So today was one of the rare days I am off from any kind of duty (wether it be college or work) so I decided to spend the day visiting the surroundings because even if it has been nearly 15 years I've lived in the same city I never really bothered looking around to see what's up.
About 20 minutes from my house there's a city that is very multicultural. In fact, it's almost a running gag to claim the city itself is a "China Town" because it's literally overrun by asians. But there's indians muslims and whatsoever there, you name it there's a great chance you'll find it.
So I started driving around and from afar saw Kim Phat. I'm like lolwut and decided to check out what it was. Obviously from outside I could see it was some kind of grocery store/market because well, people were coming out with bags and there were grocery baskets scattered around the premises.
Anyways, I enter and I'm greeted by some kind of recording machine who tells me "Hi welcome to Kim Phat Superstore" in like 10 languages. I'm kinda stunned, wondering what the hell just happened while a cute japenese couple stared at me almost laughing because I was obviously a noob. I was kinda wierded out when I noticed the god damn thing was still greeting me even if I was 30 feet away.
As I walk by the alleys I'm really fucking amazed. This ain't no asian market every ramen blog talks about, it's an actual grocery store with a fruit section, fresh fish and meat, and an actual bakery which let out an awesome smell.
I figured I might as well buy something 'cause this doesn't happen everyday, and teamliquid instantly pops to mind. SHIN RAMYUN SHIN RAMYUN SHIN RAMYUN SHIN RAMYUN SHIN RAMYUN zergs my mind as I slowly search it through the hundreds of choices of Ramen and Udon. A kind-looking middle aged chinese lady approached me and throwing all sorts of questions at me. Armed with my awful mandarin I introduced myself and asked her to speak slowly.
"CHINESE GOOD" she said, "WHAT YOU SEARCH?".
"Shin Ramyun?"
"HMMMM" she pondered. "HAO RAMEN YES?"
"hen hao?"
"hen hao."
She pointed me to the good stuff and before I left she said "SHIN RAMYUN HAO, MY RAMEN HEN HAO". I smiled and walked along trying to look for more of the good stuff.
Before leaving I had to pass by the bakery. Man, so much choice. Tons of cakes that would yell my name if they knew it.
The ironic thing about them is that in Quebec, every in-store made product has to have labels and a list of ingredients in at least French and some places push it to both French and English. However, 1. I was probably the only white guy in the store and 2. the city, while being notorious for it's overpopulations of immigrants, has some english people that come from other provinces of Canada. So all the tags were in French yet I bet those tags are useful to uhh, the 0.01% who come to the store by curiosity.
So TL.net, any Ramen/Udon/cake/whatever suggestions for when I make another trip to that awesome store? :D