Monaco Market Review: A Fabulous International Snack Destination!

The local family-run business carries treats and snacks from around the world and is located right down the street from Academy.

Lucy ‘29 and Lily ’28

May 18, 2026

Scrolling online, there always seems to be a delicious snack to try. The catch? Just out of reach. Little did you know that in Albuquerque, there’s a local shop that has everything your heart desires! Monaco Market has been in business for four years, and it is not only locally owned and operated but also happens to be a multigenerational family business. They currently have a chokehold on the international snack market in town, carrying over 100 different snacks!

During our visit, we spoke with the owner’s son, Noor. According to him, the Dubai Chocolate craze hit the store hard and it remains as one of the most popular items they carry today. When prompted about the weirdest food in the store, he mentioned the crab and scallop flavored chips from China, where apparently, the seafood-flavored chip market originated. Needless to say, Monaco Market carries anything and everything to make your day better, or at least, more interesting.

Visit for yourself! Monaco Market is located at 4400 Wyoming Blvd NE STE C, Albuquerque, NM 87111 and is open Monday-Sunday from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.

OUR EXPERIENCE

At the Montgomery and Wyoming location, the store was stocked up with international goodies. We bought a plethora of ice cream to try, as well as exotic chips and snacks. The staff was very helpful and recommended many items to us. Here’s our honest review:

ICE CREAM

The many delicious flavors and shapes of ice cream we tried.

You may be familiar with the viral fruit shaped ice creams, and in our opinion, they didn’t disappoint. We tested the strawberry, mango, lychee, lemon, peach, and mini ice cream fruits, each one having a unique and delicious flavor! Here’s how we rated them.

-Strawberry:

The strawberry Ice cream had a nice flavor, it tasted light and fruity and had a soft texture. Overall we rated it a 9.5. Because although it was good it wasn’t particularly special, tasting like any other strawberry ice cream. The Strawberry flavor however would be a perfect sweet for a hot summer day when you want something fruity, cold, and soft having enough satisfactory flavor to not overwhelm you.

-Mango:

The Mango’s flavor had a subtle flavor and a little bit of an artificial mango taste, which wasn’t our favorite but still good tasting sweet and tropical. We rated this one a 6.7. Because although it was good to us it didn’t have enough flavor as the rest and tasted a little more like a white chocolate. However a white chocolate lover with a craving for something with just a bit of mango would absolutely enjoy this.

-Lychee:

The Lychee ice cream had a very powerful flavor of rich tropical notes and fruity flavor. Overall we rated this one a 8.5. Although it’s a really good ice cream giving a perfect fruity taste the flavor isn’t for everyone. However if you love Lychee and want a cold sweet ice cream we would definitely recommend this flavor.

-Peach:

The peach was an almost surprise flavor, coming in a shape almost like a blue flower. Although suppressed we thought it was really good especially with the jammy peach it had in the center. We rated this one a 8.5. Although it was good specifically for us the strawberry tasted better but for people who love something peachy I think it would be a perfect sweet treat.

-Lemon:

The Lemon flavored ice cream was sweet and almost fluffy having a little bit of a zesty taste but overall tasting very subtle. We rated this one 7.5/10. The cute shape of the lemon and the nice light flavor carrying notes of zest tasted perfect for a nice day outside after swimming or anything.

-Mini ice creams:

The mini ice creams were cute and yummy having a thick layer of white chocolate and a nice fruity flavored ice cream underneath. If white chocolate isn’t your vibe, I wouldn’t reach for this one, but since we’re fans of it, it was a solid 8/10!

CHIPS

We tried a multitude of different kinds of chips ranging from sweet to savory. Each one that we tried had a distinct flavor, although sometimes a little curious, was something that we are sure most everyone could enjoy! The chips included cucumber, scallop, Teriyaki, and orangey kumquat flavors. This is what we thought of these unique flavors:

Cucumber:

These chips were light and fresh, reminiscent of a summertime snack. The flavor almost tasted like sea weed in a subtle fresh way. The after taste was crisp and almost toasty. This was one of the favorite flavors of chips that we tried! We rate it a solid 9/10. It’s a perfect chip if you want the fresh taste of something light and fresh but also want a bit of a crunch.

Scallop:

The Scallop flavored chips had a brothy rich flavor. Tasting almost like if a soup had been turned into a chip. It was less fishy than we thought it would be which to us was a pleasant surprise. This flavor was good and if you’re wanting something that tastes strong and warm we definitely recommend these!

Orange/Kumquat:

When we bought this chip, we had no idea what to expect. Citrus, sour, or sweet? We got a mix of it all. But there was a secret flavor that we weren’t expecting: a toasty flavor making it taste almost like orange chicken. Overall we rated this chip an 8.5/10. It was really good and something that we didn’t expect to like as much as we did. This snack is definitely for you if you’re craving a citrus, sweet, orange chicken flavored chip.

OTHER SNACKS

Besides ice creams and chips, there were many other treasures at Monaco Market including candies and a few international savory meals. From these two other food categories we discovered Klinkers, an Australian chocolate candy, and Kimbap, a Korean dish made out of rice, cooked veggies or meat, and wrapped in seaweed. Here is our review on these two treats.

-Clinkers:

You may be familiar with this TikTok-famous Aussie candy, having a chocolate outside and a range of different inside flavors (and colors!) including, raspberry, pineapple, and lime. They had a crisp crunchy texture and a deliciously distinct difference between the different clinker flavors. To us, the raspberry was the best one tasting fruity and chocolatey, almost resembling a TruFru. The other flavors were ok but not something that particularly stood out to us. These candies are also known for being used in a game. In this game people would say that they would do something if they got a certain color of the candy, almost like the throwing pencil trend that went viral on TikTok a few years ago. Overall we rated this candy a 7.5/10. If you enjoy candies like this we definitely recommend it. Especially if you want a sweet treat and game in one.

– Kimbap:

There are many different kinds of this treat that you can get, you can have it filled with meat, vegetables, spice, rice, and wrapped in seaweed. For ours we got spicy vegetables rice and seaweed in a triangle shape, similar to the picture above. We really enjoyed this treat and thought that it lived up to the hype. The seaweed in ours was a little hard to eat so we replaced it with our own store bought seaweed but besides that we rated it a 9/10! It’s a nice warm nutritious snack that’s perfect for regular school days or cold weather.

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Uzair Hammad • May 18, 2026 at 11:40 pm

Just when I thought I knew just about every international foodstuff store in the city…thanks for adding Monaco Market to my list of places to try out. Casablanca Market, although not having quite a prodigious array of snacks, is another local business well worth checking out for more exotic items.


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