I have collected people in the US comments where they can find fresh durian in the US. The fresh one is much better than the frozen one. The taste is not much different, but a little bit of its texture and most of its fragrance changes.
Places to find fresh durians in U.S.A.
- I have seen them in Chinatown in Manhattan
- Do you have a china town in Texas somewhere? If you do, go to the produce stores and look. If you don’t see one look in the freezers or ask them. There may be a language barrier but just say Durian fruit to them and see where it takes you. Thai restaurants might also have some access to order them for you. Good Luck and good for you for being adventurous!
- I see whole fresh durian sitting around at all the Vietnamese stores here in Chicago (when it’s in season). Of course, it may be, as someone else suggested, that it’s flown in unripened. Has the entire football-sized fruit been frozen and then thawed? I find that unlikely. I do see a lot of frozen durian, but it’s been peeled, sliced and packaged, and kept in the freezer section of the same stores that sell it fresh.
- When I lived in St. Louis about 5 years ago I saw durian often in my Asian grocery store. I didn’t know anything about their “reputation” then, but admired the look of them. They were just sitting in a big basket covered with a sort of netting. I even priced them once. I would have gotten quite a surprise, I guess.
- You can find it fresh at some Vietnamese markets in Westminster, or Garden Grove, California almost all year round. If you live in NY, you may , with luck, find the fresh ones at China Town, NY city in summer time. However, it is risky to choose a durian, you may get the bad one, which doesn’t reach its full ripeness. And they look all the same. Hard to choose, huh?.
- We’ve got it in New York. Fresh Durian – spikey exterior and all. Asian markets mostly. About .99c/pound. I weighed some once. Five pounds on the average. One fresh Durian in NYC (Bronx, specifically) is about five dollars. One of the girls at the store is from Malaysia said she doesn’t understand why Americans think the Durian smells like ‘cat poop’. The answer is … ‘because it does’. LOL.
- I see Durian almost eveywhere in Manhattan’s Chinatown in its season. I also have seen it in some other places in my life including back when I was in Colledge in Ithaca at the local Tops food (I guess between Ithaca Colledge and Cornell, they had a big enough Asian and other “Durian loving” population to make carrying it at the basic supermarket viable.
- I have seen these in Vietnamese supermarkets here in Southern California. I have been told (so this could just be conjecture) that is imported from Mexico and the variety is not as tasty. It is a more expensive than the frozen fruit which is also sort of hit-or-miss in terms of quality. But if you get it when it is fully ripe it is really great stuff. Creamy, sweet, and pungent.
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