I just had my first mangosteen and I'm in love. Where can I find this wonderful fruit around here? Anybody spotted them for sale, or should I starting trolling/begging the local Thai restaurants?

I think it might be only the start of the season in Thailand, but occasionally you can find them in Asian markets (these are frequently the illegal ones). The only legal ones are the Thai ones which are allegedly only showing up in places like Dean & DeLuca according to the guy I talked to from the Thai Embassy. The prices border on obscene, unfortunately.

You can find freeze-dried mangosteens at Trader Joe's. Not the same thing, but the flavor is still pretty delicious.

Thanks, I may have to look into (i.e., haunt) all those tips. I'm seriously considering going out to Thai again tomorrow to get another mangosteen. It was ridiculously good.

What's the scale on the obscene price, by the way? Obscene for fruit? Good chocolate? Truffles?

Approx. $45/lb. At those prices, it might be worth going to Canada, where all the imported ones are legal (due to the cooler temps) and buying tons. Although actually there may be some Puerto Rican ones around.

I got hooked on the damn things in Bali (where they give them away like mints on pillows) and went to Bangkok 54 tonight for their Thai New Year/Embassy Restaurant week thing, in which mangosteens were being given away. Unfortunately, they were out. I looked so sad that the waitress thought something had been wrong with the food. We did have an interesting varietal of mango, though, tasted almost melon-like.

I've seen mangosteen at Wegmans, where I believe it worked out to about $8 a fruit. They're worth it, but right now I'm still in the "resenting having a price accurately placed on desire" phase. The freeze dried ones from trader joes will hold me over.

Rabeing and Born (in Vienna) are out, too. Very sad

YES! They've introduced them and created a demand, so now can sit back and grin evilly like Mr. Burns. Unfortunately, they are right, because the mangosteen are delicious and fresh! and new! and now I waaaant it. So Wegmans and D&D it is. I'll have to try and find the dried ones at my TJs, too - I've never noticed them before. Oh, and put Bali, Thailand, and Canada on my travel list...

I got some at the pentagon city harris teeter yesterday, a pack of 4 for $10. unfortunately the 2 i had really weren't great. the inner sections were beginning to brown, and they just tasted sort of sweet and close to spoiling, none of that fabulous sweet/tart flavor. I'm really hoping the other two are better.

i will say that these were clearly sort of old--their skins were hard to cut-so i wonder how long they'd been at the store. maybe if i got them the day the delivery came in they'd be better?

Or it might not. Our annual visit to Montréal's Marché Jean-Talon suggests that while mangosteens are readily available there, the quality hasn't been very good even in June, which should be the height of mangosteen season. And they weren't inexpensive, even when the Canadian dollar wasn't close to parity.

I tried them, but can't really get past the freeze driedness. I think so much to the mangosteen is the custardy texture and maybe could have gotten into a dried fruit, but the crispy crunchy is a bit much. The flavor translates spot on, though, and the dried nut is neat. Maybe a candy would be good?

According to NYT, the price is down to about $10/lb.

Found them frozen at the Great Wall.

What's the texture like after they've been frozen?

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that question as I've never had on previously frozen.

FWIW, this year's Montreal run yielded about the same results as before: very thick husks, and mostly poor fruit inside. Meh.

Not very good - not much moisture or juicy goodness like you'd get from a fresh mangosteen. I was really excited to find frozen ones at Grand Mart last year, but won't waste my money again. Better to save it for a trip to Bali where you can get them fresh along with other exotic (for us) fruits like rambutan, snake fruit (salak), lychee, etc

They were available at the Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan yesterday.

I saw fresh mangosteens at the El Grande Asian/Hispanic market this past weekend. Unfortunately, they were shelf-tagged by the other name on the bag of fruit, which made sales a little slow. I am not making this up. “QUARANTINE FRUIT”.

Believe it or not, the Harris Teeter at Ballston had them last week. I tried them out of curiousity. Delicious.

Fresh for 7.99 a bag and canned in syrup at Great Wall market.

This may not be a problem for a while, as turnover on mangosteens is probably pretty high in the states, but I currently have access to bins and bins of them overseas and I'm finding that some are better (fruit not hard or shriveled, easier to peel) than others. If you can't press the flower-shaped bit on the bottom in with your thumb slightly, I would pass on it.

The best way to open them, as demonstrated by numerous Filipino staff, is to twist off the top stem, press in the bottom flower-area, and then squeeze the sides in both hands. This will cause a ripe one to split in various places and get you the fruit. If done incorrectly, the fruit flies across the room. Try to make a game of it.

The older the mangosteen gets, the harder it is to split it in that manner and you have to resort to tools, i.e. butter knife, entrenching tool, or kukhri.