Time to stock up on black vinegar, dark soy sauce and other stuff you can't get at regular suprmarkets and that cost 3x as much online. Nothing different here, but if you like tea and want something more interesting, they have a whole aisle of tea here.
Trying to find stuff here can be difficult; there's really nobody to ask, and they have stuff like soy sauce in multiple places. While I was scanning I noticed that Chinese delicacy we all remember from yesteryear:
I also picked up some jarred char-siu (Chinese BBQ sauce) to see how it compared to the home made stuff I use. I'm not sure why as I have all of the ingredients to make it (molasses, hoisin sauce, tomato paste and a bunch of other stuff), but a jar option is handy if you happen to be out of something critical. The ingredients are a collection of bad stuff, but unless you're making your own hoisin sauce (which requires a lot more weird stuff) you're getting the bad stuff anyway.
Char Sui pork is essential for making my favorite fried rice or egg foo young.
Review 9/23/17
I needed shaoxing wine for a recipe (I was tired of using regular rice wine) and figured I could stock up on some other items, so I headed up to Fort Lauderdale's version of Chinatown up in Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes or whatever they call this area.
This is where Asians shop for their ingredients, as most of the customers in the store were Asian (the debate on whether "Oriental" is derogatory doesn't apply here, apparently).
Inside it's a half-size supermarket with aisles and aisles of noodles, cooking utensils, hard to find ingredients,and a lot more variety than the Kikkoman choices you have at the regular grocery stores.
3 or 4 different brands of just about every kind of asian ingredients (think straw mushrooms, water chestnuts) along with sauces and pastes of every kind.
An entire aisle of bottled sauces.
I didn't buy too much, but I'm stocked for a year on the stuff I can't get at Publix.
