My Choice Food Store — Local services in St. Catharines

It's hard to rate My Choice with a single rating. On the one hand it probably has the widest selection and best prices for Asian groceries in St. Catharines. For example it has a wide range of Maesri Thai Curries fir $1.49 a can. These are some of the best commercial Thai curries on the market and this price is lower than in the States. They also have Aroy-D Coconut Milk (for cooking) for $2.10! They have exotic produce and unusual meat cuts. On Thursday afternoon they bring back treats from Toronto including Banh Mi! Well worth the trip. But. This store is ramshackle and rather dirty. Items are often unlabeled. Sometimes items are just left unrefrigerated and it's not clear how long they've been sitting out. This includes the haul from Thursday. There are 2 (yes 2) hand held shopping baskets and they're filthy. There are a few dolly baskets as well - also dirty. I've also found the store to be rather loose about opening hours - the sign may say one time but the store isn't open until 1/2 hour later. So - for price and variety 4.2 out of 5. But for cleanliness and overall...

Huge selection of Asian import products and fantastic take away food.

The store has a large selection of import products. The largest amount are Filippino, but there are Thai, Chinese, Taiwanese, and other products as well. They spices, seasoning packages, snacks, and drinks. They also have some fresh produce like hard to find-in-Canada fruits and vegetables. Different kinds of bananas, squashes, and onions not found at typical grocers. They also have a large freezer section with Filippino sausages, fish, frozen lo mein and other noodles, and more. They also have popular Filippino ice cream flavours like taro, cheese, young coconut, and bubble tea.

The take out food is great and there's a big variety! Steamed buns with pork and boiled egg filling, noodle dishes, banh mi, and more. There are also baked goods and deserts, like ensaimada.

Staff is very friendly and polite and will help if you're looking for certain things...

Went tonight to try some of their takeout food. I went to the back area and rang the bell and waited around 10 mins with lots of workers walking past me. Finally one last said "what are you waiting for" I said I wanted to order some food for takeout. She pointed to a sign and said call this number and order your food. Reluctant I did call the number. In fact, I called the number 6 times and got the voicemail each time (I called from inside the store too). Quite a difficult process to order food. I ended up walking over to J monks and got fish and chips. I tried hard to order from this place and give them a shot as I've heard great things, but tonight was a horrible experience to say the least. Why on earth I have to call a number from inside the store to place an order and then have nobody pick up is beyond me. 🤷 especially when they had plenty of people working in the back...