ottawa foodies

Do you REALLY love beans? Grace Ottawa has 10kg (!) bags of dried beans (black, romano, white, lima), black-eyed and split peas, red and brown lentils - I'm missing a few types, no doubt - ranging in price from 9.99 to 12.99. Try and beat that. Brands are: NuPak and Mr. Goudas. These bags are BIG. Think: the bags they drop out of planes in famine-struck areas. Heave-ho!
I am a BIG fan of red lentils. They can be prepared incredibly quick from dried. I cook them with garam masala then, when done, firmly press to cover the bottom of a lightly oiled pan and fry. It gives you an excellent crispy delicious crust for other goodies to be piled on.
Other things, among many, at Grace that make it worth the trip: their selection of spices; lime leaves; the packages of flat flexible sheets of dried mini-bananas (smeared thin with PB and rolled like a Piroulline cookie - very good); and their large tubs of tofu (12 blocks/tub for 2.99), great for miso soup.

And for comic relief: the refrigerated beverage section. Example: Mrs. French's Vanilla Corn Drink. (shudder)
But this was about beans: Grace is my pick.
p.s. they do have smaller bags (~400grams) of all the above as well (also cheap)

I can't speak to the quality, but the selection here is incredible -- probably the largest I've seen in Ottawa. Sorry about the fuzzy picture, but it gives you a good idea of the variety.

- Be very careful as many products in the Vishali store is expired
- I bought few products which went straight into garbage.
- Being an indian and no Indian store close enough I got no choice to get some indian spices from there. I try my best to avoid this store.
- Super inflated prices
- Vishali also sells many Piarated movies.

There is another Shrilankan store just behind Vishali which keeps most of the indian stuff.