Shopping in Portland

Our love of visiting grocery stores when traveling isn't just an international thing. Even when we don't leave the country, we still try to find time to stop and browse. Of course, on our Portland trip, we did more grocery shopping than usual because it was Thanksgiving week and we were tagging along with A's mom to pick up provisions for the week, but we were happy to go often and try as many stores as possible.

We have Costco at home, but every Costco is a little different, carrying local and market-specific products. One thing we noticed at the Portland Costco we visited was that there was a really extensive beer collection. That isn't really surprising since it's Portland, one of the country's craft beer capitals, and there were a lot of local brews there.

We picked up a case of Stone IPA for the week. Stone isn't a local Portland beer, but A was so excited to see a case full of it that we had to get it. We get some Stone beer at our local Costco now, but we didn't have any back then and we still don't have this sampler pack.

One thing that Costco carries on the West Coast but we've never seen east of the Mississippi (and don't know why!) is the giant bag of Hi-Chew. It's a great deal for the size and I really wish we could get it here. It's a 17-18 ounce bag with grape, strawberry, mango, and green apple candies. We love Hi-Chew candy and it's now become a thing on our West Coast trips that we go to stock up (kind of like the Hawaiian pilgrimage to Trader Joe's for cookie butter?).

Other than Costco, every grocery store we visited was one we couldn't go to at home. There was New Seasons Market, which seemed similar to Whole Foods, and had the most extensive "bulk bin" section I had ever seen. (We may have gotten some pine nuts to bring home since the price was so much better.) We went to QFC, which was more of a standard grocery store (more on QFC in the next post). The one we really enjoyed though was Fred Meyer, where we went multiple times. The prices at Fred Meyer often beat all the rest, the products looked great, and they didn't just carry food. They had a whole liquor shop and clothes and everything else you could want. It was like a Target with a full and better grocery store. We loved shopping and looking to see what was different from home.

Unlike the dairy sections at grocery stores at home, the ones in the Portland area were often overrun with Tillamook products. (That's a good thing.) We've known about and been fans of Tillamook since we learned about their Oregon roots and tried their cheese years ago (including on one of our flights).

We decided to pick up lots of yogurt for the week, so we tried a whole bunch of Tillamook flavors. As a general matter, the quality of the yogurt was good. The fruit flavors for the most part tasted natural, unlike some of those artificially sweet yogurt brands out there.

Although we did get some classic flavors like peach and lime, we tried to concentrate on flavors that really reflected Oregon. We picked up Oregon strawberry, mountain huckleberry, and marionberry (a blackberry that was developed in Oregon). Out of all the flavors we tried, the one we liked best was the marionberry.

One thing the Portland area grocery stores definitely did better than most of our regular stores is samples. There were tons of samples everywhere! Sometimes they would just leave fruit around, like all of these peeled Clementine slices.

Other times they gave out full cups of ice cream! Try finding that here.

We also had cookies, cheese, pumpkin bread, and more. Fred Meyer even had wine tastings (although we didn't partake). We love grocery shopping as it is, but all the free tasty treats made it such an enjoyable experience. I think even people who hate grocery shopping would like such a comfortable and welcoming environment. Look at how well the samples do at Costco.

We really had a fun time visiting the grocery stores out in the Portland area. We do most of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods (and sometimes Fairway), since most of the "standard" grocery stores out here are downright terrible. We wish we had options like this at home. The stores we visited were so spacious. The aisles were so large, the stores weren't crowded, and you could just shop at a leisurely pace without feeling rushed like you do at stores here in the city. We'd have so much variety with these stores if we had them at home and could get some great stuff!