Uwajimaya

We only had one day in Seattle before leaving for Vancouver and so many places we wanted to go. We decided to start our wandering in the International District at Uwajimaya, the famous Asian grocery store and food court. For anyone coming from a New York point of view, think of a giant Chinatown grocery store combined with Mitsuwa, but more accessible by both public transit and walking to the center of the city, and that's pretty much Uwajimaya.

As we walked the aisles, we marveled at the selection. That store really seemed like it had everything, whether you wanted ube cheesecake or fresh Dungeness crab. The fish and seafood cases were especially impressive, with sashimi cuts of tuna and salmon, every type of seafood you could think of, and lots of fresh fish and oysters.

They had probably the biggest aisle of matcha we had ever seen, and so we got some as a souvenir. At the time, I was still operating under the assumption that, since coffee doesn't work, matcha was the only thing that might keep me awake when tired, but I'm not sure if that's the case anymore after I napped recently in the middle of a matcha latte.

Like any good Asian grocery store, they had tons of rice. If only we could take all this rice home with us and have somewhere to put it and a way to eat it all before it went bad.

We bought lots of snacks, including three bags of my favorite brand of shrimp chips that I could rarely find at home back then, and haven't seen at all recently, and some Hi-Chews that were discounted because of the store's strawberry fair. We also bought the special Japanese Kit-Kats but they were super expensive (and cheaper in Vancouver, but we didn't know that then).

We couldn't really take any fresh produce with us but we liked looking at all of it. So many choices, and like most produce on the West Coast, it just looked better.

We had a really good time "sightseeing" at Uwajimaya. We did investigate some of the prepared food options and the food court, but those are for another post. The only criticism we would have of Uwajimaya is that, while the selection is massive, the prices on non-sale items are a little on the higher side. (Still thinking about those Kit-Kats, but we wanted to try them!) Worth a visit though, especially if you don't have a store like this at home.

Sainsbury's

And now, after our brief DC diversion, back to reliving London from one year ago...

After our Sunday roast, we desperately needed to walk around to digest all that delicious food. There was a Sainsbury's grocery store down the street from the restaurant, and we hadn't yet been to one of those, so we thought that would be the perfect spot to walk, explore, and maybe pick up a couple of snacks.

Near the entrance, we were greeted by a sign advertising fireworks. Here on the East Coast, fireworks aren't legally sold in most places (there's a reason for all the giant billboards as you drive through South Carolina), so it was strange to see them so casually mentioned in a grocery store of all places. Interesting, but not about food, so moving on.

We walked up and down every single aisle of the store, spending a decent amount of time in the produce section even though we couldn't really buy anything and didn't have a kitchen in our hotel room. One of the things that I was fascinated by were these herb and seasoning pastes. I had seen some of these at home at the time, although they were not at all commonplace and were fairly expensive. Trader Joe's now has a couple (ginger, umami) at decent prices, but they didn't then. If we had this array at home, I'd probably pick up one of each of them.

I was so happy with their allium selection. There were just so many varieties and they all looked so good. There were these giant leeks, baby onions, echalion shallots, and so many other types of onions, all from British farms. That was one thing that I had been noticing at the grocery stores we visited, both here and at Waitrose the day before - all the packaging left no question as the origin of the produce, and in many cases, proudly proclaimed their British origin. The bag didn't just say "baby onions," but instead, "British baby onions." It wasn't just produce, but also in meat, fish, everywhere. We definitely don't see that in most grocery stores at home, and it was nice to see that type of national pride about the quality of their food. I don't know if it's because of how our food is produced in the States versus Britain, or if they have to do it because of regulations, but the feel was different walking through the store. It just seemed like people in London cared more about where their food was coming from in ways that many people here don't, and there was a lot more talk about sourcing and sustainability everywhere, not just at the higher end shops.

As we strolled the aisles, we came across some Yorkshire pudding mix which we considered buying as a "souvenir" of our Sunday roast, but didn't in the end. It did amuse us though, seeing that so soon after our meal.

We walked through an entire aisle of yogurt (and wished we could get some but we didn't have a fridge), and then noticed one of the big differences between US and UK grocery stores (that we knew about before but had forgotten) - eggs. Eggs in the UK are not refrigerated. There are all sorts of good reasons why not (more here if you're wondering), but even though we knew they were fine, it still felt strange seeing all the eggs just sitting out there because of how we've been conditioned to see them at home.

