Groceries

There are a few options for grocery shopping available. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I have tried to rank them from cheap to expensive.

PX Mart - limited selection of items but they have all of the basic necessities. They only sell food items and alcohol

Costco - can't not put it on the list. They have by far the best prices on things such as bread, dairy, coffee, meat, bacon, ham and the list goes on. In comparison to shopping at Costco in Canada where the savings are minimal here, the savings are huge. It is well worth the trip. You will also find things such as pancake mix, maple syrup and a few others that are only available here.

RT Mart - a step up from PX Mart. Generally these stores are two floors with one floor dedicated to household items such as appliances, electronics, organisation tools, and a second floor with food items. There is a wide variety of options available with a decent selection of international food items.

Carrefour - there are two formats to this store one is an actual Carrefour which resembles RT Mart in set up but has more international foods, and a second called Carrefour Market (used to be a chain called Welcome) that resembles PX Mart

Jason's - this is by far the best store for one looking for international items. They have the widest selection

Breeze supermarket - generally carries the same selection as Jason's at a higher price, but they do carry a few other items. If you can't find what you are after at Jason's might as well head to Breeze and check it out.

Specialty international food stores:

Willie's Deli - located in Tianmu, can see pictures of most of the items they carry by searching for it on Google

Gusto market - located in Naihu district. This is a small store that carries a few Italian staples that you won't find elsewhere, such as Buffalo mozzarella, Marsala wine, Italian hams, 00 flour (for those that make their own pizzas). Their prices are quite reasonable especially in comparison to other international stores.

Jian Guo Weekend Flower Market - located in Da'an district. It may seem odd that I have included a flower market on the list, but they carry a variety of herbs that you can grow at home such as basil, sweet basil, rosemary, thyme, peppermint etc etc. As the name suggest it is only open on weekends

Taipei Second Fruit & vegetable wholesale market - located in Zhongshan district - the name should really say it all. Wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

I should add one more place to the list, but this will really test your mandarin and as such I have not done a lot of shopping here, but there are day markets everywhere with fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, bakery items, and the like. Definitely worth a visit.

A few things I found interesting about groceries in Taipei:

• Dairy is extremely expensive - very few dairy farms in Taiwan
• Coffee is expensive
• International foods are expensive and very few options