I have lived in Panama for 5 years and never visited the Asian grocery stores here. I didn't even know they existed until recently. Yesterday, I went to David with some friends who were very excited to visit the grocery stores.
Sadly I forgot to take good photos while I was there of the actual shop! I will have to do that next time, but I'll explain it to you as best I can.
You walk in and are greeted with a dark little cramped shop filled with office supplies. There is a friendly Chinese cashier right by the door, a lady in her 20s, I would say, who speaks Spanish and Chinese.
To the left, you can see the freezer/refrigerator section of the store. They had rows of other items on the shelf and in the back there is another section with a lot of oils and flavorings. You can also find packaged noodles back there.
I am not really into Asian cooking, but my friends really were! They were ooooing and aaaahhing about a lot of items that were available there. They bought seaweed packages in three flavors - BBQ, original, and spicy. I tried one in the car, but they were too fishy for me! Ha! They also bought fresh items like bok choy, peas, and bean sprouts.
I ended up getting some Sriracha sauce and some spicy garlic paste for my husband. He likes to make his lunch extra spicy! I have this new Korean Ground Beef recipe that I make that calls for sesame oil, so I got some of it as well. I also bought some treats for the kids to try.
I let them try them this morning. They first tried the Haw Flakes. I asked the lady what they were because I thought they would be hard candies. She told me they were sweet cookies. The kids were mixed on their reactions to this - some liked them and some did not think they were amazing.
I also got some ginger candies because my friends said they were amazing. I tried one in the car and thought it was kind of spicy! The kids agreed this morning that they were spicy. One of my kids said that he didn't like it at all, but most of the rest of them did.
I also got them what looked like a tube of chocolate covered grapes. The kids said it was a raisin in the middle they think. No idea since we don't read Chinese! They were on sale, so that was the reason I thought we should give them a try! These were their favorite treat!
It was interesting to not know what most of the stuff in the store was since many of the labels did not have English! It was fun to go shopping at a new place in David. It was interesting to see my friends react to it and have the kids try some new treats as well! I hear there are 3 Chinese grocery stores in town, but we only found 2 yesterday!
What is something I should look for to try next time I am there?
šļø #MarketFriday by @dswigle. šø