Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Most amazing grocery store EVER

I keep messing up and getting lost, going places by mistake and getting totally turned around, but today that actually worked in my favor, because I found the COOLEST grocery store. It's called "99 Ranch Market" and when I pulled in to it, I was thinking it was some lame old Texas family grocery store, you know, with crappy selection and a large selection of white bread and Velveeta, but wow, was I wrong and boy, am I glad. 

99 Ranch Market is, as I found out, a HUGE Asian grocery store, the likes of which I never imagined or conceived of. I used to trawl the Asian grocery stores in Oslo, and thought they were neat, with their cheaper prices, 'exotic' Asian spices, and selection that was slightly outside the usual (in a constrained way), those little Oslo 'immigrant' stores are SO far away from this that it's like comparing a 7-11 to a Costco. Both stores, yes, but other than that, not the same at all. 

For example, they had fresh fish, and by fresh...well, I mean, FRESH. You can pick a fish, a giant prawn, a lobster, whatever, and they will fry or steam if for you right in front of you. (Hopefully after its death.)  

I have never, and I do mean, never, seen so many dumplings, gyoza, pot stickers, egg rolls, spring rolls, steamed buns, dim sum, noodles, meals, soups, and just, anything you can imagine,
in a frozen section. Aisle upon AISLE of delicacies. It was INCREDIBLE. I just wandered
up and down all the rows, exclaiming and grinning like a loon. I felt very Country
Mouse visiting the city. 


The housewares aisle was awesome, I am going back for some of those bowls, though I am wondering how sandals got mixed in with the pots and pans. Maybe to keep the women from being barefoot in the kitchen?  

Can you spot the item that does not belong in this freezer? Sometimes things were a bit random.  Egg roll, lumpia, prawns...and Eggo? Is this a version of chicken and waffles that I don't 
know about? 

Fo'shizzle they gots Beef Pizzle! (I don't think the bull was happy about giving up his pizzle, though his er, pizzle berries were one compartment over. As were his feet. And his tail.) 

I wandered around for the better part of an hour, they have EVERYTHING, including a great fruit and veg section (even with Durian fruit) and a bakery which I hear is great. There is also a 'home' section, which seemed to consist of mainly items aimed at the ladies, during a certain time of the month. And hair dye and more dumplings. Maybe there are dumplings aimed at cravings? I dunno. I'm just trying to figure it out. 

Anyhow, here's what Yelp has to say about this grocery store.   It's interesting, I haven't seen any advertising, I guess they keep it to the Asian communities, and if so, it's the most well kept awesome secret EVER.  Oslo people, you would be stunned into silence at seeing this place. I am, as well, having been here for a month, and having already been to Whole Foods, Central Market and HEB. It's just, well, wow, basically. 

Wow. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are moderated. No spam gets through. Don't try it. I Love comments from real people though! Thanks!