B.I.G.

This past weekend our biggest adventure was finding a new grocery store…sad I know, but it’s true!  Living away from the States, where we are spoiled with Harris Teeter, Whole Foods, Target and Walmart, we realized how much we took the ease and availability of clean, well stocked, fresh places to buy food for granted.  Now I can’t knock our local Hock Choon or Ampang Grocers, which have been dear to our hearts while in KL and have provided us with some great food.  But I have to say, B.I.G. or Ben’s Independent Grocer, is by far the nicest grocery store I have seen here in KL.  Take a look below.  It’s amazing how the little things that I used to not even think twice about now bring me the biggest excitement and happiness…like when you find Paul Newman salad dressing and Jiffy corn muffins!

Walking in the store, the fruit and vegetable section was quite impressive.  Here, we watched as a Chinese man examined the bottom of this lettuce as it was growing right in the store!

Any fruit you can imagine seems available here…from mangos to pineapples to the more unusual fruits, like starfruit and dragon fruit (stay tuned for next week’s post on exotic fruit tasting in Malaysia!)

Finding big potatoes in Malaysia is a luxury…and if you find one, you better grab it because it will probably be the last time you find one, especially U.S. Russet potatoes.  But not at B.I.G.!  They offered a selection of so many U.S. potatoes that I had to force myself to stop filling up the plastic veggie bag before it broke.

B.I.G. also had a huge selection of fresh fish.

Some of our favorite finds…

Some people don’t know this, but Malaysia is a Muslim country.  This means the grocery stores do not sell many non-Halal products, like pork.  If they do, it’s in a separate part of the grocery store, with a separate check-out counter so the Muslim employees do not have to come in contact with the product.  B.I.G. had it’s own “pork section” and some of the prints on the walls, especially the name of their “pork-serving” cafe had us squealing with excitement.

And last but not least, the wine section…check this out!!!  Ahh…

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about life in Malaysia.  Have a great Tuesday and happy grocery shopping!