London's Oriental City
Our recent weekend was spent visiting Oriental City to stock up on all things Asian, and a browse around the shops in our local neighbourhood (we’re never bored of it, it seems).
Before we went to Oriental City, I did a little bit of research on the place and read a few fairly decent reviews of the shops in the area. Our last big shop for Asian goods was in Chinatown, an area quite sufficient for anything most Malaysians like me would need. The only slight issue we have with Chinatown is that it’s located in the heart of the City, which means at least an hour of tube travel (usually incurring significant travel costs). Oriental City on the other hand, is a lot nearer and can be gotten to via bus.
Upon arriving, I was actually quite surprised to find that the building was a lot bigger than I imagined. Unfortunately, the closer we got, the more I realised we were looking at an attraction that probably and undoubtedly had its heyday a number of years ago.
Leaves a little something to be desired.
From the inside, the building turned out to be quite an inefficient use of space - reminded me a lot of places like Summit USJ and Berjaya Times Square in KL. Some of the stores were closed, whilst some of the ones open looked like they wouldn’t be in business for much longer. We found only one supermarket for food-shopping in the end, but it had pretty much everything on our list. Price-wise, some items were a few pence more than Chinatown, but it worked out alright considering we didn’t pay as much on travel. Other than that, the building also housed a food court and a number of Chinese restaurants. I had totally forgotten about the existence of assam laksa until I saw a photo-menu of it in one of the stalls. Damn.
The only other shop we looked at sold Japanese tableware and other such knick-knacks. I enjoyed browsing through all the pretty plates and things, but we ended buying only 2 small black gorgeous sauce plates because we didn’t see anything else we liked enough.
Lots of very pretty plates and things, but we're anal about getting 'matching' tableware.
All in all, Tim describes Oriental City in one word as : NAFF.
I give it 3/10 for variety in shops, 5/10 for variety in supermarket products and 4/10 for general mall appearance.
Meanwhile, our browse through the neighbourhood shops found us some pretty new glass coasters to replace our previous ones.
Handy tip: Glass coasters are easier to wipe clean and wash. Pretty wood-printed ones will not necessarily survive getting wet.
We also bought a cute Chef’n pepper mill since it was finally on sale.
And I suffered a sour gummy craving from out of nowhere, so Tim had to placate the little girl in me with a bag of Haribo Sour Mix. I would have preferred Starburst or The Natural Confectionery sour worms but they know of no such thing here in England. And why the hell did Starburst stop making sour gummies?! I don’t want to eat boring sour chews! Woe is me.
When beggars can't be choosers..
Before we went to Oriental City, I did a little bit of research on the place and read a few fairly decent reviews of the shops in the area. Our last big shop for Asian goods was in Chinatown, an area quite sufficient for anything most Malaysians like me would need. The only slight issue we have with Chinatown is that it’s located in the heart of the City, which means at least an hour of tube travel (usually incurring significant travel costs). Oriental City on the other hand, is a lot nearer and can be gotten to via bus.
Upon arriving, I was actually quite surprised to find that the building was a lot bigger than I imagined. Unfortunately, the closer we got, the more I realised we were looking at an attraction that probably and undoubtedly had its heyday a number of years ago.
Leaves a little something to be desired.
From the inside, the building turned out to be quite an inefficient use of space - reminded me a lot of places like Summit USJ and Berjaya Times Square in KL. Some of the stores were closed, whilst some of the ones open looked like they wouldn’t be in business for much longer. We found only one supermarket for food-shopping in the end, but it had pretty much everything on our list. Price-wise, some items were a few pence more than Chinatown, but it worked out alright considering we didn’t pay as much on travel. Other than that, the building also housed a food court and a number of Chinese restaurants. I had totally forgotten about the existence of assam laksa until I saw a photo-menu of it in one of the stalls. Damn.
The only other shop we looked at sold Japanese tableware and other such knick-knacks. I enjoyed browsing through all the pretty plates and things, but we ended buying only 2 small black gorgeous sauce plates because we didn’t see anything else we liked enough.
Lots of very pretty plates and things, but we're anal about getting 'matching' tableware.
All in all, Tim describes Oriental City in one word as : NAFF.
I give it 3/10 for variety in shops, 5/10 for variety in supermarket products and 4/10 for general mall appearance.
Meanwhile, our browse through the neighbourhood shops found us some pretty new glass coasters to replace our previous ones.
Handy tip: Glass coasters are easier to wipe clean and wash. Pretty wood-printed ones will not necessarily survive getting wet.
We also bought a cute Chef’n pepper mill since it was finally on sale.
And I suffered a sour gummy craving from out of nowhere, so Tim had to placate the little girl in me with a bag of Haribo Sour Mix. I would have preferred Starburst or The Natural Confectionery sour worms but they know of no such thing here in England. And why the hell did Starburst stop making sour gummies?! I don’t want to eat boring sour chews! Woe is me.
When beggars can't be choosers..