A couple posts ago, I talked about how grocery shopping would NOT fall under the topic of fun things to do in Brunei. Well, grocery shopping just got a WHOLE lot easier here! We have a brand new SupaSave, literally 3 minutes from the house! If the traffic circle is backed up, it might take 5 minutes.
Let me give a little back story, in case you're wondering what's so great about a new supermarket. When we first moved here, there was a relatively small SupaSave in the same location, but it was fairly old, dirty, smelly, and literally falling apart. Part of the ceiling was moldy and leaky and looked like it would cave in at any moment. That's probably why they had to close it.
The old Supa Save
I didn't get many pictures in the old store, but these show the low ceilings (although not the leaky part),
and the relatively small size of the store
That SupaSave shut down about 6 months after we moved here, and they opened up a temporary storefront in Kuala Belait, about 15-20 minutes away. The temporary store consisted of a few little open-air (no doors) connected shops. The aisles were super tiny. The food selection was okay, but very hit or miss. Since a round trip took nearly 40 minutes, it was so frustrating to get there only to find out that they had no chicken, or bananas, or bread, or onions, or garlic, or strawberries, or eggs, or MILK, or whatever it may be that was on my list. I was constantly modifying our meal plans on the spot. Not a huge deal in the scheme of things, but frustrating nonetheless.
The temporary store
My car is the one on the left. Bonus: parking on the doorstep if you're lucky!
There are entrances on either side of those A/C units.
The people in the yellow shirts are the workers at the cash registers. See, no doors!
The health section, detergents, household cleaners, and paper goods were in a separate storefront
You can see that the aisles were so narrow, it was difficult to get a cart down them.
There wasn't a way to turn around, so I would make beeping noises as I backed the cart up the aisle.
If someone else was on the aisle, forget about it... you were stuck until they moved.
Empty shelves, a common sight
This was the refrigerated section: all milk, cheese, yogurt, juices, and frozen foods
were on this one aisle. This section was USUALLY pretty well stocked, except
sometimes they didn't have chicken or certain cuts of meat, fresh milk, or frozen fruit.
This leads into the "fresh" produce section.
The picture below doesn't show some fruit on the left wall, and partially melted ice cream in a freezer, but other than that, what you see is what you get. This is where I sometimes literally wanted to break down in tears. It sounds silly, but I've talked to others who felt the same way! So many times the shelves were practically bare, or the stock that they did have was old, wilted or moldy, and unusable. The picture below was taken on a well-stocked day, but so many times I LONGED for the extensive fresh produce selection at my West/Jones Kroger! (And if you know that particular Kroger, their produce isn't necessarily something for which you long!) Notice the small selection of eggs on the metal rack on the right. Often that rack was completely empty.
Very tiny checkout area, but hey, there's my car right outside!
Looking into the store from my car
To get pork products you had to leave the main store and go around the corner.
Every time I went in the Non Halal section I would ask about turkey. No, turkey is not a pork product, but it is non halal (I guess in the way that it's slaughtered??) Finally, they had turkey one day! Excited to make turkey sandwiches, I decided to stock up and freeze a couple kilos, not knowing the price. I ended up paying over $50 for 4 pounds of lunchmeat!
More products that I spend way too much money on, but that's just the way it is!
No such thing as coupons or member cards for a discount!
I started buying UHT milk since fresh milk is so expensive and often wasn't in stock.
Even so, this is $2.40 for 1 liter, which makes it about $9.00 for a gallon of UHT milk!
Fresh milk is nearly twice the cost! Nearly $18 for a gallon of fresh milk.
And yes, I've paid that many times here.
This little yogurt is so yummy! It better be since it's $3.95 for one!
Keith and I are the only ones allowed to eat it. :)
New carts, huge open produce section, it looks like a "real" grocery store!
It actually feels like one too! Brrrr!
Hoping they'll keep up the stock after the opening days have passed
Wide aisles!
Some things don't change. The only bananas left were these Thai bananas with lots of bruised spots.
Luckily, the next day I went they had a whole bunch of fresh Dole bananas!
I was shocked to see a whole stack of Dr. Pepper! I also got sticker shock, and didn't buy any!
Still cheaper than milk though, but not healthy
Everyone around here is thrilled with the new SupaSave. It's going to get even better too because they are also opening a Coffee Bean (Starbucks missed out on an opportunity to make it into Brunei!), Crocs shop (although I won't buy my Crocs there since they're twice as much), hair salon, and a few other shops in the same building. While all of this is exciting and convenient, it also makes Brunei a little bit less unique. It's just one more step into the modern era here!
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