We also saw a couple of shelves with Nando's sauces which we were really tempted by. We hadn't yet gone to Nando's in London (although we planned to), but we had gone to Nando's in three different states in the US earlier in the year. But the last thing we really needed at home was more sauces or condiments.

As we started nearing the last aisles in the store, the lights dimmed. We thought it was just a temporary glitch, but then we noticed that the lights never got brighter. After noticing that the store seemed pretty empty and checking the time, we realized that the store was closing. When the lights dimmed, everyone just went to the front of the store and checked out. No need for an announcement or anything. It was so orderly. We couldn't imagine that ever happening at home.

Our haul from the store ended up being some more bottled water (so dehydrated all trip), a couple of mini bags of chips and a bag of fruit jellies (all of which we ate during the trip), and two things from the spices section to bring home. I was pretty excited about the dried kaffir lime leaves and have used them quite a bit, but I'm a little embarrassed to say that a year later, I completely forgot we even bought the piri piri seasoning and obviously haven't used it at all. I should get on that. Don't want to waste our souvenirs!

Delhaize

After having some beer at the brewery, we wandered the streets of Brugge a little bit more, ending up at a grocery store called Delhaize. We wanted to pick up some snacks and some breakfast, since we had run out of the breakfast bars we had gotten from Albert Heijn, but also we just wanted to visit our first grocery store in Belgium as part of our usual grocery store exploration.

Most of what we found in the store seemed pretty standard, although we did find some bottled packs of Brugse Zot, the beer we had just consumed after our brewery tour. Since we only had one more night in Brugge, we didn't feel the need to buy a six-pack, but it was nice seeing it for sale in town.

I enjoyed browsing the condiments section, something I like doing at home too, finding samurai sauce (similar to what we had on our Vleminckx fries), other fry sauces, and tons of mayonnaise (which, technically, would also be a sauce for fries). There were a lot more mayo varieties there than I had seen at home.

The beer aisle was also well-stocked. In addition to the Brugse Zot, there was all sorts of other "local" beer. It's great when you can call stuff like Chimay and Leffe local. We didn't drink as much craft beer then as we do now, so at the time, we thought people in Belgium were pretty spoiled with so much good beer. They still are, but there's plenty of good and interesting stuff at home now too.

I think I just thought these cookies and crackers looked fun and interesting, but I'm not really sure why else I took this picture. Because of the Smurfs, Spongebob, and the Simpsons? It's been 6 years. I have no idea.

We were amused when we wandered into the frozen section and saw bolognese pizza. We had already been commenting on how everything in Brugge seemed to be about bolognese, so seeing even more bolognese (and there was more than just the pizza) just reinforced that point.

We didn't buy a ton of stuff from our grocery visit. We did pick up one of these Magnum Gold bars that had been advertised all over Amsterdam while we were there, and ate it while walking back to our hotel (in circles, as we got slightly off track again). From what we remember, it was a relatively standard ice cream bar with a little salted caramel, but good quality.

Our mini grocery haul - breakfast bars (really just Special K bars like we have at home with red berries), Yakult (most of which A drank in the hotel room that afternoon), strawberry fruit-tella candies (sweet and very chewy), and some big bottles of water. Not a very exciting haul, but we weren't looking to pick up a lot during our travels. I think this was the only grocery store in Belgium that we really spent any significant amount of time in, so we were glad we were able to make the stop.

English Breakfasts

We're not really super early morning people on vacation, so breakfast for us is often just something quick in the hotel. By that, I mean something from the grocery store, like cereal bars or bananas, not room service. Although we did consider getting up early one day in London to go for a proper English breakfast, that didn't happen before the end of our trip. But we did sample a bunch of different breakfast items from the grocery store that we don't have at home.

On our visit to Waitrose on our first day in London, we picked up these Frusli bars in blueberry flavor. Out of the 2 different styles of bars that we bought, these were the ones we liked better, although they weren't that filling. The funny part to us was that this was a blueberry flavored bar, but dried blueberries themselves were much further down the ingredient list than blueberry infused dried cranberries, raisins, and fruit puree pieces (apple and blueberry). Probably a cost issue, but kind of amusing, as we considered whether it should have just been called a berry flavored bar instead. Along with all of the various fruits, there were oats, sugar, honey, a couple of different flours, and almonds. The fact that there were no ingredients in the list whose names we didn't recognize and there weren't any additives on the list is probably part of the reason we liked it, and that really came through with how healthy and natural they tasted. We also liked the texture, nice and chewy.

