ottawa foodies

There will be a new Asian (Chinese) grocery supermarket opening in the Orleans area (10th Line Rd ... the old Canadian Tire location). It's slated to be open in the late fall. For the last couple of months there's a sandwich board that has been advertising for hired help. I, for one, can't wait for it to open. Will mean not having to drive across town to T&T supermarket. While not as big as T&T ... appears to be about 2/3rd the size of T&T. Last week, the signage was put up, large red Chinese characters 盛隆泰大超市 ... in English it's called Asian Supercentre (not a translation of the Chinese name).

When it opens ... I will update it here.

I've been waiting for this, we really need something out this way.

I do feel a bit bad for the guys down on St Joseph where the old theatre is, they are super helpful and polite always, but I don't imagine they will be able to compete with their small, crowded store against something larger.

Here's a picture of the store! I can see through the open doorways that dry-walls are being put up.

Here's what written in the picture ... picture got re-sized to a lower resolution:

- South Asian - Asian Food Court
- Middle East - Fish Market
- African/Latino - Halal Meat
- European

Guess they're catering to everyone!

Here's a link:

blogs.ottawacitizen.com

Mark your calendars ... November 18th!

I hope it's better than T&T, they market themselves as "a taste of Asia" but they're essentially a Chinese supermarket. I cook a lot of Thai food and was deeply disappointed in their range of Thai product or lack thereof; Mussaman curry paste isn't exactly an obscure product, but good luck finding one at T&T.

If anyone can recommend a good place in Ottawa for Thai spices and pastes I'd be eternally grateful.

That looks great, I'm excited, thanks for the link! I'm only a few minutes away too, no more cross town drives to T&T.

Johnny English, have you tried Bangkok grocery on Somerset (Somerset and Booth)?

I haven't - I usually use Kowloon which is OK, but doesn't carry things like Thai eggplant. I didn't know there was a Bangkok grocery, thanks for the tip.

I second snoopy on this one.....the smaller stores in china town are best! I Buy lots of thai herbs, spices, and pastes there. Also......fresh peppercorns! Never seen them before.....most things are not labelled so kind of like foraging bring your guide book or just bring it up to the cash an ask them what it is! I like to pick up at least one thing every couple of weeks that I have no idea what it is and bring it home and try to 'cook it'. I've found a lot of the shops, although sometimes hard to understand their accents, are very willing to explain ingredients and offer cooking tips!

China town best to avoid kowloon, explore on foot, try the small places, you'll be shocked at what you find.....assuming you can ever figure out what it is :)

Grace Foods on Bank (near Somerset) has a lot of good SE Asian (Thai, Malaysian, etc) herbs and ingredients. As well, they stock a lot of Caribbean ingredients and produce.

Johnny, Produce Depot almost always has Thai eggplant.

I also adore and cook a lot of Thai food, and the fun and obscure Thai ingredients you can find at Bangkok grocery and some of the little grocery stores further west on Somerset is absolutely amazing. I can't believe you haven't already checked them out! I regularly buy kaffir limes, Thai eggplants of varying sizes, green peppercorns, galangal, lesser ginger, turmeric, holy basil, etc. I don't know what kind of soy sauce you use, but lots of stores carry Healthy Boy soy sauce from Thailand, and if you're using a Chinese brand, you really owe it to your Thai food to switch as it will make a tremendous difference.

Kowloon is honestly one of the worst places I have ever been to for Thai ingredients. I only ever stop there for fresh rice noodles.

It's rare for me to not be able to find an obscure Thai ingredient at these stores.

Asian Supercentre'S Sandwich board on 10th Line advertising a Job Fair:

... runs from 10:00am till 4:00pm. Started yesterday and ends today.

Job Fair will start up next Saturday & Sunday (Oct, 15 & 16) again for those that can't make it out this weekend.

You can also e-mail them: hiring@asiansupercentre.com

I pass by yesterday @ 10:10am and there were a lot of cars in the parking lot outside (approx. 40+ cars). If I didn't already have a job, I would've been tempted to stop and go in myself. No experience in the retail business what-so-ever ... $10 per hour???

