Yesterday Joe and I went to the coolest grocery store in the world, by accident. We'd driven out to the burbs (Addison IL) to see The Matrix: Reloaded on an IMAX screen, which was enjoyable though it left me with far too many questions. Anyway, traffic getting out there was bad (surprise, surprise) so we just missed the 3:15 showing and had almost 3 hours to kill. So we walked around in the rain, got some greazy pizza, used an arcade's restroom, and decided to pick up a few necessaries in...DUN DUN DUN...
Food Harbor, apparently one-of-a-kind of that name, has its welcome message in ten languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, and Hindi (if I recall correctly). And it has long aisles devoted solely to those cultures' cuisine. Piles and piles of Indian flours and spices, stacks of Asian noodles, rows of Jarritos and Barrelitos, and fresh fish tanks in the bank full of fish, eels, and turtles (eep). And, of course, the junk food of practically every nation. Every aisle was well-stocked with sweets in addition to staples. I was simply amazed. I wished I had a camera, but I would have taken a picture of just about every single thing in the store, so it's probably just as well that I didn't.
It's too bad it's so far away, but of course there are so many ethnic food shops in the city. I've just never seen so much devotion to so many diverse cuisines in the same building. Very cool!