To Market, To Market...

Aside from Walmart, where else can we do groceries in Austin?

1. There is H-E-B which has a location in the cross-street of our apartment complex and a location in Circle C - where we want to get a house. Wonder what H-E-B stands for? Here is an excerpt from Wiki

"H.E. Butt Grocery Company (abbreviated H-E-B) is a privately held San Antonio, Texas-based supermarket chain with over 300 stores throughout Texas and northern Mexico. H-E-B ranked No. 11 on Forbes' 2006 list of "America's Largest Private Companies" based on 2005 revenue of $12.4 billion.^[1] Supermarket News ranked H-E-B No. 14 in the 2007 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2006 fiscal year estimated sales of $12.4 billion.^[2] Based on 2005 revenues, H-E-B is the twenty-seventh largest retailer in the United States.^[3]"

2. There is Central Market - which is supposed to be owned by H-E-B also and an answer to Whole Foods (see below). It's supposed to be an upscale version of H-E-B. The aroma in the store actually reminds me of Boise coop. The Lamar location has a restaurant with a patio and a playground for kids. There is actually another location just a block away from us which we have not checked out yet.

3. Then there is Whole Foods - which is headquartered in Austin. (They've got this beautiful building downtown!) Whole food specializes with organic and natural products. When you walk into their store, the pastries, the deli and the salad bar greets you and entices you to sample and buy. I made a mistake once of buying their grilled wild salmon and paid $$$ (greater than $20!) for it! I have learned now that I can get by with soup and bread for less than $5.

4. Up north, there is MT Supermarket - a big Asian food and goods wholesaler. Methinks it is actually mainly a Vietnamese supermarket. It was funny seeing the Filipino and Japanese food under "international" section! It is a large store, easily as big as Walmart (not the supercenter). It's just over a year old so the store is very clean!

MT Supermarket

See more at www.mtsupermarket.com.

5. Just near AMD is the Cebuana Filipino Store. It is a small store but the best things about it are: 1) it is near Al's workplace, so I could just ask him to drop by after work; 2) it carries Magnolia/Selecta ice cream and the commute is shorter (than MT Supermarket) so the it is not yet molten when Al arrives home; 3) they have frozen, clean ampalaya leaves, malunggay leaves, sili leaves and saluyut! The last item is very important to me since I don't have to clean them up and it does not rot (which has happened to me a lot in the past since for the fresh leaves, I sometimes feel lazy cleaning them up!)