Somehow, I knew that was coming! 
Phone cards
I wasn’t sure initially…didn’t necessarily intend it to become a discussion about cuisine, but I guess it has taken its logical course!
And now I also know that threads about food at 2:30 in the afternoon are a bad idea :smack:
Specifically, Guadalupe.
Also, it’s where you can get frozen Goya products, such as maracuya (parcha) for making tropical fruit drinks from fruits that don’t get imported to the States.
:eek: Just the idea makes me feel a little sick.
Send them to me, then.
Has no one mentioned paletas?
Dude, it’s a grocery store, there’s not really anything to immerse yourself in. Aisles of fresh, canned, frozen and/or packaged food, and then people who are waiting to take your money. Unless you make a scene a la Eve, they just want your moolah. It’ll be okay. And hey, you might find some new thing you like!
If you find tamarinds, either in paste formor the original bean, they upgrade any beef stew into Awesomeland.
Oh, and here in north Texas, the Mexican grocery stores have waaaaayyyyy better prices on fresh food like produce and meat than the U.S. based chains. That’s reason enough to go.
I’ve found that a lot of the Mexican/Hispanic grocers around here are more likely to have dried beans and sometimes rice in bulk. And if you go through a lot of dried beans, this can save a lot of money. Some of the stores have bulk spices, too. The selection is usually different, and many products are labeled in Spanish. Sometimes they’re also labeled in English, sometimes it’s Spanish only. The book and magazine section has Spanish language books and magazines, and rarely has English language offerings.
It’s entirely possible to conduct business without being able to speak Spanish, money talks in a way that most everyone understands.
Hehe, don’t feel bad. I went into a korean grocery, found a GREAT deal on a bag of frozen scallops, only to get home, try to cook them, and realize they weren’t scallops at all but some kind of discs made of…gluten, as far as I can tell. 
I have a much easier time in hispanic stores.
I laughed out loud.
My ex-wife didn’t like going to the local Mexican store because it “smelled foreign.” She was more than happy to eat their burritos though! They also made awesome chorizo tacos. Mmm…
I came in here to say this.
Cook some chorizo. (Take the skin off first, since you want to break it up.) Cook some potatoes. Put some chorizo and potatoes into a tortilla. (Add scrambled eggs if you want, but I like just choizo con papas.) And there’s your breakfast burrito. Or lunch burrito. Or snackage.
A lot of Mexican stores around here have package deals on meat. So you’ll get a variety of, say, pork products, for a set price. It’s usually not the best quality meat, no- but it is often a good deal.
Your suggestion would be improved with the addition of salsa. 
What, and dilute the chorizo spices?
I use salsa (and sometimes Vegemite) on all other breakfast burritos. But not chorizo con papas.
Agree. Salsa=good. Chorizo=good. Salsa+chorizo=wrong.
This made my day. Thank you, Eve.
Our hispanic grocery has a really large section of Goya food products. Goya ginger beer is about rjk’s preferred brand - it has a touch of capsaicin in it to add to the bite of the ginger.
They also have really good store-made chorizo, and a great variety of hispanic cheeses, unusual canned and frozen produce, as well as a few fresh veggies that you don’t see in your local Safeway.
Check out the beauty section for items you haven’t seen in a grocery store since the 70s.
The herbs and spices tend to be a lot cheaper.
I would recommend that you stay away from Mexican vanilla though. There is a plant that tastes similar to vanilla, and is used to make cheap vanilla but is potentially toxic. It’s illegal to sell it in the U.S., but that doesn’t always stop sales.
Rice ice cream! Also, actually ripe avocados.