Jungle Jim's

Jungle Jim's International Market. This place has it all! I had seen it on a tv show sometime and when I found out that it's near Cincinnati, I had to go experience it for myself!

http://www.junglejims.com/

We took the last Sunday of Sam's Christmas vacation and drove to Newport, KY to the Newport Aquarium. They have a new penguin exhibit. Sam loved it! But back to the best part...

After the aquarium, we headed up to Fairfield, OH which I guess is a suburb of Cincinnati. Daniel has occasionally driven to Fairfield to the Liberty Mutual Office but he had no idea that he was driving past one of the most incredible grocery stores in the world. (My favorite is still the Whole Foods Market in Portland, OR--I could go there everyday!)

Jungle Jim's...6.2 acres of grocery goodness! Wow! It is huge and seems to go on forever. Yes, they have the usual groceries but what's so neat are the unusual things from all over the world! If you can't find it here, I'm convinced, it doesn't exist! All of those things that they talk about on the Food Channel, they're here!

We bought buckwheat pancake mix...haven't tried that yet, I'm a little skeptical. Jack cheese imported from Australia...it's rich and very creamy but a little strong, I think it would be good in mac and cheese with some cheddar. They have cheeses and meats from everywhere--even those disgusting looking ones from Europe that you see on tv. We counted 18 different varieties of olives on a self-serve olive bar. There are live tilapia swimming around for you to choose from. There are whole pig heads, whole duck, duck feet, buffalo burgers and ostrich burgers.

The produce section was beautiful! We bought purple and red potatoes, I scalloped those and they were pretty good, even Sam liked them. We even found pears from China complete with the PRC (People's Republic of China) sticker on them! That was yummy! Even Daniel liked it!

We bought a bar of dark chocolate from Belgium. You name it, they've got it!

The decor is pretty entertaining too. They have an antique fire truck above a huge display of every sort of hot sauce from all over the world. The liquor section is gigantic! There are antiques on the tops of the freezers, monkeys and wild animals everywhere.

I'm sure Sam would have enjoyed it more had it not been a grocery store but he doesn't like smaller grocery stores much either. Oh well, Daniel and I loved it and recommend everyone experience it at least once!