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You bet! Our 99 Cent Stores here in Las Vegas have all sorts of Mexican and Asian food finds. I'm a sucker for the interesting hot pepper sauces and salsas I always find there....and the great bargains on shelf liner paper (wink).

There's one dollar store near here, and I went in there once. I ended up buying donut baking kit because I wanted the pans. But otherwise, it didn't impress me. Maybe I'll check it out again. It might have just been a bad day. But most of the foodstuffs they had were snackfoods.

But I do like bargain stores like Tuesday Morning and Marshalls. Lately, the Marshall's near here has had Sonoma extracts and jarred black truffles. And there are always interesting olive oils, vinegars, and other interesting ingredients. And I love looking at the gadgets. A while back, they had some great sales on Nordicware Bundt pans.

There's also a weird little store that sells restaurant-supply type stuff. Some of the cans are dented, and it's real hit-and-miss if there will be anything good. Or if it will be in a size I want to deal with. Sometimes it's humungous cans, or else it will be something like sugar in the single serve packets. If it's something you can portion out, it's okay, like I bought a pound of instant yeast (yes, I bake a lot of bread) but I don't need a massive can of corn niblets.

I must admit that I am scared to death of the 99 cent store. I never heard of such a thing until I moved to California.

99 Cent/Big Lots is invariably my main source for canned seafoods; specifically crabmeat and tiny schrimp. I've purchased spices there but can't say I'd reccomend them to friends. Yes, my experience is that it is a good place to find asian and latin products and sauces that you've wanted to try out but didn't want to pay full price for. I haven't purchased any food there that I'd consider serving at a dinner party or potluck...

The 99 Cent store I went to is in the Los Angeles area. There used to be this column in a local newspaper that detailed findings at various L.A. 99 Cent stores- it usually made me laugh, but sometimes I was envious because in truth, don't all girls want a New Kids on the Block pot holder? Anyhow, the 99 Cent stores around here have lots of Asian products, but not a lot of Mexican products. If any of you live in Southern California and are interested in cheap Mexican food (stuff), you should look into Northgate Markets. There's one up the street from my house. I'm not too excited by it because I grew up eating Mexican food at least 3-4 times a week, but I would imagine it'd be a lot of fun for people who've never seen piles of fresh masa, 4 pan dulce's for a buck or a wide array of excellent drinks like Jamaica and horchata.

I'm with huney_bumper. Check the expiration dates and you should be ok.

To get off subject here, in my town we have a 99 cent clothing store! Who would buy clothes from there?

We have "Dollar Tree"

I'll chime in on the expiration date advice.
When hubby and I moved here, we had to wait quite a while for our belongings to arrive, in the meantime I went to the dollar store to get some interim supplies (coffee mugs, cutting board, knife--total waste of a dollar, aluminum foil--I didn't know they made foil that thin, jeez) and found organic bottled salad dressing, bought 4 bottles, came home and realized the expiration date was in a few days. We used it on everything before I finally threw out the remaing one and a half bottles.
Also, be aware you might not be getting a deal. I was surprised to find a cute little box of Morton's Kosher salt for $1, but at the local grocery store the same container was around 70 cents. Not a huge price difference, but made me realize not everything in the dollar store is a bargain.

@wookie, the expiration dates on products have more to do with how long they can sell them than they have to do with how long the product is actually good for. Some things can go bad sitting on a shelf, but that can take a long time unless it's something truly perishable. Until the product is opened, the issue is more about declining quality than it is a worry about making you sick. And things don't suddenly go bad one day after the expiration date.

There are expiration dates on pretty much everything, nowadays, but how many of those things really spoil? I've got a bottle of vinegar with an expiration date. I mean, what's that going to do? Turn into wine?

And a lot of products will actually tell you how long a product is good for after the sell-by date. In some cases, they might say it's up to a year. Or longer.

Personally, I'm picky when it comes to buying food products at discount stores, partially because I wonder how much time the product has spent on trucks or warehouses where the temperature could fluctuate wildly. I think about that more than I worry about the actual expiration date. A bag of rice or a box of dried pasta isn't going to worry me much, but some things in cans and bottles, I'm more suspicious of.

I like to buy my spices there especially when I do my holiday baking. Good place for plastic wraps and bags also. I see a lot of cleaning ladies buying their products there also. Makes sense.....