For a high desert town of only 77,000 people, Bend is rich with unique places to shop for food products. From natural food stores like Nature's to independent grocer neighborhood markets like Newport Avenue Market to large upscale grocers like Whole Foods to farm to table producers of humanely raised meats like Pono Farms to quirky cult stores like Trader Joes to remarkable artisan bakeries like Village Baker and Sparrow.
What Bend mostly lacks is specialty ethnic food markets. But we're fortunate to have a nice little Mexican specialty market in Colima Market. It has a well worn sign painted on the window that says "Su Tienda Latina". Your Latin Store.
This a small store, old infrastructure, in a hard to notice location off of Greenwood, around the corner of the building from Bookmark used book store. Unless you're looking for it, you can drive by and not even know it is there. Colima sells mostly packaged goods, not fresh foods, although it does have some fresh produce like cactus, tomatillos, plantains and a variety of fresh chili peppers.
It is not a large market, like say the remarkable for all things Latin, Plaza Latina in Eugene. But what makes Colima special is that this is truly a mom and pop grocery operation. The parents / owners and grandmother all work the front of the store, as does their beautiful and poised teen aged daughter. ("That delightful young woman should be on the cover of magazines", says my hubby.) Everyone is so helpful when we're lost in trying to determine what specific ingredient we need, even though we are probably some of the few shoppers who do not speak Spanish. We always feel welcome.
Our stops into Colima are typically for dried chilis. Colima has the broadest selection in Bend of fresh dried chilis, in our opinion, both in bags and in bins. NOT an oxymoron - a fresh dried chili should be slightly pliable and aromatic. And these are. When you open the bins the chili aroma is distinct for each variety.
There are other specialty items too, including fresh masa in the refrigerated case. The masa is from a Portland area producer. (We were on the hunt for some today, along with dried New Mexico chilis, to make masa dumplings for a lamb and chili stew.) A friend of ours swears by the mole negro paste from a small producer sold in little plastic containers alongside the jars of the mass produced brands.
We've never checked out the racks of Spanish language music, movies and magazines in the adjacent room but it looks well stocked.
And the grandmother makes good tamales to go (by the half dozen minimum I think). They're not always available, but when they are - yum!
Absent the fresh dried chilis and fresh masa and homemade tamales, you can probably find as many Mexican package good staples between the large grocery stores of Fred Meyer and Safeway in Bend as they stock up to meet a growing demand for Mexican food products here. But there is something lost in that for us when we can shop at Colima and support a truly family run business. read more
