ReNe: rojak and pineapple tarts

Back in Singapore, I thought it was pretty easy to buy Asian food and groceries, even those that are not Chinese, Malay or Indian. We shopped at Japanese supermarkets and thought they had good selections. The wet market was 5 mins from our flat. That was in Singapore. 'Crossroads of Asia' or something like that.

Here in Toronto, it's even easier. Living so close to Chinatown and Koreatown, we often go to Asian-focused stores to buy groceries. Compared to Singapore, the range of Japanese and Korean foodstuffs here is much wider, especially Korean, and often cheaper. We're also impressed by the selection of Chinese foodstuffs. The grocers in C-town even smell authentic, that is to say they stink familiarly. (That's not really a compliment...)

I might have commented before that groceries here in North America is usually cheaper than Singapore (stuff is really cheap in St Louis, and even in Toronto, not as pricey as I feared), and that is probably because a lot of the produce are grown locally (within the same country, if not the same state). To that observation, I can add Asian groceries, which is odd because a lot are imported. Interestingly, Asian foodstuffs that are made on this side of the world have an interesting tendency to be either made in the local C-town or K-town, or California...

That said, there are things we miss. South-east Asian stuff is hard to come by. Spring rolls (fried or fresh) are so common but not popiah. Or rojak. Or pineapple tarts. Mike would probably say or-jian.