Actually, the store is very busy, so freshness of most products is not
an issue. As for the produce, it is fresher than most supermarkets.
Some of the wine, is quite old however.

As for product questions, you may be better off asking other shoppers.
It is a dizzying array of merchandise, and I doubt there are many
people who would be able to answer all your questions. The store has a
heavy traffic of people from quite a variety of ethnicities, so there
will be someone shopping in you isle, and they may be able to answer
your question better than you expect. Or they might not speak
English.<g> Usually I just buy something and try to figure it out later
in those cases. You only live once (and if you make a mistake, you can
only die once....)

As for the workout, it isn't as bad as it sounds. You can skip the
normal sections, and spend time in the cheese, wine, and ethnic areas.
You can buy Tide and Jiff anywhere, so why bother.

The prices are very reasonable. The prices are very close to
supermarket prices, with the specialty shop goodies. Sometimes you find
unbelieveable deals in the ethnic section, particularly if you need a
lot of cardamom, for example. Hit the Indian/Pakistani section for
spices and get pound/kg quantities for much the same price you pay for
a small jar somewhere else.

Dean G.