don't let the guy in the white coat pick your seafood - Seafood Markets Near Me - New York, New York

I visited this market at 249 Grand Street in Chinatown, NYC. They have a large assortment of fresh and frozen seafood like crawfish, crabs, conch, scallops, tide fish, snapper, salmon, snails, oysters etc. I think they also have a meat section but didn't have the time to visit it. I plan on making a Liberian palm butter sauce with a new twist by only using seafood rather than the traditional mixture of a bit of shrimp and fish mixed with chicken, beef and pork. There is a nice and helpful man who you tell what you want and he puts your seafood in a bag and prices it for you before you pay at the cash register. read more

I didn't know that's what lychees were!! Thumbs up for the delicious sample. Now I'm hooked on the juiciness of the fruit here. Also got a pound of fresh raw tuna which I'm more than excited to finally get. I've been looking for a nice fresh tuna steak. Sure, you can find waaaay cheaper prices if you hunt a bit at other stores, but why compromise if what you want is flavor?! read more

Oh this open market is a gem for fruit. With a handful of cash, these are the fruits I splurge on--that are hardly a "splurge" because they're so reasonably priced: - $5 boxes of jackfruit. Already prepared and separated for you. This was literally $15 for the same fruit at some other durian/jackfruit stand on Hester. - Muscat Italian grapes - Longan - Peaches Easily located next to the subway entrance/exit. read more

C.T. Seafood Mart Corp - Jackfruit during the summer, only $5 and already prepared! - Seafood Markets Near Me - New York, New York

Do not buy seafood there! I bought some scallops, and when I opened the package at home, they gave off a pronounced chemical odor and looked unnaturally tubular and large: I strongly suspect they were surimi (reconstituted fish meal), not real scallops. In cooking, they gave off a tremendous amount of liquid and shrunk to a quarter of their original size. When I tested one for doneness, the taste was chemical (like the smell) and the texture was stringy and rubbery. I threw them away. read more

I visited today and the fish was not fresh. I tried calling soon as I got home. So disappointed, I will no longer buy fish at this market.. read more

This is my go-to spot for fresh fruit and veggies. It's conveniently located next to the Grand Street Subway Station (B/D) and just a bus ride (M15/M15-SBS) away from FiDi. I usually shop at Trader Joe's for bananas, diary, and frozen food items but I come to C.T. for everything else because you just can't beat the price! I also enjoy the street market shopping experience where you can pick your own produce and the staff weighs, bags, and charges you for it. You are in Chinatown and it's nice to have a change of scenery every once in awhile. P.S. Bring cash! read more

Relatively clean for a Chinatown retail operation. I came here to get sea scallops and jumbo shrimp. I absolutely recommend buying the jumbo shrimp from here. They were GREAT shrimp. Very firm and very fresh. Not super jumbo, but definitely big enough for the pasta dish that I cooked it for. Now, the sea scallops are a different story. They weren't terrible or even bad, but when I bought them at the store they looked enormous! I was thinking, wow, these are such big scallops, how wonderful. For half a pound there were about 6 giant scallops. The problem came when I started to cook them. Based on how they cook, they had obviously been stored in some sort of water or saline solution prior to being on display, because once I started to cook them sooooooo much water came out from them and they shrank by a lot! Meaning, I paid for mostly water. They were $8.99/pound which was a great price, but considering the fact that most of the weight is water, it isn't so great. It took longer to cook them because during the first 5 minutes of cooking they were just losing water, shrinking and not browning at all. For the future, I would just come here to buy shrimp, not scallops. I've never bought fish from Chinatown, though - still iffy on that, especially due to the recent skin disease outbreak in fish in Chinatown! Shrimp = 5/5 stars Scallops = 1.5/5 stars read more

C.T. Seafood Mart Corp - Shrimp and fish prices. All look pretty fresh, too. - Seafood Markets Near Me - New York, New York

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I really like Ocean Star. You get out of the Grand St. Station, and BAM! You smell Ocean Star right away because it's the closest one off the steps of the station. Very reasonable prices, I went for tuna ($7.99/lb.) and some sauces, which were nearly half the price of the same sauces at a grocery store. Any time I need some tuna or salmon, I'm heading to Ocean Star. read more

