Pacific Fresh Food Mart is at least as good as it ever was, and possibly even better. I could live…read morein this store. Let's start with the prepared foods counter, which consists of a number of warming trays for hot items, a counter with a stack of steamers for dim sums, and the typical chinese BBQ display window, with the hanging, reddish-hewed ducks and pork sides. My husband and I have found some of their take out foods to be on the bland side, but the BBQ and the bakery items are total winners. My daughter loves to get a take-out combo tray of BBQ pork (char sui) and roasted pork belly for her workday lunches. We also love to take the BBQ pork buns camping or on road trips. They make a very tasty, clean, hand-held snack. I've also tried their dim sum, and it was very good, for dim sum prepared and then held warm for a while. Their Youtiao (fried dough sticks), shao mai and har gao are always great. They've recently introduced stuffed tofu to the dim sum counter, and I will have to give that a try. The meats, from both the Halal and Non-Halal counters are excellent. The have very competitively priced meat that it always fresh. Pacific also has some great weekly specials, many from their seafood counter. Once, I bought snapper for a fraction of what it would cost in a mainstream grocery store. I've had their lobsters and crabs too: all excellent. Now, moving to the produce aisles, you will find a vast assortment of exotic fruits (what else should I call them? are Dragonfruits and Mangosteen exotic??? Or am I indulging in Orientalism). This section of the store smells beautiful, fragrant with ripe fruit. The produce aisles also boast a copious selection of Chinese greens, such as Yu Cai and Snow Pea Tips, which the regular grocery stores do not carry. Finally, the dry goods aisles offer many good deals on all sorts of things, and is a great source for all the chinese and japanese sauces that you could ever wish for. It's such a pleasure to have this wonderful supermarket so close to home!

Solid Asian grocers in a pinch if you're in the Pickering area. It's located across the mall and is…read morefairly easy to find parking. If you're looking for Chinese ingredients specifically, it's a bit limited. You'll find most of what you might be looking for, but I feel like they don't carry a lot of the popular brands that we're looking for. I think they support really a wide variety of Asian necessities, so it's more geared for variety. If I want something in particular, I pretty much never find it here, or I find a weird brand I haven't tried. It's a really clean store and well organized. Staff are super friendly. The hot food table has a few options, plus there's a sushi stand, but I think the food is just so-so. We've not quite enjoyed the quality there, but I think it's fair to say that most of these types of eateries are not the best. They make everything in a large batch, and while some flavours hint at authenticity, the quality is quite meh. Again, great place to go for your basic necessities and pricing is fair.

Tips: - No coin deposit is required to use a shopping cart…read more - Collect Moi points with every purchase. Last Saturday, I wanted to shop at a Food Basics store. It had small, whole watermelons going for $3.44 each. I also wanted to visit a Food Basics that I had never been to before. I was in the eastern part of Markham. I did a search and found this one roughly ten minutes away. Perfect! It was easy driving over here. I've been to this area a bunch of times this year. This Food Basics is next to Home Depot, and across the parking lot from Michaels. There was lots of parking in front of the store. I backed into a spot and walked over to the main entrance. I like that you don't have to find a coin to unlock a shopping cart. Put your coins away! Rather, if you decide to take this cart home with you, the cart will freeze when you are away from its home base. Plants greeted me as I approached the entrance. They were colourful and pretty. I got the produce and fruit sections when I first walked in, which I needed. The celery was in fine condition. Folks shopping here seem to love watermelon. There was one left. I snagged it. It was heavy. I had a feeling that it was a good one. Everything else that I bought felt like bonuses. I got my watermelon. Mission accomplished! I liked the reduced pricing on watermelon and pineapple spears. Nothing was wrong with them. I looked at the expiration dates. They would give me enough time to devour them at my leisure. They were naturally sweet and delicious. I got ground pork meat that was reasonably priced. I also got pork link sausages. I've used both of them to make burgers and a breakfast skillet, respectively. Yummy and of good quality. It was sad to see a stand for bubbles (I'm guessing it's boba) in yogurt. That combination has always intrigued me. I felt that paying $4 to get the product itself was a bit much. I need a sale! Six-pack bottles of Diet Pepsi were cheap here. They were all between the frozen food fridges, which was weird to me. This store has Limca! I love this Indian drink that tastes much better than Sprite. I wish it came in a sugar-free form, but indulging now and again is okay. I went to line up to pay for my items. I got a loud, obnoxious cashier. Her voice and the volume at which she spoke gave me a dull headache and I was only there for maybe five minutes. Sadly, the couple in front of me took some time to pay and pack their items. This cashier had an obsession with thank-you stickers. When I took away my six-pack of Diet Pepsi, she seemed so offended that I didn't let her put a sticker on it. You put a sticker one this six-pack of pop, but not my twelve-pack of canned Diet Pepsi. I don't get the inconsistency. You clearly didn't run out of thank-you stickers. Perhaps you should have. My watermelon got a sticker. Maybe you need a sticker to thank yourself for using thank-you stickers so randomly. I got my Moi barcode scanned off my phone. I paid with a credit card. I tapped and was done. I packed all my items in my reusable bags. I then left as fast as I could, to stop my head from aching. It felt so much better heading to my car. No grating cashier voice with a bunch of orange thank-you stickers to haunt me. The fresh air also helped. I liked shopping here. I hope to avoid sticker-happy woman with the grating loud voice next time I'm here getting groceries. (262)

