The local Safeway called it quits back in October. The store was an anchor of a shopping complex on the corner of University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue. Granted within a mile radius there are lots of grocery stores: Red Apple Farm, Aldi, Atlantic, Maxim, Shoppers Food Warehouse. Don't be alarmed if you don't recognize most of these chains. Aldi is German. Maxim is Filipino. Red Apple Farm is, well, just really odd. Atlantic is Canadian. And now enter ExpoEmart (an Indian based food chain) in the former Safeway store.
I visited it today and purchased some really fresh green beans, some of the best oyster mushrooms I've seen in a long time and a few more atypical items: Kimchi, Coconut soda, and baby boc choi. The things that impressed me? The Meat: Cheep and very fresh; more seafood than I've seen anywhere outside of the Korean Market on Viers Mill and Randolph Road. The Produce: sketchy, but abundant and varied reminding me of open markets I've been to in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe; Managua, Nicaragua or Tai'chung, Republic of China. The carrots were other worldly...if only I knew that they were also organic.
At any rate. I'm totally planning on returning. The musak was Latino. The chance to live in another country in my own backyard? Priceless.
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