A couple of days later, we picked up some cheaper breakfast bars at the Morrisons grocery store downstairs from our hotel. There was a sale on these Alpen Light bars so we got 2 flavors - double chocolate and Jaffa cake. We didn't know what Jaffa cake was but guessed it was something orange and chocolate because of the box design (it pretty much was).

We didn't think these bars were as good as the Frusli bars. They were like very light granola bars, and reminded me a bit of Special K bars in how light they were. The first flavor we tried was the Jaffa cake, which we thought was okay and which A liked more than I did. They were sort of orange flavored, but mostly just tasted like artificial citrus, which is one of the things that usually turns me off of lemon and orange flavored things. The double chocolate just tasted like a standard chocolate breakfast bar, and we both liked that much more than the Jaffa cake one.

Later in the trip, we also decided to investigate some yogurts for breakfast, hoping that the active cultures would help since our systems were a little off from the traveling, the rough exhaustion from the first day, and some overindulgent eating. From the setup of the grocery stores, we concluded that the English love yogurt. One store even had an entire aisle of just yogurt. We like yogurt, so we thought that was pretty awesome. Since our hotel didn't have a refrigerator, A had to drop by Morrisons in the mornings to buy yogurt for breakfast. Thankfully it was just downstairs and close to a coffee shop for his morning coffee as well. The first one we got was this store-brand raspberry, blueberry, and cranberry bio yogurt. (Bio yogurt is supposed to have additional good bacteria added.) This seemed like pretty standard berry flavored yogurt, and A got a couple of blueberries here and there. This was fine, like yogurt we could get at home, but we were eating more for the gut benefit.

On another day, we really wanted to try to right our systems with yogurt, so A picked up 2 different Onken ones for breakfast. These seemed a bit like premium yogurts, a step up from your basic yogurt. One was apricot with whole grains, and the other was cherry. We thought both of these were better than the yogurt we had previously, but they were also more expensive so I guess we paid for that improvement. The apricot whole grain yogurt was different from other yogurt we've had since the whole grains were like little chewy bits inside the yogurt. I didn't like that one as much as the cherry one, which had big juicy cherries in it and tons of fruit flavor.

We ate some other stuff for breakfast too, like some bananas that we picked up on a Sainsbury's trip and also some potato chips once we ran out of breakfast bars (not ideal, but didn't want to buy more bars for just one day). In addition to being more convenient and cheaper than eating breakfast out, buying breakfast to eat in the room gives us a good excuse to explore local grocery stores and try local products. We were pretty happy with the results of our London breakfast exploration!

Waitrose

After we filled up on pies and Vietnamese food in the food court at the Westfield mall, it was off to get some groceries. We love visiting grocery stores whenever we travel, and even though we were only looking to pick up water and some breakfast bars this time, I was pretty excited about exploring and roaming the aisles. Unfortunately for me, I was really feeling the travel exhaustion by the time we got there (it was so bad that I thought I was going to be sick before we got back to the hotel), so our trip to Waitrose was pretty short. 

The Waitrose at the Westfield was bright and shiny, but we were so tired

We did wander some of the aisles, mostly the produce section since it was the closest to the front, before I really started feeling sick. Everything looked pretty good (although not this cauliflower and broccoli couscous, because of my food intolerances), and we wished we had more time to stroll. Waitrose has a bit of a reputation as the more "upmarket" of the grocery brands in London (compared to the "big 4" supermarkets of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, and Morrisons - all of which we visited on this trip except Asda), but since we hadn't been to any other stores yet by that time, we had no idea whether that was true or not.

My nightmare

Eventually we picked up our mini haul - 2 big bottles of water and a box of breakfast bars (more on the bars another time) - and went to check out. Back home, whenever there is an option for self-checkout, we usually go straight for it, and we did the same here. The self-checkout machines let you pay with either chip and pin or contactless pay. Since our backwards US credit cards still haven't evolved to chip and pin (we just got chip and signature how many years after everyone else), we tried doing the latter and got declined 3 times. It was at this point in the trip that we learned that the NFC pay wouldn't work on the payment machines in the UK since we didn't have a chip and pin card associated with it. Great, still behind the times. Why can't we have chip and pin cards? It's utterly baffling to us.

