New York City-based Teso Life Asian Department Store opened its first Maryland location in Rockville in November. The store, in The Shops at Congressional Village shopping center, is a wonderland of things I didn’t need but had to have. The shelves are full of mostly Asian, especially Japanese, goods, including housewares, beauty products, toys, stationery, school supplies and frozen and packaged food items, heavy on snacks and candy.
Here are 10 tasty items that captivated me at Teso Life:
Akai Bohshi brand Kukkia sandwich cookies ($7.99 for a 12-pack of four flavors) from Japan: a thin cookie on one side, a thin wafer on the other, sandwiching four cream fillings: milk chocolate, strawberry, dark chocolate and green tea.
Masako Morishita, the James Beard Award-winning chef from Perry’s restaurant in D.C., tipped me off to Calbee-brand snacks from China, especially seaweed and salt potato chips ($2.69) and umami seaweed potato sticks ($2.29).
Buldak-brand chicken-flavor microwave topokki ($5.49) from South Korea. Chewy Korean rice cakes come in a microwaveable bowl with an ultra-spicy sauce packet. Mix with water, microwave for 2½ minutes and, voilà, a delicious afternoon treat.
Kracie-brand Popin’Cookin’ DIY no-bake candy food kits for kids ($5.99) from Japan. Follow clear instructions to mix different colored fruit-flavored powders with water to make gels that go into the plastic molds to form components to assemble into various familiar foods. One kit makes a sushi assortment with faux tuna, salmon roe, Japanese omelet, rice, nori and soy sauce; another makes two cheeseburgers with fries, ketchup and cola. “So cute and so fun,” the label promises—and delivers. Adults will enjoy these as much as the young children they’re meant for.
Kasugai-brand (Japan) muscat gummy candies ($2.99), individually wrapped, that truly taste like muscat grapes.
Meiji-brand Chocorooms ($5.79) from Japan, adorable cookies that look like mushrooms, with animal-cracker-like stems and caps made with layers of milk and dark chocolate. “Yum Fun. For everyone!” the label says, correctly. They are irresistible.
Otafuku-brand frozen seafood (shrimp and squid) okonomiyaki ($5.79), the delicious savory Japanese cabbage pancake, which can be microwaved or pan-fried. Comes with Japanese barbecue sauce, bonito flakes and green seaweed powder.
Maeda-en-brand (a U.S. company with Japanese roots founded in 1984) roasted black sesame (kurogama) ice cream ($4.99).
Japanese Lay’s potato chips in sleeves, like Pringle’s, in various flavors, such as Spanish ham, finger licking braised pork, cucumber, tomato, seaweed, and scallion pancake ($2.99 to $3.99).
Orange-brand (Japan) individually packaged frozen slices of multilayered crepe cake filled with vanilla cream ($3.79).
Teso Life,1701 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 240-669-8571, tesolife.com/en
This appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
