A Trip to Tesco

Rock Sugar

My first several trips to grocery stores here in Lumut have reinforced just how little I know about food. While walking up and down the long, superstore/Wal-Mart/Cosco length aisles in yesterday's trip to Tesco (a Chinese brand) I recognize less than 50% of the "edible"- debatable in my opinion - products for sale in the store.





Here are some things I'd never seen before:

Coconut Sugar

Coconut Sugar - Shaped like a brown tin can
Rock Sugar - looks like Hope Diamonds
Fresh Lychees - Chinese fruit that symbolizes romance and love
Aisles of dried fish and mushrooms
Aisles of Ramon-type noodles - The dried carrot flavor really caught my attention
Chicken and fish pieces tossed on top of ice and available self-serve like the produce section
Children touching every fish and chicken piece with their bare hands
Packages of whole cut-up chicken complete with the head and the feet
One tennis-court length aisle devoted only to Chinese infant formula

Here are some things that surprised me:

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
Haagen Das Ice Cream
Special K breakfast bars
A separate enclosed room called Halal Meat - It surprised me because it was filled with only pork products. If you do a quick Wiki search you'll understand why I wasn't sure if the name of this room  was an example of "irony", an "oxymoron", or "translation" problem.

And here is a picture of a Malay vegetable:

It smells nice and sweet like a flower and the root ends look like chives but I have no idea how it is used or prepared. The translated label "Fresh Vegetable" wrapped around the bunch is not helpful.

I know I need a personal guide for navigating the store and a teacher to show me how to use what I purchase. In the meantime - I'm hungry!