Our Waitrose purchases

Anyway, we ended up having to go to a regular register to check out. We could still use the chip, but we had to wait for them to print out a receipt, no matter how small the purchase was, and verify our signature. Just a tip in case anyone is going to London with a new chip card (since we only got ours shortly before going). Chip and signature only, and always wait to sign or it doesn't get approved. 

We figured we would end up going back to Waitrose another day since the mall wasn't too far from our hotel, but since we found other closer grocery stores, we never ended up returning. Maybe on another trip. 

Hogsmeade Sweet Treats

After stopping into The Three Broomsticks for lunch, we set out to explore Hogsmeade. While there were various rides there, we also wanted to check out the shops. Universal really did a great job installing a large variety of stores, making it really easy for people to spend money on Harry Potter souvenirs (wands, joke items, and more). One of the places we enjoyed wandering around was Honeydukes, which, for those unfamiliar with Harry Potter, is the sweets shop.

Although there are quite a lot of magical candies in Harry Potter, like chocolate frogs that have a life of their own, a lot of the candy at Honeydukes was pretty much the same candy you could get at any candy store. It was just cutely packaged in nice Honeydukes containers.

I did like the way the store was set up, even if the candies weren't that revolutionary for the most part. They really tried to give it a light and whimsical feeling. I especially liked this display, which reminded me a little of a candy buffet/cart at a wedding, but that was mostly because I saw a lot of candy types I liked.

And of course, they had Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans there. We've had a box of those in the past, and for the longest time, we've said that was the one food A would never eat again (since he pretty much just eats everything otherwise). I don't know if they're still made by Jelly Belly, but they were then. They were true to the "every flavor" thing, even including jelly beans with really gross flavors like vomit. Laundry or soap, fine. Vomit, disgusting. Never. Again.

In addition to loose candy, they did try to include packages of a lot of the candy types mentioned in the books/movies which was a nice touch (and probably also helps them increase sales to fans). Too bad for any kids who try them thinking they're actually going to feel the effects of magical candy.

Outside of Honeydukes, most of the shops in Hogsmeade weren't food stores, but focused on all other sorts of magical items and implements. But there were a couple of other food stops in Hogsmeade other than The Three Broomsticks and The Hog's Head (the bar). They had butterbeer and pumpkin juice carts out in the middle of the "town," which made sense, since it was Florida, it was hot, and people really needed to stay hydrated.

We picked up another pumpkin juice at the cart, since, like I said, it was a hot Florida afternoon. We had liked the pumpkin juice we had for lunch, so although it was not cheap, we thought we'd get one more during our visit. This one also had the benefit of coming in a really cute bottle.

We weren't expecting anything amazing food-wise from our visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but it was still a lot of fun. After we got our fill of Hogsmeade, watched some performances, and tried all the rides we wanted to, it was off to another Island of Adventure!

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!

Rainbow Cookie Cake

Does Costco have this rainbow cookie bar cake nationwide or is this just an NYC/East Coast thing?

First time trying rainbow cookies in cake form

I'm never quite sure what things are local to our area for the holidays. Today at Costco they were sampling this rainbow cookie bar cake, which is pretty much the classic rainbow cookie in a larger cake form. Layers of sponge cake with raspberry and almond paste filling, in the usual rainbow colors, and topped with chocolate ganache. It was rich and creamy, but also light at the same time because of the airy sponge cake. The soft chocolate icing was an interesting contrast to the usual firm chocolate layer in the cookie. In my opinion as a rainbow cookie lover, both work well.

Rainbow cookies from last year's Christmas dessert, in case you're unfamiliar with their greatness

Rainbow cookies are everywhere around here, especially at the holidays. The ones from the local Italian bakeries are still better, but the Costco ones are pretty good. I know this is an Italian-American creation, so I'm not sure how much the rest of the country gets to experience this delicious treat. If anyone is having a big party for Christmas, this cake (or the cookies) should really be a contender for the dessert table.

Southwest Chopped Salad Kit

I wish we had a Wegmans in Manhattan.

