Big Little City in Texas: Asian Market Discoveries

Let me start by saying that I'm a pretty adventurous person and when it comes to trying new foods...I'll try most anything. Except for weird looking, smelling, or super gross texture stuff. It's my mom who did this to me, she would always say, "Laura, try it at least once...if you don't like it you NEVER have to have it again." I'm pretty sure every mom has used that line once or a million times to get their child to eat. It worked wonders with my mom...I just ate at the pace of turtle. Oh, I used to drive her crazy doing so! Anyway--I like trying different foods so that I can say that I have. I'm definitely not going to turn into Andrew Zimmern, but a few new things here and there are good.

So one weekend in our new home we went to an Asian market to, in a trying not to be tourist way, "See what it's all about". I just love going to Asian markets and discovering new fruits, meats?, and desserts that they have. We went to a store called, Uwajimaya. This store is a chain and they have a few locations in the Seattle area. I really had to compare it to a few of the Asian markets in Texas...Garland, TX area to be specific. This place was both spectacular and a little bit of a downer. At one of the markets in Garland, they had a cute little tank with the cutest little turtles...awww. Not so much, I saw one of the employees reach in, snatch one up, and take it over to a cutting board to crush the shell and ultimately turn in into a turtle soup. tear. Uwajimaya is not like that...it doesn't smell like an old fish market and has not one poor, helpless, defenseless, sweet young snapping turtle in sight. (I hope and pray they don't have a Dexter style "kill room" in the back...imagine the amount of plastic to cover a back room in a grocery store.)

Pictures are super-sized for your viewing pleasure.

This picture is of the refrigerated dessert section. We bought and tried Mochi Ice Cream. I just really didn't like it...at all. The texture is a little to varied. There is a jelly type texture mixed with a frozen texture and covered in a weird BC Powder type thingy. I did try it though. They are on the bottom right in the picture.