In Hall County, heading to the local grocery store is often the same old shopping experience.

You just need to look at the store brands to figure out where you are - otherwise, the shelves are filled with the same items.

But if you stop by a local Latin market, you can fill your pantry with treats similar to what you'd find in the big grocery stores, but with a flavor twist.

Many of the Latin grocery stores have a large meat market section with hand-sliced meats, fresh-cooked chicken and pork along with traditional cheeses.

At Supermercado El Maguey, shoppers walk in and hear a welcoming "buenas dias" from the clerk in the front and see fresh tortillas prepared in the bakery.

"(We have) warm rotisserie chicken; every single day we have a different special," said Beatriz Soriano, the manager at Supermercado El Maguey. "We have carnitas, that is basically our signature item, along with our tortillas."

In the bakery, fresh sopes - tortillas with crimped edges - are prepared and topped with beans, beef, lettuce, sour cream and cheese.

"Those are the kind of items you would find here and not other places," Soriano said. "The red tortillas are used to make enchiladas. People prepare this different ways, depending on where they are from.

"The chips ... they taste different than the ones they sell at the store; we use our own tortillas. They are more like what they do in Mexico. They are thinner here and we use white corn, and the other chips they use yellow corn."

Supermercado El Maguey has been in Gainesville for three years and is a family-run grocery owned by Soriano's parents, Jose and Horencia Figueroa.

Fresh carnitas, a specially seasoned pork for Hispanic dishes like quesadillas and enchiladas, sit in the meat department's glass cases. Carne al pastor, another favorite item, is made from pork, cilantro, onions, pineapple and spices. Typically, you would buy the seasoned pork and then "you would grill it and put it on a tortilla," Soriano said.

Chicken fajitas with onions and green peppers are ready to buy for at-home grilling, too.

Fresh meats are also a specialty at Carniceria Tapatia in Gainesville.

"We make chorizo - spiced pork, these cuts of meat - we make them here," said manager Noe Covarrubias, whose father Jesus Covarrubias has owned the market for seven years. "They are Hispanic cuts, very thin."

At Supermercado El Maguey, another specialty is the homemade cactus salsa.

"That is the cactus with the tomatoes, onions," Soriano said. "It's a little spicy because it does have jalapeños. It's (the cactus) really soft and a little soggy."

At Los Girasoles supermarket in Gainesville, owner David Madera said he'll often look over books of items from his food suppliers and find new products. He doesn't have a demand for any specific items, but looks for different candies or snacks for his customers.

Among the specifically Latin items he carries at his store, Madera pointed out a cone of raw sugar, mango juice and sweetbreads.

"They're like (sugar) cane - they make them out of cane," Madera said of the sweet brown cones. They can be found near the coffee and juices.

And while apple and grape juices are normally found in supermarket chains, tropical flavors are more common on the shelves of a Latin grocery store.

That's because the flavors are more common in Mexico and other Central American countries, Madera said. For example, Capri Sun drinks in Mexico are flavored with mango juice, rather than orange, he said.

Madera buys sweetbreads from La Estrella Bakery on Cleveland Highway, and they come in bags of six or are sold individually.

"It's regular sweetbread," he said, holding a bag of breads, each the size of your hand. "Sometimes they put different flavors or different shapes, but it's just regular bread."

He also noted a bag of pumpkin seeds, which are preferred by Latin customers over sunflower seeds.

"Like in baseball, the American people like to eat a lot of sunflower seeds. And we usually use this," he said, pointing to the bag hanging next to jalapeño chips and other snacks.

The store also sells popusas, which are grilled meat sandwiches, from the meat counter in the back.

"It's kind of like a gordita, but instead you cook the meat first. Then you put the meat in the (bread) and fold it like a pizza," he said. "Then you put it on the grill. It's served hot."

Noe Covarrubias, originally from Chicago, said Hispanic snacks are popular at his store. From cookies, candy and sweetbreads to a circular fried snack called frituras.

"You eat them with lime and hot sauce," Covarrubias said. "What they do in Mexico is they make a bag of them - they pouf up and are crunchy - and fill up a bag, pour some hot sauce in there and some lime and then just eat out of there."

Frituras can be made from a meat, seafood or vegetable base.

Covarrubias also suggested a popular drink made from tamarind, a brown oblong fruit inside of a pod that grows on a tropical tree.

"You make a drink out of it, which is real good," he said. "It's a cold drink and it's a little sweet and sour."

Soriano likened the tamarind drink to lemonade in the United States. For her, favorites on the soda and drink aisle were the Toronja, or grapefruit flavor Jarritos, and the mandarin.

And if you are headed to any of these specialty grocery stores, don't go in the dairy section blindly. The queso in the cooler will not taste like your local Mexican restaurant's cheese dip.

"The queso dip that American people are used to is not cheese that Mexican people would eat," Covarrubias said. "When you go to restaurants and you eat the cheese dip it's Land-O-Lakes extra-melt cheese; we do a cheese dip with Chihuahua cheese which doesn't stay melted the whole time.

"The one in the restaurant is really good but it's not Mexican cheese dip."