I feel like I've said that every time we've made something in the past week or so that came from Wegmans. Not only is it an enjoyable store to shop at, with better prices than most of our city grocery stores, but they also have great "convenience" products like salad kits and cleaned & cut produce that are high quality and don't cost a fortune.

I forgot to take a picture of the bag, so here's the kit from the Wegmans site (source)

I love their salad kits. They have a bunch of them - Asian, garden, BBQ and Southwest - but I can only eat two of those because I sadly can't eat broccoli (without consequences). We broke open our Southwest chopped salad kit this week, and it was a perfect side dish for a mere $3 (total, not per person). Might it have cost a little less to have bought each ingredient on its own and chopped it up ourselves? Possibly. But it would also take much longer to prepare than a few minutes and we would be "paying" much more than that cost difference with our time.

Salad along with panko-breaded oven-baked chicken from Costco

The Southwest chopped salad kit has green cabbage, romaine lettuce, carrots, pumpkin seeds, green onions, tortilla strips and fresh cilantro, with a Southwest ranch yogurt dressing. We've tried salad kits from many competitors and most of those are just lettuce (largely iceberg) with maybe some shaved carrots or dried fruit or lots of chips. Unlike those lackluster kits, this Wegmans salad was a complete salad with lots of good ingredients and it comes chopped (my personal preference for all salads). All the vegetables were fresh and crisp, the dressing had a great flavor and worked perfectly with the ingredients, and the salad was delicious. I even liked the way the tortilla strips mixed in to the salad, and I really dislike salads with tortilla strips.

We've been cooking more lately and I do love making meals from scratch, but sometimes you just need something quick, easy and healthy. These salad kits make that so much easier. If only Wegmans were closer and we could always have these on hand...

Fingerling Potatoes

In January, I made roasted potatoes as part of my cookbook project.  As I mentioned back then, it was almost impossible to find the fingerling potatoes that the recipe called for.  There were some fingerling potatoes in the giant bag from Costco, but there was absolutely nothing to be found at the regular grocery store or at Whole Foods. I was puzzled as to why it was so hard to find fingerling potatoes. I had thought it would be easy.

A few weeks later, we were out in Staten Island at a regular grocery store and found a small batch of fingerling potatoes. And then yesterday, we went to our usual Whole Foods (the same one where we couldn't find any fingerling potatoes last time), looking for stuff to cook for the week, and there was an explosion of fingerling potatoes! The main display at the bottom of the escalators had the loose fingerling potatoes in the photo above. Every type of fingerling potato was there! Not only that, but there were bags of each type of fingerling potato in the produce section.

It was even more odd because Whole Foods yesterday had no yellow onions, green peppers, or green onions in the entire produce section.  But they did have fingerling potatoes everywhere you looked. Just not when I needed them. I guess the lesson learned is, if you want to make fingerling potatoes, do it in February!

Carrefour Adventure

After lunch, we continued wandering around Barcelona on our "adjustment day."  We went over to Las Ramblas, the famous pedestrian thoroughfare in the heart of the old city, and made a stop at the Carrefour market to do some grocery shopping (mostly with the intent of buying water) and "grocery sightseeing."

As I wrote in one of our earliest posts, a stop at a grocery store is a must-do on our list in any new place.  We love seeing what they have that we can't get at home!  So what did they have at Carrefour that we found interesting?

Lots of gazpacho in the refrigerator case.

Refrigerated tortillas (omelettes) with potatoes, and with or without onions, which reminded us of our snack the night before.

Jamón ibérico, of course.

Since it was less than a month until the start of the European football championships (which are now almost over - we're so slow at recapping), there were lots of snacks promoting the Spanish team in Spain's colors.  (Vamos España!)

These special edition M&Ms were ready to root for Spain.

These Milka Oreo bars were not in Spain colors but were new.  We were very tempted but decided not to get them (this time).  Now, I wish we had gotten more of them since we can't get them at home.

And for the last photo - Coca Cola, an official sponsor of Euro 2012, with football themed soda cans.

Forgot to take photos of the water but it was so cheap! It cost us less than 2 euro for 6 gigantic (I want to say 2 liters, but I'm not good at estimating volume) bottles of water.  Why is bottled water so expensive in the US?

We made other trips to Carrefour during our stay to pick up other groceries (and of course, more water).  It was the most convenient (and affordable) grocery store we could find in the area near our hotel so if you're nearby, we recommend it!