The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hello Internet people!

I am rather hungry. I need to go grocery shopping but I am pretty squicked out by basically every grocery store around here. Safeway is mouse-infested, the various Mexican produce stands always sell stuff that's rotten, Whole Foods has an asshole CEO, and Rainbow Grocery is rather overpriced and crowded. And I've never been a fan of Trader Joe's. Why do grocery stores have to suck so bad?

qotd: Where do you do your grocery shopping?

QotD: Frozen dinners @ the dollar store & canned food @ Walmart... I have no shame.

If I were in the Bay Area (and with the money that that implies) I'd hie my punk ass over to Andronico's in Berkeley (is it still there? Down on mid-lower Telegraph? Ken? Lunk? Erin? Help?). There's a New Seasons market a few blocks from me here in Portland which is very similar (though with much less coral pink paint).

I'm not driving across the bay or taking BART for half an hour just to get some goddamn groceries.

Heh... I know. I'm fdrink. Half an hour??? Plus a 20 miunte walk to and fro the nearaest BART station. Oh, my, drunnky-happy, me!

Bonus points for using squicked in a sentence.
I personally like Trader Joe's for my specialty stuff, but my main bulk supply comes from costco and my daily this and that come from Vons Pavilion and Albertsons. All have their pluses and minuses, but none of them make me squick out.

...oh, and canned meat FTMFW! I love those little Vienna sausages.

We use Fairway, Trader Joe's and Sahadi's, the local Arab importer. Also Fish Tales for fish off the boat and a local butcher for organic bloody stuff. Then there's where ever Vanilla Swiss Almond is in stock. We (meaning, my wife, mostly) plan the week's menus and shop on Sundays in one trip.

There are a couple of decently-rated mom-and-pop-type corner markets around here which get good reviews on Yelp. Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

fluffy wrote:Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Don't forget to wear your boots.

QotD: Uhh well, I work at a grocery store so I do all my shopping there. Bad thing is I see all this wonderful food going through all day and so I end up spending more of my cash on food than I do anything else. And my body shows it. I was like 160lbs when I joined them in May of 07 and now I'm pushing 200. 32 waist to 36!

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

fluffy wrote:Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Don't forget to were your boots.

OH NO I MADE A TYPO

THE WORLD IS ENDING

fluffy wrote:There are a couple of decently-rated mom-and-pop-type corner markets around here which get good reviews on Yelp. Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Yay, corner stores! Kimi shouted out a bunch of neighborhoods for you to hit, market-wise, but a) I'm drunk and don't remember; and b) this is experience of hers that's from the '70s when she was sequestered in Hunter's Point. Shit, I'm so out of it, I can't even rreccommend a neighborhood for this sort of shopping in that beautiful seven-mile square that is The City.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

fluffy wrote:Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Don't forget to wear your boots.

Where were your boots?

fluffy wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

fluffy wrote:Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Don't forget to were your boots.

OH NO I MADE A TYPO

THE WORLD IS ENDING

HaHa! So did I, so balance is restored.

Spud wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

fluffy wrote:Maybe I'll go go one tomorrow.

Don't forget to wear your boots.

Where were your boots?

I was one step (no pun intended) ahead of you, slow poke.

I live in the transition between Mission and Bernal Heights. Rainbow Grocery is on the way home from work for me. Rainbow is excellent for bulk foods and okay for organic produce and cheese, but a good 2/3 of the shop is filled up with the sorts of bullshit I can't abide by (they have more "herbal nutrition supplements" than anything else, it seems) and they have a pervasive smugness which is quite possibly worse than every Whole Foods and Trader Joe's in the country combined. (Plus, their cheapest eggs are 50 cents a piece.)

I've heard that the Safeway up on 16th and Mission isn't as bad as the one I go to (on 29th and MIssion), which is, according to everyone, the absolute worst Safeway in the whole city. I was willing to put up with their crappy service, over-long lines, poor stock rotation, and freezers full of stuff covered with ice crystals, but buying a bag of bagels which had been chewed on by mice was the last straw. I shouldn't have to check my goddamn bread for RODENT DAMAGE.

Oh, anyway, so, this little mom-and-pop shop is very highly-rated and actually closer to me than Safeway, and then this one is a little further away than Safeway but is a bit bigger and more general-purpose than Precita Food Mart.

QotD: does it matter? It's a German shop. You don't know it anyway, it's called Norma. The main reason I go there is that it takes me about two minutes of walking to get there. Add another two minutes and I can shop at Plus, or another six minutes for Edeka or Aldi, or another seven minutes to shop at Real.

Phoenix, at least the part of it where I live, is overrun with grocery stores. Within three miles of our house, we have a Fry's Grocery, a Fry's Marketplace, two Safeways, a Trader Joe's, Basha's (a big chain, but I think only in AZ). There's also an AJ's (upscale stuff) and I think there's one of those "Fresh Express" (?) places going in soon. Oh, and then of course, there's the Costco, which is maybe five miles, and an Albertson's not too much further.

Stores we go to most: Costco, Fry's Grocery and Basha's. A few specific things at TJs and then occasionally the other places for sale stuff. We have a _big_ upright freezer in the laundry room which is generally kept absolutely packed... the Mrs. goes out grocery shopping every now and then, studies all the ads and makes the rounds, and then except for fresh stuff and milk and the like, we're pretty much set for a while...

Charles

QOTD - Demoulas Market Basket. They are the dominant chain regionally. There's also Shaws, expensive but with best produce, and Hannafords, which is expensive and here in town, snobby. So it's off to Demoulas.

I hope Trader Joe's makes it out to Denver someday. Whenever we're in New Mexico visiting Scott's folks, we stock up on a few favorites and smuggle them north.

Wow, I'm surprised TJ's isn't there already. I thought they were more widespread than they are.