Our Town is a little out of the way. In the sense that it takes us half an hour to get anywhere half way useful. You know, to places like a Westpac Bank branch, or a shopping centre, or a Safeway ... oh wait, everywhere else it's called Woolworths ... that has halfway decent stock lines, compared to our glorified milk bar of a supermarket. Now we don't mind this out-of-the-way life, because it is quiet and peaceful and our air is crisp and clean and fresh smelling. But when it comes to finding speciality things we have to drive a ways. On Monday Miss Sunshine and I did just that.
I have always loved Asian grocery stores. They are such an adventure with shelves filled with exotic ingredients that are somewhat unfamiliar. And other things we haven't had in years because in our very Anglo area we just can't get things we'd love to have more often. On Monday we really went in search of Asian green tea, having discovered that I actually like the Asian version. We came home with green tea, green jasmine tea and oolong tea (because oolong is always our favourite chinese tea). And as we wandered the aisles we found other things we thought might be worth trying. The other thing we noticed is that with many things the Asian grocers are cheap. And I mean CHEAP.
Take the above pictured star anise and cinnamon quills. These were $1.49 each...which means $1.50 because we no longer of have 1c pieces here. But still. A buck and a bit for my 50g of cinnamon. In Safeway....errrr.... Woolworths (OK, don'tjudge me here...we still have Safeway, the sign on the outside of the stores says so) these little treasures cost $3.39 for just 12g. Which is why I never buy them - highway robbery!
So as well as the tea leaves I also bought star anise, cinnamon, dried chillis and curry leaves (among many other things!). Because if you go somewhere and eat something you think you just can't live without eating again soon you get online and find a recipe. Dh and I adore curry and we had some beautiful curries while we were in Malaysia and I have found a recipe for a Malaysian chicken curry that I desperately want to try. With roti bread.
I'll let you know how that goes. If I'm doing really well I'll remember to take photos!
In the meantime, check out an Asian grocery store for spices that does not make you feel like you have to open a vein to pay for it.
3 comments:
I love them too! But I have to wait until we go to Melbourne to visit family as there are none that I know of around us.
And I still call it either Safeway or Woolies - same thing!
I have two Indian stores that I visit when I go to Adelaide. Crazy cheap prices!
I wonder why you have Safeway and not Woolworths? We live in a small town and have Woolworths. The inside of the store was refurbished to match the new logo but we retained the old signage outside. Weird!
A Malaysian curry is what is needed in this cold weather!
Oh, I would love to know where those Indian shops are in Adelaide!
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