On any given day, hundreds of people walk into the new H Mart in Dublin to grab trendy Buldak noodles in pink packaging, honey butter chips or seaweed tempura.
H Mart is emblematic of the new kinds of anchor tenants arriving throughout East Bay suburbs defined by strip malls, chain grocery stores and sprawling parking lots: popular Asian supermarkets.
By the end of the year, at least three major Asian grocery stores will have opened in the East Bay and a fourth flagship store is set to break ground — an economic boon and an occasional cultural flashpoint, with some long-time residents wary of change even as other residents embrace these new services and stores. The excitement and tension reflect a rapid demographic transformation across the East Bay, similar to what communities saw in Silicon Valley amid the explosion of the tech industry in the 1980s and 1990s, as Chinese and Indian workers flocked to the South Bay. Asian residents in the East Bay now make up some of the fastest-growing populations in California — and the rise of Asian communities has helped fuel retailers’ optimism about expanding in the area…