Pickering now has a Food Basics to contend with the Loblaws over in the next block and all the…read moreother independent grocery stores. How does it measure up? Well first things first, it's still really new! It's located next to the Home Depot but other than that, its parking lot is not really shared with anyone else so parking was a breeze. There were a lot of carts on our way in including ones that are fun for toddlers since they had cars they could sit in. As you enter, there are some deals to check out which we kind of just passed by and regretted not looking at until we were leaving. Once you're inside the store, you'll find yourself in the produce section. To your left you'll find baskets for lighter shopping trips and kid-sized carts. These carts are kinda cool since they have a tall flag attached to it so you can keep an eye on them from farther away. The aisles in the produce section were a little bit squishy. The carts seem like they're wider than at other grocery stores so two of them passing by each other is really tight and we'd often have to wait for someone else to go before we could maneuver out. All of the displays were stacked neatly and everything looked really fresh and clean. We did pick up a few cartons of blueberries which were only $1.67 each. Normally they're at least $2.50 when I get them at Metro on sale! The rest of the store had more spacing between the aisles which made navigating around a little bit easier. The Food Basics store brand are the Selection items which are almost always a better deal than the national brands. We were able to get 3 200g bags of Selection chips for $4 whereas the Lays chips in 250g bags were 2 for $5. Marginally cheaper. Whatever, a deal is a deal. I'll take it and get to try more flavours lol. When we got to checkout that process also went smoothly. Each of the checkout lanes has the bagging item area separated into two for maximum efficiency. You do have to bag your own groceries. We definitely found a few great deals and the shopping experience was pleasant and stress free. Loblaws better watch out and Metro might regret having their low cost competitor in town!

Don't ever call these people. I called to ask for a specific product if they can take a look if…read morethey carry it and she said no and then she said no again and then she hung up the phone on me. That's what you get if you go to blue sky . They will not get a penny from me!! I live 10 km away from their location. No wonder they only have 3.0 stars out of five !!!Absolutely rude. DONE-BANG!!!

If I could sum up my shopping experience, it would be, "I'm loving it!" Even in COVID-19 times,…read morethey are well stocked with fruits and veggies which have been essential in staying sane by still cooking fresh meals. The staff are still courteous and take extra precautions by wearing masks and gloves in the store.

Attended their grand opening for new management however foods and many items did not have any kind…read moreof process tags.... They didn't even greet people just stood around outside taking pictures infront of their cars? Poor customer service already and had high hopes.

Reasonable prices, good selection of food both fresh and hot and the staff is friendly. Definitely…read morerecommend.

