I’ve been in San Leandro for almost 6 years now, and yet I just discovered PW Market in Castro Valley. I’ve received their flyers all along, but as they weren’t local to me I always just tossed them in the recycle bin. Then my friend Regina mentioned she was going to go there to get some pastries for our tea last Sunday and she took me along.
PW could be described as a quasi-upscale supermarket. Most of the products it carries are those that you can find at most supermarkets, but it does have great meat and deli departments. Granted, we’re only a couple of days from Thanksgiving but when we visited they had goose, pheasant and rabbit available in addition to turkeys and chickens. Their meat department features prime-grade beef (something which is hard to find at retail stores) at very reasonable prices. Their lamb offerings, however, were poorer. The two racks of lamb I saw looked sad and I couldn’t see any lamb shanks. They did seem to have a large variety of seafood, however.
We were quite impressed by their cheese section, it didn’t feature many local favorites like Whole Food does, but there was a wide variety and the one French brie we got was delicious.
Their deli offered plenty of pasta-style salads, and their bakery section though small is very nice. We got a couple of lemon bars, a little mocha cheesecake, some scones and an apple bread pudding and they were all delicious.
On the minus side, they didn’t seem to carry much in the exotic ingredient category. I couldn’t find either Jerusalem artichokes or Israeli couscous there.
Concerning the PW Market in Livermore………I just paid $12.87 for a .92 lb Prime Natural Boneless Ribeye Steak and $12.73 for a .91 lb Prime Natural Boneless Rib Eye steak and pretty much the same price for six other comparible Rib Eyes that had to be one of the tuffist most grisell infested pieces of meat that could have been purchased at any inferior meat counter or more likely stolen in the prehistoric times when filling your stomach was your only concern no matter what type of meat or chewable object your could stuff into your mouth. Be carefull when you purchase Beef from them.
Thanks for the heads up. Though now I feel almost more compelled to try their meat to see if I have the same experience than you did. Well, if I do buy a steak I’ll make sure it won’t be more than one.