I tried to apply that store.. but until now i stil wait their call, coz they said they will call me after 2weeks, but until now i stil keep waiting and the store will be open soon.. coz they said i hired.. i hope thats true.. lol..but i will wait though and im excited to work there its my first job..

Rose wrote:
"I applied for a job at that store but haven't heard back from them yet. They said they would call me after two weeks. The store will be open soon and they said I was hired. I hope that's true. I will wait though, and I'm excited to work there as it's my first job."

IFIFY

^ I LOL'ed

Now hurry up an open. Please not suck.

From blog linked by 3003 above "Tentative opening date is Nov. 18, says David Feng, one of the owners."

Does anyone know if it opened? I forgot to swing by this morning and can't check it out again until tomorrow.

I dont know yet if they are open now, i dont even get their any calls.. but i dont expect that job..i will apply other job than to wait with nothing,. lol.
im just expecting that they will call me..coz,Mr. David interviewed me and said i hired,he congratulate me as well.. but then no calls.. lol..

oMg! i kant beliv he din't cal bk. das like so rude. U wuld hav totaly b awsume @ da job !!1!111!!1one!one!!!

I stopped by yesterday, it looks like they are getting close with finishing construction, but I couldn't see any food on the shelves yet and I didn't see any posted notices about a date. Save yourself the trip, for now.

Called this number 6138459973 and they said that they will open in the first week of December

Hi, are you applied that store too?or just curious when were they open the store. my brother in-law also told me that he passed by that store and it looks like it still under construction. it always move with their opening in the store :)

It's finally here. Grand Opening is January 18th (tomorrow)!!!

This is so anti-climatic ... guess I'll drop in for a look-see tomorrow after work.

There was a flyer in the Metro (free) newspaper at the Orleans Park n Ride bin.

Anyways, I'm glad it's finally happening! Congrats!

Yay, thanks for the update. Too bad I just made the trip to t&t on Sunday for new years groceries, but hopefully my last long drive all the way over there.

Does anyone know is there a web site for this store?

lmgt4u.com

The best part about Bobby Fillet's post is that his search query doesn't actually find the store's website... EPIC FAIL!

the first site is this - www.tnt-supermarket.com/en/

works for me...

except that this store isn't a TNT supermarket....

Haha, oh. Please Google "Bobby Fillet is not very observant and just might have failed in an attempt at humour"

Here's the url for the store: asiansupercentre.com/

It is a pretty crappy webpage. I wouldn't trust their flyer special. One time they have a sale for Mon-Wed. We were there on Monday at 10 and they said it sold out.

nothing says "cheap" better than prominent use of watermarked ("shutterstock") photos. :)

OK, yeah, I've been ignoring this post. For those of you that may had noticed, Asian Supercentre closed for renovations back in June (believe it or not). They re-opened yesterday (July 16th) under a new name called "FreshLand Supermarket".
Actually went in yesterday afterwork, and I didn't notice any "big" renovations to the place. The only renovation was the bakery section that was in the middle of the store previously, have now been moved to the righ-hand side of the entrance. I think they got rid of the tables for people to sit down to eat their take-outs.

Also, the old vacated "Food Basics" location is going to become a "Home Hardware" store. At least that's what the signs says.

I went in this morning to have a look, everything is pretty well exactly as before besides the bakery move. The shelves are fully stocked again (they were pretty bare for a while before they closed). A good hot food counter.

The seafood and meat deli looked great. They had really excellent prices on whole tenderloin, sirloin, etc, so I can avoid Costco again.

We never returned because the meat and fish never looked even remotely fresh. Also, many weird and interesting vegetables were just labelled "Vegetable". If those two things haven't changed after this reboot, I don't think this place will survive in suburban Ottawa.

They definitely expected you to know your own vegetables there previously. I was OK with that but if you're not used to it, it's a pain. The few things I looked last Sunday at were labeled.

The place was in the shitter for a month or two before they restarted, It looked fantastic when I visited, I hope it lasts.

Evicted for failure to pay rent...