I buy most of my vegetables from Farm Boy. They're always fresh, well cleaned, and they offer a…read morewide variety. Best of all, for me, the items that I need are sold loose so I can buy the exact quantity that I want. Two of my favourites are rainbow carrots and green beans, always fresh. All the other products in the store appear to be top quality but a bit pricey for my everyday use. Nevertheless, if I want a treat, this is where I'd shop!

Clean place , staff are friendly they match about 3 to 4 places flyers which helps quite a lot …read more Food is fresh and well kept . And also provide rain check when its out of stock

FreshCo is a member of the Sobey's family. It is the cheaper more down-to-earth alternative. It's…read morekind of hit or miss with what you can find here. We came here while they seemingly had specials for Diwali. There were a lot of Asian vegetables that are hard to find like Indian and Chinese eggplant as well as some melons and root vegetables. I was pretty impressed with the freshness and overall appearance of the produce as well. I expected most things to be cheaper at Freshco than say a Sobey's or a Metro. The ground beef was not actually cheaper and was almost a bit pricier. They have a limited selection of meats so I wonder if it was the scarcity that made the price higher. There is also no fresh seafood at this location. We were looking for scallops and they didn't have frozen ones either. An employee that we asked about the scallops actually didn't know what they were and pointed us in the direction of the scalloped potatoes, oops.

Tip: Collect PC Optimum points at this store…read more A few months ago, I was at Rexall at the corner of Finch Avenue and Dixie Road. In the same plaza was Derek's Your Independent Grocer store. It intrigued me back then, especially with a Loblaws store close by on Kingston Road. I needed to get some groceries before I took in a matinee flick at Cineplex in Pickering. My original thought was to hit the Food Basics near this movie theatre. My route had me passing by this grocery store. Hey, why not give this place a try? I was driving eastbound on Finch Avenue. I took a right into the parking lot. It was spitting rain. I parked fairly close to the entrance and walked over to the entrance. I like that shopping carts don't require that you scramble for change to unlock it. I got a smaller one, as I didn't need a ton of items for this haul. I then walked in. I always like visiting a supermarket that I've never been to. I liked the produce section. Everything looked fresh. It wasn't overwhelming, as it is smaller supermarket. Prices are slightly expensive, as it's technically affiliated with Loblaws. However, I like the selection and variety. I needed celery and an avocado. They were both in pristine condition. The latter looked like every one was super ripe, but it wasn't the case when you held a few in your hand. I got a pineapple. There was a sale. Yay! In the prepared food section, wings were on sale. My highlight was seeing a perogies meal, complete fried onions and coleslaw. Wow! It was cool seeing sushi pockets in the frozen food fridge in both tuna mayo and salmon teriyaki. I grabbed the former to try out. This store also had beef rolls for hot pot. Impressive! I got a box of St Hubert tourtière in a pack of two that I've never seen before. I liked the smaller size that you can heat and eat. I wasn't planning on getting any pop here. However, I saw 7up in zero-sugar watermelon. It was new to me and a limited edition. I needed to get a case and did. This place had a ton of ICEE drink packs. It gave summer vibes early. I found the discount section. I ended up getting some ramen and a pack of PRIME drink packets that were heavily marked down in price. There was so much to see. I was extremely happy to have found bottles of furikake. I grabbed a bottle. This store has human cashiers and self-checkout kiosks. I went with a female cashier who was pleasant. She admitted that she was tired when she asked me for my PC Optimum barcode a second time. She had already scanned it. I was pleased to see a lavender reusable bag that I could purchase. I've been shopping with a reusable Yelp bag for a few years that has lost a lot of its insulated lining and had seen better days. This lavender bag was larger and would be a nice replacement despite not being insulated. This woman was great helping me place my items in my new bag. I put in the remaining items as she was getting me Disney stickers. I paid with a credit card. I tapped and was done. I thanked this woman and rolled my groceries over to my car. I then put my cart away. I liked shopping here. It had everything that I needed and a lot more. (182)

$4.50 for a bag of ice!!??? What a scam!…read moreShame on you Allan!! $3.50 same day price at the convenience store across the street. $2.75 same day price at the LCBO. Do not tolerate this!!