Silk Road Foods

Silk Road is a grocery store that sells food mostly from the Indian subcontinent, but they have items from other countries as well, including the Middle East and also South East Asia. The store is fairly large and it’s relatively clean and well-​lit.
They have a butchery at the back which sells halal meat. They also have a place that sells hot food. It used to serve Indian food with different curries and awesome samosas, but now they are in the midst of renovations and it looks like they will be serving shawarma instead. In my last few visits I have also noticed more Middle Eastern items, so I wonder if there has been a change in management, or if there is just more of a demand for Middle Eastern items over Indian items now.
At any rate, you will find many imported items here that you won’t find in regular supermarkets like Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, etc.
They sometimes have random stuff on sale for super cheap. During my last visit, I saw tons of cell phone cases for $ 1. They were cute too; they had one shaped like a piano keyboard. They were mostly for iPhone 4 and 5 series, but they had some Android models too — all older models though.
They are located in between The Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul on Merivale. There is free parking.

Finally, Silk Roads has opened! It is such a delight to have a grocery store on Merivale Road specializing in foods and spices from India as well as the Middle East.
Upon entry of the store, you can smell the aroma of spices. The store is fairly large and reminds me a little bit of Price Choppers Grocery store. It could be because they use quiet a bit of orange in their interior colors.
The first aisle is the produce. It is honestly a hit and miss and the produce is fairly priced, (.35 cents/​/​pound for bananas!!!). The produce looked very sad though. The strawberries were wilting, and some of the greens looked like they needed to be rotated off the shelf. Not a great place to buy produce if you are looking for quality. Hopefully it improves.
Beyond the produce, they have a great selection of candies from India and the Middle East, a great selection of rice, cooking oils, coconut oils, Mexican food, some frozen vegetarian foods as well as a some American brand household cleaning supplies and products.
They have a bakery with goodies and fresh breads, and they are going to be launching their freshly prepared foods section soon with take out items of cooked chicken, curries, and rice.
I did not purchase anything from this grocer this time around, but if I ever need a spice for a recipe, I know that this place will have it.
I hope that this store succeeds, since it seems to be a family run business, but I hope the quality of produce improves, since they do offer great prices.