Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Not Your Average Grocery Store

Besides the weather, there are many perks to living in California. My favorite by far though is the variety of grocery stores that are within a 20 mile radius of my house.

Not in any priority order:

1. Mitsuwa - Japanese Grocery Store. The reviews are pretty amusing.

2. Han Kook - Korean Grocery Store

3. Trader Joes - Cosmopolitan Grocery Store at affordable prices

4. Whole Foods - for the gourmet cook

5. Ranch 99 - Chinese Grocery store


These are the ones I frequent, but there are Indian, Mexican and yes even British grocery stores in the area.


My sense of food stuff has been heighted since I started working for a company that provides meals prepared by some of the most amazing chefs. They've introduced new produce into my own cooking including the broccolini. Over the years, I've also noticed that fruits and vegetables that were once seasonal are now available year round. Cherries in winter? No problem! Imported from Chile.
With this much variety, would it inspire you to try new dishes?




5 comments:

Master Jedi said...

You gotta include Safeway! especially now that they are re-modeling.

I think one drawback of these fancy grocery stores is that they're small and crammed. Ranch 99 is probably the worst offender of this...especially the one in Cupertino.

Master Jedi said...

i think it's always nice to try new foods...the advantage of working at your company definitely allows you to sample new flavors and ingredients at the best price possible!!!

i think brocolini has moved up significantly in my vegetable prefences. It may be in the top 5 along with Gai-lan, artichokes, zuccini (grilled), and dou miao ("da-ge")...the second tier of favorites i think are On-choi, asparagus, eggplant, and cong-qin cai.

Anonymous said...

How weird!!! Broccolini (called tenderstem broccoli here) is a favorite of everyone in the house right now and that includes Stephen!

Mo's Musings said...

I wonder why we never saw broccolini in the stores when we were growing up? Then again, pluots are pretty new too. Genetically modified food?

Anonymous said...

Wikipedia says it's a natural hybrid cross between broccoli and Chinese kale and it was introduced to the American market in 1996.