a Chinese Supermarket revolution!

This morning I had a dentist appointment. I see my dentist 3x per year....and though all these months pass by in between visits, he always manages to remember what we last talked about. Like he asked my about my trip to Chicago and Kentucky. I sweat he writes coversations down in my file to bring up at my next visit. Nevertheless...it impresses me. It's good business practice to remember information about your clients.

After the dentist, I had Korean food for lunch with my mom, and then before our facial appointments, we stopped at T&T.
Now, I know my Asian friends will be disappointed to hear that this was only my first time inside this store, but I was soooooooooo amazed!!
I honestly felt like a tourist, marvelling at all the sights, smells and sales! Don't get me wrong...I've shopped frequently in Chinatown, Sun Hing, Big Land Farm (when it was open), and they're pretty much your run of the mill Chinese supermarkets: Cold, English labels are inconsistent, none of the workers speak English, the store smells like fish, random meat products and offal are unsanitarily packed into buckets in the fridge section and it's slightly dirty and ghetto overall.
Not so with T&T.
Now here's finally a Chinese supermarket that has MASTERED how to sell Asian food products in Canada.
Firstly, the look and feel of the store felt like Loblaws Market! The only difference was that instead of selling bean salad, pasta salad and potato salad, the enticing salad bar was filled with delicious Asian marinated vegetables such as kim-chi, sesame bean sprouts, soya pigs ear salad, etc....it all looked so appetizing!
They also sold pre-washed, pre-cut, pre packaged meat and vegetable packs ready to use for hot pot!! This store has everything! Instead of a rotisserie chicken hot counter, T&T sells sushi, dim sum and Chinese takeaway.
Don't even get me started on the bakery and the meat department. I was so impressed with everything in the store, but namely the cleanliness and lack of smells and the ENGLISH LABELS!!
When contemplating to buy dragon fruit for the first time, the gentleman packing the fruit section not only spoke to me in ENGLISH, but was friendly and explained what the fruit tasted like and how to eat it!! Needless to say I bought the beautiful pink fluorescent fruit and it's now up there on my favourite fruit list! I'm definitely making a special trip to T&T next time I'm in Mississauga or Markham. But in the meantime, I'll sit back and see if anyone will comment on how North-Americanized T&T is. Has T&T watered down the authenticity of Chinese grocery stores? I dont' think it's a bad thing when it comes to improving their customer service to non-Chinese speaking Canadian shoppers, and upping the anty on cleanliness.