Dakar Eats readers often come to me with ideas or topic suggestions for this blog. On some occasions, they are so happy with a store or product that they want to write a post for the blog. Even more rare and more awesome are the times someone is just so thrilled that they go ahead and write a post with lots of exclamation marks and pop it over to me in an email. I love these occasions!

Do you get as excited as I do when you have a new go-to place? I can’t resist sharing with everyone. Well, I have a new go-to grocery store! One of the challenges of life outside the US is that you have to go to multiple stores to get all your groceries. We used to make trips to Hypermarché, occasionally Casino, CityDia, the neighborhood boutiques. We will always make last minute dashes to the boutiques, but over the last few months, CityDia has become our go-to!

All the things you need at reasonable prices – fruits and veggies, even apricots, raisins, and dates, American toothpaste and shampoo (including baby products), good quality cleaning supplies, baby products, a decent little soft drink, juice, wine and beer selection (and try the non-alcoholic raspberry malt – yum!), bread, snacks (including Pringles, potato chips, and sometimes tortilla chips), condiments (including the more exotic – pesto!), a good selection of canned goods, especially of beans and lentils, rice, spices, dairy including my favorite lait caille (Ardo!) and sometimes even non-UHT milk and cream, eggs, a good cheese selection (Cheddar! – usually), teas, and (I wouldn’t know but I’ve been told), the best reasonably priced Fair Trade coffee in Dakar.

But my favorite is the freezers – baggies of frozen potato goodies, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, zucchini, chopped onions and shallots, easy meal veggie mixes, and frozen fish filets, smoked salmon, escargots, seafood mix, chicken nuggets and fishsticks, and even a few TV dinners. But my favorite is the ice cream freezer – in the last two weeks I have sampled their delectable stracciatella and tiramisu ice cream – for under 2,000 cfa per liter – oh my gosh!!

All this in three aisles, which means you can be in and out with all your groceries in 15 minutes – and the staff are friendly and competent. Since I don’t have time to write up a full store inventory, I’ve obviously left things off the list. So if you don’t see something on my list, go have a look for yourself!

Thanks for the guest post, Julie! Anyone else want to contribute? Just email us.

Fortunately for us all, CityDia stores seem to be popping up all over Dakar. First Hann Maristes, then Liberté 6, Mermoz, Point E and, most recently, downtown.

Find them on the Dakar Eats Google Map.