Who says supermarkets are just for grocery shopping? They can be some of the most fun places to explore when you’re travelling.
Besides visiting famous landmarks, trying unique experiences and tasting local dishes, more holidaymakers are making it a point to browse local supermarkets in search of snacks, drinks and everyday products they can’t find back home.
Here are some of our must-haves and recommendations.
Baskets of bread
I’m a bread lover and I love ... any type of bread.
Whenever I travel, I always end up going on a little bread hunting adventure.
One of my favourite discoveries was at Sainsbury’s in London, England. The supermarket had a great selection of freshly baked goods, and I couldn’t resist trying a few. My favourites were the brioche and crumpets.
To be fair, I couldn’t crown a winner without doing some “research”, so I also sampled the bread from Tesco and Marks & Spencer.
After several breakfasts, Sainsbury’s came out top. I even packed some home for my grandmother to try. The only downside was that fresh bread doesn’t stay fresh for long.
That said, bread is not all that I look for when I travel. In Australia, my friend and I made several trips to Coles and Woolworths, happily spending an hour or more wandering through the aisles to see what we could find.
We left with muffins and several packets of instant mocha and latte. They were on sale, so buying five felt completely justified.
In Poland, I fell in love with a hot dog found at Zabka, the country’s popular convenience store chain. It’s basically a sausage tucked inside baguette-like bread and topped with your choice of sauces.
At Biedronka, a supermarket chain with an adorable ladybug logo, I discovered Prince Polo, one of Poland’s best-known chocolate wafer bars.
Even better, my friend and I later visited Cieszyn, the town where Prince Polo was first produced.
Crossing into Prague in Czech Republic introduced me to another chocolate wafer bar – Mila. Although it’s made in neighbouring Slovakia, our Airbnb host told us it’s a well-loved treat among Czechs, too.
I bought several (more than 10!) bars from Lidl to bring home so my friends and family could have a taste of my holiday.
Food isn’t the only thing I like discovering when I travel. I’m also curious about the everyday products locals use.
That curiosity led my friend and me to Rossmann, a popular health and beauty retailer – a bit like Watsons or Guardian in Malaysia, only much bigger. We ended up leaving with hand creams, perfume and a few other little finds. – Gisele Soo
Convenience store finds
Japan’s konbini or convenience stores are my favourite spots for souvenirs.
Be it 7-Eleven, Family Mart or Lawson, the snacks that they carry often differ from the ones we have in Malaysia. They also offer seasonal treats. Sakura-themed ones are my go-to in the spring season.
The variety and novelty make the snacks – cookies, crisps, chocolate and the likes – intriguing and exciting to try.
It’s not just the edibles. Destination-specific items that range from stationeries to clothes are available, too.
For example, the konbini in Okinawa have everything from notebooks and pens to T-shirts and socks adorned with images of the Okinawan guardian lions, shisa. (I got myself some pens – cute, practical and most importantly, light.)
Of course, Japan’s major konbini chains have franchises abroad, and their excellence at localising their offerings means that even a visit to, let’s say, a 7-Eleven in Singapore will yield snacks that are unfamiliar to us Malaysians.
Think chilli crab snacks crackers and Milo Peng (this is not the equivalent of our canned Milo Ice, as its taste is highly reminiscent of the school days’ “Milo truck” drink).
In Taipei, Taiwan, I enjoyed the impressively wide selection of drinks, especially the milk tea ones. (This was back before milk tea was ubiquitous in our own country.)
As someone who loves collecting tchotchkes on my travels, I also happily purchased a Halloween-themed Gudetama figurine. The lazy egg character by Sanrio dominated konbini at the time. The collections outside of Japan would be manufactured with local languages on the packaging, for example Mandarin in Taipei and Thai in Bangkok, Thailand – where my friend bought for me a summer-themed sunglasses-wearing Gudetama.
It doesn’t have to be a Japanese konbini, any convenience store will suffice. In Seoul, South Korea, I once spent an evening going from store to store with my friend, looking for specific ramyun (instant noodles) to bring back home.
Instant noodles are also my go-to at convenience stores in Cambodia and Vietnam; they don’t take up much luggage space and have various flavours that we do not have locally. – Florey D. Mikil
Pop icons
As someone who grew up watching too much TV – especially Hollywood shows – I was always intrigued by some of the snacks featured in them. From Entenmann’s powdered doughnuts and Pop Tarts to Hostess Twinkies and Funyuns, I wanted to try them all.
(You can find most of these items in Malaysia today, but in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in Sabah, none of them were available.)
Luck was on my side many years later when I got the chance to travel to Hollywood in California, United States several times as an entertainment reporter in the early 2000s. My favourite supermarket there was Ralph’s, where I bought countless snacks I’d dreamt of trying as a kid. I shared them all with colleagues, family and friends in Malaysia, which perhaps is my favourite part of supermarket tourism.
One of the best American snacks I’ve tried is the Entenmann’s doughnuts, a New York icon. They were always mentioned in the sitcom, The Nanny, and in numerous New York-based police dramas.
Verdict? More cake-like than the usual airy doughnut, and I thought they were really nice, though incredibly sweet.
These days, my work no longer takes me to the US, and since you can now buy most of the snacks here (except the doughnuts!), they’re not that “special” any more.
But I still love hitting the supermarkets wherever I go. Somewhere in Saint Peters-burg, Russia I came across my favourite pasta, bucatini, at a musty old shop where the woman at the check out counter patiently helped me sort out my ruble. “This and this. This – nyet, OK?” she said, taking the coins and cash from my hand.
(I know pasta is Italian, but the pack I bought said that it was made in Saint Petersburg, so it counts as a “local” item!)
In Budapest, Hungary I bought packs of cured meat, cheese and chocolate. I also found some canned sardines, which are trendy, almost bougie items globally today.
I’ve picked up cans of them in Almaty (Kazakhstan), Moscow (Russia) and parts of Japan.
In Dusseldorf, Germany I walked into what looked like a really posh department store with a grocery section and bought a few jars of mustard, which the city is famous for. It is said that Germany’s first mustard factory was opened in Dusseldorf in 1726.
Here’s to all the fascinating things we can learn about a place, just by browsing their supermarket shelves. – Melody L. Goh
