Asian Grocery Stores   -by Kun Yi

Bored with the taste of Appel-lized chicken dumplings? Trying to discover how good a cook you really are? Need some taste of home for your tongue? The Asian grocery stores can be a choice for you, in sense that they have:
Asian food, raw and cooked, that you won’t find in Tops, Wegman’s or Walmart.
Chinese houseware and cookers
LOTS of Asian snacks!

What to buy
As the largest Asian grocery store in Ithaca, Win Li offers a very big selection of fresh Asian vegetables and has seasonally fresh fish. They also have Chinese snacks, Chinese housewares (pots, bowls, rice cookers, etc.), cooking spices and a big selection of rice. Win Li is probably the best place to go if you want to purchase a large amount of food.

Ithaca Tofu has a slightly more varied selection of fruit and vegetables, but has more in the way of Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean sauces. In keeping with their name, they do have a large selection of all kinds of tofu. They get fresh shipments of pre-cooked Chinese deli staples (chicken feet, tripe, scallion rolls) from NYC every week.

Tong Fang is very small. However, located in Collegetown, it’s the most convenient of the three. It caters much more to the college crowd and stocks a large array of teas and instant noodles.

Note: Be careful to the items on sale—they might NOT be fresh anymore.

Location and Transportation
Win Li Supermarket
374 Elmira Rd. Tel: 277-6790
Win Li is to the south of downtown on Route 13 (near the McDonald's).
No buses from Cornell to Win Li. Take a taxi or drive a car.

Ithaca Tofu Asian Market
Ste F, 23 Cinema Dr. Tel: 266-0336
Tofu is located located in the "Small Mall" on Cinema Drive behind Triphammer Mall.
Bus: Take Route 30, and get off at Triphammer Rd (Infront of HSBC).
Schedule of TCAT Route 30

Tong Fang is located right across from the intersection of Buffalo and Eddy streets.

Ithaca Mall (Pyramid Mall)

Target
Bestbuy
Tops

What to buy
I believe everybody has been to Target at least once. You can almost buy any daily necessity there, from clothes to small furniture. And the prices are fair. They have pretty good eyeliners for girls, and the interesting Dove facial scrub that uses batteries. Girls might want to check it out. They don’t have much food collection, but if you only need milk, cereal, juice, ice cream, chips, refreshments, etc., Target suffices. Basically every Cornellian goes to Target since there is convenient, well, not in terms of waiting time, bus services. And because of that, Target has very good college sales at the start of semesters. And that’s when you go there and discover the shelves are empty and you only get three or four items checked off your shopping list. Act early at that period of time.  –By Yumeng Zheng

Bestbuy is a major electronic supplier in the U.S. The store at Ithaca mall is the closest one to campus. You can find all sorts of electronics there, MP3s, digital cameras, games consoles, software, computers, home appliances etc. It’s the ultimate source for electronics-manic like me. There’s usually a huge sale in the dawn of Friday during Thanksgiving. It usually starts at 5 in the morning, so get in the line early if you want to buy yourself a Thanksgiving gift. It’s worth it. – By Xu Han

Tops is a perfect choice to go if you need to find yourself some food or to cook by yourself. Large grocery collection from snack to fresh meat &bread are provided. Fresh meat sold in Butcher’s shop has the lowest price as far as we know. There are also abundance of fruits and vegetables. As you proceed to explore you can also find more flavors for Häagen-Dazs icecream. Tops is located just next to Pyramid Mall. Students living in Collegetown can take route 30 (bus stop in front of Pizza) and get off at the stop right after sears. Students living in North Campus can take route 35 or 34 in weekends. 
Tips: you can sign up at a counter near the entrance to get a bonus card, which will save you a lot of money on certain products. –By Yinan Lin

Location and Transportation
Target is located at the east end of Ithaca Mall. Take Route 30 you’ll usually get off in front of its gate
Bustbuy is located at the west end of Ithaca Mall
Tops is close to the west side of Ithaca Mall, within 3-min walking distance. You can see it from the bus stop at Sears

To reach Ithaca Mall, take TCAT Route 30 during weekdays and weekends, or Route 35 or 34 during weekdays
Schedule of TCAT Route 30
Schedule of TCAT Route 34
Schedule of TCAT Route 35.
Notice: Route 30 stops at Balch during the weekdays, and at RPCC during weekends

 

WAL-MART  -By Lin Zheng

What to buy
Wal-Mart is bigger and therefore offers a lot more things than Target does—at much lower prices. It most likely has everything you’ll ever need in college, from tons of clothes, foods (freshly made or packaged), fruits, vegetables, and dairy to writing utensils, books, movies, and other services such as… a selection of cell phones, cell phone plans, a photo center with1-hour photo processing service, a professional portrait studio for passport pictures or just for fun, a Subway restaurant, a vision center that licenses prescriptions for glasses and contacts, and a pharmacy. Moreover, Wal-Mart is open all the time!! Wal-Mart operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

Location and Transportation
Wal-Mart is located at 135 Fairgrounds Memorial Pkwy, Ithaca, NY 14850
The easiest way to get there is to go during the weekends by taking Bus Route 28, which operates on a loop and goes by Balch every hour or so.  
Estimated Trip Time: 43 Minutes
Total Fare: Free for all freshmen! YAY
Schedule of TCAT Route 28