PanchoHambre
Washing Up
I love grocery stores and markets. They still to vary greatly around the country.
NYC was like traveling at home because all the different neighborhoods have supermarkets and specialty shops geared to the local ethnicity. There are not too many big box chain style markets there so the variations are great.
With the exception of Reading Terminal and The Italian Market neighborhood Philly is pretty grim on the grocery shopping level...
The best ever was when I lived on the Swiss-Italian border... food was amazing... unfathomably expensive but amazing the groceries were wonderful.
I remember England having great sweets and cream and in France the meats and cheese even at a common little market were wonderful.
Houston TX where I lived for a long time had great food shopping too. Not so many specialty shops but some great supermarket chains... Randalls Flagship was like a TajMahal compared to east coast supermarkets and my favorite was Fiesta which is decidedly lower end but makes a effort to stock for the local population... my neigborhood was a mix of Mexican immigrants and aspiring yuppies so our Fiesta had great Mexican food and produce (really cheap avocados and mangoes) as well as nice wine and cheese sections and an interesting collection of beers.... also they let people take carts home and sent a guy around to collect them.... Awesome.
The flip side of buying food on vacation is when say you are all excited to score some Maple Syrup in Vermont or something and the you get home and see the same thing on the shelf at Pathmark for less
NYC was like traveling at home because all the different neighborhoods have supermarkets and specialty shops geared to the local ethnicity. There are not too many big box chain style markets there so the variations are great.
With the exception of Reading Terminal and The Italian Market neighborhood Philly is pretty grim on the grocery shopping level...
The best ever was when I lived on the Swiss-Italian border... food was amazing... unfathomably expensive but amazing the groceries were wonderful.
I remember England having great sweets and cream and in France the meats and cheese even at a common little market were wonderful.
Houston TX where I lived for a long time had great food shopping too. Not so many specialty shops but some great supermarket chains... Randalls Flagship was like a TajMahal compared to east coast supermarkets and my favorite was Fiesta which is decidedly lower end but makes a effort to stock for the local population... my neigborhood was a mix of Mexican immigrants and aspiring yuppies so our Fiesta had great Mexican food and produce (really cheap avocados and mangoes) as well as nice wine and cheese sections and an interesting collection of beers.... also they let people take carts home and sent a guy around to collect them.... Awesome.
The flip side of buying food on vacation is when say you are all excited to score some Maple Syrup in Vermont or something and the you get home and see the same thing on the shelf at Pathmark for less