Thursday, August 02, 2007

Mississauga's Oriental Food Centre a great shop for produce

Yesterday, after another great dim sum (more on this tomorrow) at the Mississauga Chinese Centre on Dundas east of Cawthra, we stopped in at the Oriental Food Centre to pick up a few things that we can only get at an Asian grocery store.

Did we luck out on the lychees!


Exterior Oriental Food Centre Mississauga

I thought luchees must be in season as I'd seen them at mainstream grocers that week, but they looked so sad and beaten up, I gave them a miss.

But here, at the Oriental Food Centre, they looked fine, and better still, they were being sold in bags (about 3-4 lbs) for one dollar!

As soon as I got home, I emptied the bag into hot, soapy water, as lychees in the husk can get mouldy in a heartbeat, and this morning, I shelled them all to keep them from spoiling and popped them in the fridge.

It's fast and easy to shell a lychee fruit -- just make a split in the shell and squeeze the meat into a bowl. Your hands never touch the insides.

And Oh, what a lychee feast we are having! Replace the pit and stuff in some creamy cheese, or chop them and mix with crushed ice in a glass, or put them on ice cream and add a splash of fruit liqueur, or just eat them out of hand.


This busy supermarket apparently has a very high turnover, which means that produce is not only fresh as possible, but very well priced.


Beautifully ripe pineapples from Costa Rica were 2/$5, and and extravagant bunches of fresh coriander just 99 cents each.

A friend of ours who loves to boil up a mess of crab from time to time always buys it here.

Good thing we'd just finished dim sum, or we'd have gone wild.





Related: Snapshotjourneys.com Oriental Food Centre Mississauga
Pictures Tropical Fruits chirimoya, passion fruit, mangosteens, longans, more.

Snapshotjourneys.com Mississauga Chinese Centre

PIctures, information on Chinese shopping centre, restaurants, dim sum


Books About Tropical Fruits on Amazon.com:


Handy Pocket Guide to Tropical Fruits (Periplus Nature Guide) Tropical Fruit The Great Exotic Fruit Book: A Handbook with Recipes