jungle jim's

last weekend i had to drive to cincinnati to pick up my wedding dress. i had 30 days after its arrival to get it and after 26 days had passed, i figured it was time to get down to business. what could make me feel better about a five hour round trip errand? a trip to jungle jim's international market!
my impressions:

• don't event think about crossing the threshold of jungle jim's unless you have at least an hour. not only will you loose all sense of direction upon entering, any grasp on time you had will also escape you. this place is so vast even the most savvy shopper can easily get disoriented.
• these people do not lie when they say they have the biggest and best selection of international foods. example: an entire room devoted to the food of holland and over 78 varieties of olive oil.
• food selection was unprecedented, overall cleanliness & organization of the store were not. i can't really blame jungle jim's for not staying on top of facing over 300,000 square feet of groceries. things seemed a bit jumbled/dusty at times but i suspect i've just been spoiled by the pristine whole foods in my neighborhood.
  
• i was really impressed by how knowledgeable and helpful the staff was. these guys know their stuff
• above is a composite of a few of the things i bought. like i said, it was overwhelming & i ended up with quite a grab bag. the best thing i got but the fiance ate before i could photograph them - green sicilian olives.
  
• two things i wanted to get but couldn't: fat tire beer (helpful gent in beers explained they don't distribute to ohio - which i knew but didn't want to believe) and cotton seed oil for making uzbek plov (they didn't have it -and as far as i know, cooking grade cotton seed oil is not available in the u.s.)
• i'd recommend visiting on a weekday. we were there mid-day saturday and it was quite busy
• i would have liked to taken more pics to publish, but alas, they are forbidden and i didn't want to go to 007-like lengths to take them illegally

map of jungle jim's