Saturday shopping and The Only Malaysian Restaurant in Town

Today was a marathon morning of grocery shopping all over town with a couple of friends, one of whom is good enough to take us carless ones shopping every now and then.

First stop was a local "farm market" which sells produce, meat, dairy products, bread and many of the usual grocery food products along with many ethnic dried goods, jams, etc in a large warehouse-like store on the outskirts of town. There is usually more local produce here and it's in better condition and cheaper than the chain grocery stores. Total score: honey tangerines, Michigan Fuji apples, a red pepper and some wheat pita bread. Usually I get a lot more but unfortunately the refridgerator's already packed with fruits and vegetables.

Next up was Meijer, the local superstore, for a battery recharger to keep the photos on this blog flowing. Then it was off to the other side of town to the local health food store. This is one of the newer stores that are modeled on mainstream grocery stores rather than the crunchy granola health food stores of old. It's also the interloper in town and is right next to an older, more established co-op. Lots of angst and hand-wringing recently about the direction of the co-op and its future viability. Seems to be a widespread trend as there was a similar situation in Columbia, SC, my previous home. There the local store transformed itself into an Atkins/low-carb outlet. Not sure how that's doing now, given the downturn in Atkins diets. Finally, off to the same Asian grocery store I visited on Wednesday, so not much new there.

By now it was 11.30am and lunch time. Conveniently next to the Asian grocery store is The Only Malaysian Restaurant In Town (TOMRIT). TOMRIT opened late last year, and seems to have gathered a following pretty quickly. Their large picture menu seems to alleviate a lot of the anxiety among potential patrons unfamiliar with the dishes, and they've attracted a lot of the local population. Having a mother who is an excellent cook of many of the dishes they serve, I find some of the food odd, but it has definitely improved since they opened.

Their roti canai is excellent (very fluffy and obviously a la minute). Today I had Penang char kuay teow. This was pretty authentic (apart from the bbq pork) with prawn, Chinese sausage, bean sprouts, egg, chives, chilli and dark soy, but could have done with some wok char of which there was none. Otherwise very good. I have problems frying rice noodles (probably because I'm too scared to use the amount of oil they require), so like to eat this when I'm out. Others had Singapore noodles, nasi lemak and hokkien mee.