When travelling and living overseas in Mat Salleh countries, the first things that I would look up for from the internet are mosques, halal butchers and eateries. Having an Asian market or an Indian Market is definitely a huge bonus. Most of these small grocers are not listed on the internet, so when we drive around, we either open our eyes big big or open our mouth and asked around - like stopping a hejab wearing lady and asked where she get her halal meat or an Asian looking person for any Asian groceries.
The above Asian market is only about 5 mins drive from our apartment, and it belongs to a family who were originally from Laos. Here you can get your much needed lemon grass for that masak lemak, ginger, garlangal (lengkuas), daun limau purut, kesum and some asian vegetables like kailan and entah apa lagi. They have all types of sauces - soya sauce, fish sauce, teriyaki, dark sauce etc. However they do not import our favourite kicap cap kipas and maggie chilli sauce so that's too bad for us. The chilli sauce are usually sweet. Sometimes, they bring in durians too. But I'm totally not a durian fan.
One thing about going pasar or marketing here, if I really want to get like one month supplies or something, it will be like going on an excursion. It's easier in Singapore or even Malaysia where you just go to the wet market and you can get meat, fish, seafood, vegetables, your rempah-ratus (spices and herbs) all at one place under one roof. For us here, we would have to go to the International Market, which is just opposite our apartment for our halal meat, then the 5 minute drive to Asian Market for the herbs that are so important especially in Malay cooking or other stuffs like mee hoon, kway teow, ikan bilis etc. Drive another 15-20 minutes to Mudbugs should we want to buy fish, prawns, crabs or crawfish. Then another 20 minutes to the Indian Store for things like curry leaves, cili kering (which by the way is not the same), and whatever mama you want, including renting a Bollywood video. Then lastly a trip to Walmart to get your other essentials like eggs, cooking oil, 'western' vegetables, snacks etc.
So the whole morning is spent on 5 different locations just for marketing. I'm not complaining, in fact, it's an adventure in itself going pasar which I only did once in a blue moon back in Singapore.
4 comments:
afzalmom, we in london are also blessed with loads of asian shops and supermarkets so, kata orang mak pak and tok nenek saja yang tak ada.
Anyway, thanks for visiting sentraala nd annti kak teh link kan you kat sana.
I baru je terbaca ur blog.....cerita u abt gi marketing tu mcm sama dgn i.
In germany pun klu me n hubby nak ke pasar utk belanja, we have to go to abt 3 kind of supermarket. For halal meat, for the rempahs and the other grocries. I guess hidup di rantauan ni sama je.
Kak Teh - Thank you, thank you. Esp in ulu place like mine, we are so so grateful for the one and only nearby halal butcher and two asian grocers. Thank u for the link also. :)
Anita - Thanks for dropping by. Mcm gitulah nampaknya hidup di rantauan ni. Adventurekan? Nasib baik you cuma 3 aje. :)
Hehehe.. same same story! Every saturday I have to go round and round for stuffs. There are also a few asian shops located in different streets, and sometimes I may need to vist all of them to get different stuffs - indian shop, vietnamese or chinese. the oil, eggs, milk stuff, must go to supermarket then the halal meat of course which i stock up for a week or more. seafood not so popular or good in this part of germany, so i always end up eating frozen catfish from the asian shop when i needed some seafood. the prawns kat supermarket dorang jual yang dah rebus nyer.. mana sedap kan.. there goes my saturday. it will be doubly difficult if hubby is busy and can't leave till mid afternoon, which means, i have to RUSH to get ALL of the above as shops here closes at 2 or 3pm!
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