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I love going to the supermarket. I love walking down the aisles, checking out the ingredients, and thinking up what to cook next for dinner: clams for soup, ribs for sinigang, and maybe pasta for lasagna. However, there are days when I wish that somebody else would just cook all these up for me. My son makes yummy meals. When he’s off to school, however, the kitchen detail falls squarely on my shoulders.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon a most helpful service offering by a supermarket just a few minutes away from home.
At Metro Alabang Supermarket, you can bring the hubby and kids along, shop for the ingredients of your favorite dish, scoot on over to their on-site restaurant, Metro Gourmet, and have them cook it for you. Apart from providing your family with a one-of-a-kind dining experience, you have the assurance of knowing exactly each and every ingredient on each and every dish your loved ones are eating for a minimal cooking fee. But when you get your ingredients from Metro Gourmet—they have a good selection of deli meats and cheeses—no fees apply. How cool is that?!
But there are other factors which make shopping at Metro Alabang Supermarket such a pleasant experience.
#1 It is the first and only supermarket in the Philippines to meet the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards of the Societe Generale de Surveillance Philippines (SGS).
The HACCP and GMP certifications cover the supermarket’s fresh produce handling process, from receiving and storage to dispatch of goods to customers. Aisles and shelves are clean, dry, and spotless. Fruits and vegetables are arranged in an organized manner, and checked for quality. Fish and seafood items are covered in crushed ice to help maintain their freshness. Thongs are color-coded to prevent cross-contamination: blue for seafood, yellow for poultry, and red for meat. All these steps mean that you get the freshest ingredients at the supermarket and the best tasting meals at home.
#2 It offers a dizzying array of products, from premium meats and hard-to-find condiments to wines, cheeses, herbs, spices, and everyday items tagged at reasonable price points.
Going through Metro Alabang Supermarket’s wide, well-lit supermarket aisles is like going on an adventure of sorts, especially if you’re fond of discovering new items or hard-to-find ones.
I confess. Though Metro Alabang Supermarket has already been open for a couple of years, I’ve never had the opportunity to visit it. I am a creature of habit, so I naturally gravitated to supermarkets that I’ve been going to for years. When I thus checked out Metro Supermarket Alabang, it was like Christmas!
Apart from frozen food items like pizzas, samosas, burritos, and dimsum as well as whole strawberries and blueberries, there are also vacuum-packed nuts, wine from Spain, Australia, France, and California, an assortment of meat products from the United States and Australia, and a whole slew of herbs and spices to make your meals a tad more delicious.
Its international section, which we heard is a favorite among chefs and expats, is quite formidable as it features a whole range of items to help you make dishes from Korea, Japan, Italy, and China to Singapore, India, and America. There’s rice wine vinegar and soybean paste, pickled bamboo shoots and all sorts of noodles. There’s also couscous and gluten-free muesli, whole grain crispbread and granola, and all sorts of pasta sauces.
At the fresh produce section, I was happy to find different types of lettuce, from romaine to iceberg, and mushrooms, from enoki to Portobello. At the seafood section, there’s salmon belly at P260/kg, salmon head at P145/kg, salmon steak at P640/kg, maya-maya at P476/kg, samaral at P364/kg, and talakitok at P416/kg.
And because the Metro Retails Store Group, the operators of Metro Supermarket, traces its origins from Cebu, it features all these delicacies from Cebu like chicharon from Carcar, dried mangoes,otap, and tablea. Plus, flown daily are kilos and kilos of Cebu lechon (P8,500 for a medium-sized one)! Yummy!
#3 It has all these other extras.
But apart from filling up your shopping list, there are all sorts of other errands which you can accomplish on a visit to the Metro. On the upper floor is the department store where you can find, among other things, bolts and bolts of fabrics—silk, cotton, whathaveyou—with nice designs and reasonable price points. A good find: Japanese cotton at P120/yard. Alongside the fabrics are threads and laces for moms who have sewing projects going on, be it pillowcases and curtains for their home or school uniforms and costumes for their kids.
The women’s in-house ready-to-wear brands, Avenue and Ma Co, feature modern colors and clean lines. The furniture section showcases a beautiful line from Cebu, Murillo. Other finds include: musical instruments, shoes and accessories, and jewelry.
There’s a satellite office of the Department of Foreign Affairs at the top floor for those who need to get passports or have theirs renewed. And after your business at the DFA, you can grab a bite to eat at Metro’s food court.
There really is something for everyone at Metro.-Jing Lejano
Metro Alabang Supermarket is located at Alabang Town Center, Zapote Rd., Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa, Metro Manila.
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