The Asian supermarket that smells like home...

In England, ‘Asian food’ means one of two things – takeaway Chinese (usually wet curry, sweet and sour or blackbean with fried rice, or more likely, chips!), or Indian. Occasionally you see Thai. You can often buy small bottles of soy in Tesco. But that's about it. So, just like in my Seymour days, I’ve been having cravings for Vietnamese rice paper rolls.

One of the reasons I love Cowley Rd in Oxford is the diversity of food – I can get Thai, Indonesian, Japanese, and good Chinese all 5 minutes from my house, not to mention Jamaican, Polish, Greek, Czech, Spanish and proper pizza, as well as abundant pub fare.

But I’ve been trawling through supermarkets and even ‘Asian’ grocers to buy ingredients for home, and always without success, even in London. Finally, I started asking at my local takeaway Asian joints – and they all pointed me to one place, a Chinese grocer between Gloucester Green and the train station. I took my pal Di and we went exploring. I walked in and was assailed with smells of Chinatown.. and home. We went slightly mad rummaging through shelves and fridges, and came away with things I haven’t seen in months – laksa paste, wonton wrappers, pork and leek dumplings; Thai fishcakes, marinated tofu; Chinese sausage, bok choi, pak choi. They even stock chicken’s feet (not my thing, but very Chinese).

And, best of all, wrappers for Vietnamese rice paper rolls. I’m in heaven. And I love Oxford.