Friday 23 September 2011

Simple pleasures

Chinese veg


Living in a foreign country, I always lament about missing all the different varieties of green vegetables. No doubt most are readily available at the Chinese supermarkets, I don't go often enough. I make the trip only when I need my bag of 10kg Thai fragrant rice or the usual condiments. These days, the local supermarkets also stock Choi Sum and Pak Choi but compared to the usual vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, celery etc, they are rather expensive. Two paltry stalks of Pak Choi cost roughly £1.20 (approximately S$2.40).

I'm very happy to announce I'll be serving more of the Chinese vegetables on my dining table from now on. The local supermarket where I buy most of my groceries from had recently undergone a refurbishment. The fresh produce section is pretty impressive. Everything is displayed in such an appealing way - woven baskets (not the old plastic ones), tags displaying country of origin, fresh herb bunches dipped in shallow trays of water for shoppers to pick. Very modern and shall I say more upmarket? Now the thing that got me really excited is they now stock plenty of exotic produce. Besides the vegetables you see above which I just bought today, they also sell lotus roots (my family's favourite ingredient for soup), Chinese chives, Gai Choi, Kailan, bittergourd(!!!), fresh tumeric amongst many other fresh spices, rambutans and whole coconuts. Furthermore, they are not pre-packed. I get to pick what I want and bag them myself. Pretty much like shopping at a wet market except the stall holders at the market bag the items for you.

You do know I'm an obasan if you've been following my blog long enough, don't you?

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