Better than Whole Foods!

After a week of eating out, I was ready to make my own dinner.  I had to take a day off today to go to Ikea and buy all the necessities.  It was ridiculous how packed the place is.  One of the staff told me that it is almost always that busy, and a lot worse on the weekends.  Don't people work here?  I could barely find a seat in the cafeteria.

At least that's all done and now I have utensils and linens so I'm no longer in my sleeping bag.  The supermarket at the basement of our office was better than most grocery stores in the US that I have been to.  Maybe the only better one is Wegman's.  I actually found brown rice!  How amazing is that.  There is one thing I do not understand about food in the United States.  I know that Boston is pretty much one of the last stops for produce delivered from Florida and California.  I find the vegetables and fruits generally mediocre at the grocery store, except for the local veggies from the farm.  Beijing has pretty much the same weather as Boston, and I'm sure vegetables are also grown somewhere else and then shipped to the area.  Then why is it that when I walk by the fruit stand on the street every morning, that I can smell the sweetness of the pineapple?  And the steamed corn on the cob from the street vendor?  Even the oranges at the supermarket smell ripe, with aromas that make your mouth water.

One of my biggest pet peeves at the grocery store is buying tomatoes.  Some of you know my obsession with fresh, ripe tomatoes.  No matter the type: Roma, Heirloom, Beefsteak, or Cherry.  They taste like a fruit without soul, where the only reason it still taste like a tomato is its texture.  Well, I got a taste of the tomatoes here.  It was even from the grocery store.  I got some pink-colored cherry tomatoes, which looked somewhat like mini Pink Ladies.  Surprisingly, they taste like they were picked from the farm that morning, filled with the soul that was missing in the US tomatoes and completely ripe!  Love it.

So despite of some of the disadvantages of living in one of the biggest cities in China, the food so far has made up for the losses.  

 @ RMSkitchencreations

For you Hello Kitty fans - here is another one that I found in one of the bakeries here.