Adventures in an Aussie Grocery Store

I wanted to call this 'Adventures in an Aussie Supermarket' but as none of these stores are anywhere near the size of our stores back home, I thought grocery store might be more appropriate.

The grocery stores here sell everything our typical supermarket might sell, just not on the same scale. They have food and fresh produce, plus toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other things like foil, sandwich bags, disposable containers, and household pet food (I forget what the name of this aisle is).

I know everyone has been waiting for this picture

Our dear friend Alison had some of this lovely item in her house, so all of us Americans had the opportunity to smell it.

No, none of us were brave enough to taste it.

It basically smells like rotten beef stock, which is odd, considering it is yeast extract.

Where's the rest of the store?

This is about 1/3 of the Woolworths closest to our apartment. They are actually closing for renovations on Friday and I heard the store employees say that the store will be double the size. Thank goodness, because I did not like walking the 20 city blocks from the really nice big Woolworths with my hands full of groceries. There is a Cole's even closer to us than this store but Woolworths feels cleaner so I try to go there whenever I'm nearby.

Now a sample of the food fun begins!

The caption says 'Simply Slice & Serve'

Don't we only sell liverwurst in the deli section?

I can't help myself- these rolls look like dog food rolls you get at the pet store.

Just cause it sounded bad-ass

This butter is basically the size of 4 sticks of butter in the States; they just don't bother to separate it out for you. I ended up buying a different brand the other day. It doesn't taste like butter back home.

Canned Tuna. Yum!

For some bizarre reason, Australians apparently love canned tuna. They have all sorts of different flavors: tuna with sweet chilli, tuna with mango, sundried tomato, and in oil are just a few options portrayed in this picture.

My favorite soup back home. The instant versions definitely do not taste the same.

Asian food is EVERYWHERE here. I'm kind of overwhelmed to be honest. I've never been big on Asian cuisine and I simply have no idea how to cook it. I think that even every 1 out of 3 restaurants is some sort of Asian cuisine and not just what we typically think of as 'Asian'. There are Mongolian and Indian food choices like crazy, almost more than there are Japanese or Korean choices. I find myself craving a taco more for the familiarity of the item than anything.

This picture is just because I could throw it in. I love butternut squash.

The frozen food section in every grocery store I've been in so far (about 5?) has been super small. I'm not sure it is because of the size of the stores in general, since we are in the city center, or if it is because they just don't buy as many frozen items here. I did find a few gems in this section and wanted to share. Have they started selling these back home? I would buy them if they were only $3 something instead of the outrageous amount they charge here.

Some items I brought home from my first big trip (by big trip, I mean the one where Cory wasn't standing next to me pushing me to hurry up because he has better places to be than the grocery store):

This was a small carrot

My lettuce has roots!

I've started to look into Permeate Free Milk. Doesn't seem that special from what I've read so far.

It looks more Italian than French.
I'm still trying to figure out how the herbs are held in suspension hours later.

Next time, I'll even share with you the joys of carrying my phone around trying to convert things to the Imperial system. (It's actually pretty easy if they keep measurements in kg).

More fun foods to come!

I was totally excited about this until I realized they were talking about Jamie Oliver