C.T. Seafood Mart Corp - Seafood Markets Near Me - New York, New York

Shopping for fish in Chinatown may be a dizzying game. I used to be skeptical. Then Ocean Star won my heart. Ocean Star is a sunny corner shop and the perfect spot to buy fresh and inexpensive tuna, salmon, flounder and whole red snapper. They also have a meat section, but I wouldn't venture that far. Better focus on the shellfish area, which is well-organized and overflowing with mussels, clams, huge sea scallops, belize conch, crawfish and live blue crabs. They also sell dumpling wrappers ($1.40 each package). Stuff them with shrimp and spinach and just pretend you're eating microtacos... read more

This is one of many fish markets in the area. It's fun to watch the tourists hold their noses as they walk by the rankest of them. Thankfully, Ocean Star is not at all rank - it's one of the best of the bunch. This is where I go to when I'm of a mind to buy some fish. Their fish is fresh and the prices are good. Service is brusque, but not unfriendly. Their English might not be perfect, but that's never gotten in the way of my transactions here. The woman at the cash register never fails to offer a pleasantry while handing me my change. This is the kind of place where you can observe one fishmonger yelling in Chinese while tossing a bag of fish to another, who catches it with one hand without spilling a drop of the tea he's sipping. Another day you might see one fishmonger chasing an escaped live crab down the sidewalk with a pair of kitchen thongs. In addition to a wide variety of seafood they also sell Chinese vegetables out of a sidewalk stall attached to the shop. There are better produce stalls close by, but what they have is fine if you need a bitter melon or some Chinese eggplant. If you've been leery about shopping for fish in Chinatown because some of the fish markets there seem a little dicey, Ocean Star could help you get over that. Steel your resolve when heading here - this corner of Grand Street is often mobbed! read more

Great spot to come for some select items, specifically fish, as their fish is cheaper than most places in the NY area...when the Fulton Fish Market was still downtown I'm sure, being a couple blocks away, the fish was as fresh as you can get, and it still is pretty fresh, but I vouch for the mussels/shell fish. Conveniently located steps from the Grand St B/D stop, I frequently come down during my lunch break to grab a bag of mussels to make with my seafood dishes. They have fish in tanks that you literally pick and they kill it right in front of you, so can't get any fresher than that. However, I always check the bag of mussels before I buy them to make sure there's no dead (opened) ones in there. The rest of the fish looks good and the people working in there seem pretty helpful, even with the language/culture barrier. It still is, however, the kind of place you wanna grab what you need and head out. And I would still be cautious when buying fish there, and any of those spots along Grand St, make sure you check the way they store the fish (ie make sure they're keeping all the fish covered in ice, preferably covered from flies that can naturally come in the store) and check each piece you plan to purchase, as I did get the runs once after getting salmon from one of these spots. read more

I just wanted to point out that this place has changed its name, and possibly management, and is now known as GS Food Market. Just as good as ever. read more

This is where I will be getting all my seafood from now on. Previously i would shop at Whole Foods or Fairway and hope for a sale. Now I can just travel a little further south and get fresh fish for so much cheaper. At $7 a lb for some very active and delicious lobsters, you can't go wrong. They even have Maryland Blue Crabs! read more

They are OPEN AGAIN! Went down to Chinatown for some bubble tea and saw them newly renovated, still selling fish and fruit,the owner fixed up a lot which is great because place wasn't the best looking before, read more

Ocean Star is nothing short of amazing. The seafood is consistently fresh & inexpensive. I always go out of my way to come here to get great seafood. I know nothing else in the area. They've won my heart. To say this is my favorite fish store in Chinatown is an understatement. They are the matriarchs, and patriarchs of seafood for me. Been going for years. read more

If you re looking for a Fresh Salmon filet for Xmas time and don t want to spend a heavy ton of money at Wholefoods ($15.99/lb) , Ocean Star has fresh salmon filet for at $7.40/lb! read more

This place is legit! Friendly, helpful and attentive staff, excellent prices.. My Cinco Ceviche was killer. I bought double the amount I normally get at whole Foods and still cost less. I'll have ceviche all Summer long! Woo hoo read more

my spot for blue crab. its worth the buy... paid $4+ for 6 live crabs. They also had LIVE fish Fresh shrimp, frozen shrimp, shellfish, and more. It's definitely worth the visit. Even with the horrid smell of Chinatown, it's still worth the trek through the funky smells on the street. Will be back for more live crab(although it's a pain in the a** to clean.) read more

Its an okay market it not what everyone makes it out to be. An to be one of several markets in chinatown its a little pricey .But all in all its decent enough to buy fresh seafood from if you're not looking for anything exciting read more