Cuteness Overload - The shops at Atlantic Time Square

This entire center, called the Atlantic Time Square is a combined retail and residential complex located in the middle of Monterey Park.

It seems to have it all, from restaurants, to a fitness center and walking distance to various ethnic markets...I noticed they had Curry House here. The one in San Diego by Nijiya is long gone, having been replaced by Koon Thai...

TC and I wanted to check out some of the shops before leaving, especially the candy store....


If we weren't saving our appetite for our planned lunch destination, we would have tried the beef rolls at this place...

Mmmm,beef rolls...and scallion pancakes.

Another nearby store was this, Tokyo Japanese Lifestyle which had a window display of Rilakkuma bears...

There were more inside in all shapes and sizes, along with other kinds of cute merchandise...


I got these square folding papers for future use (only $1.99).

Across from the Tokyo Store was Daiso, a Japanese five and dime type of store (like Marukai).

Most items were $1.50 each, like how Marukai used to be until they raised their prices.  These were vegetable peelers and garnish gadgets.

This aisle had cute bento boxes for children (and uh, adults too).

I bough a few packages of twist ties (star and gingham print) and binder clips while TC got these apple jelly candies.

Near the Tokyo store was another Japanese store, specializing in all candy and Asian snacks. They had a special going on - buy one seaweed candy, get one free (which we did not get since seaweed candy didn't appeal to us).

There were standard sweet and sour candies, wrapped and unwrapped and Japanese sweets along the walls.

Another wall had dried fish, sweet and sour seeds and some other stuff I couldn't quite identify. There were free samples by most of the foreign candies but we didn't really try any. TC ended up buying a small bag for herself and another as a gift for a friend's upcoming birthday. Most of the candies were hard and sour or gummy. One of them was a durian flavor thrown in as a joke.

Despite the sterile nature of this complex, it had an interesting mix of shops and restaurants of the major Asian persuasions.

Info on Atlantic Times Square:
atlantictimesquare.com (here in the link for the store listings)

Plus: Daiso
Aji Ichiban
Tokyo Jpanese Lifestyle

This retail center had it all! Too bad we weren't able to fit in Fluff Ice and 101 Noodle Express (mmm, beef rolls). Next time! We drove for a tiny bit exploring the area before hitting up our next spot. This time for an early lunch snack.