As Mike (my husband) reports in San Leandro Bytes, his blog about all the goings on in San Leandro, Grocery Outlet, a discounter of mostly canned/boxed food, is coming to San Leandro. The store, which is almost finished, is located on East 14th, near Estabrook Street – a stone throw away from my house. It occupies the lot previously occupied by the Salvation Army. An affordable housing unit for seniors is being built next door.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to a Grocery Outlet – but I’m hoping this one will be cleaner and neater than others of its kind. I’m also hoping it will not add a lot to the traffic on Estabrook St. – which is already congested at rush time.
That said, I’m happy that we’ll have a grocery store so close to our house. Though we don’t buy much in the way of packaged food, it’ll be useful for emergencies.
In other news, the Starbucks downtown, near Safeway, is going out of business. Starbucks is shutting many of its stores, so it’s not a huge surprise. The Starbucks which is /at/ Safeway seems to be safe for now.
Category: Shops & Markets (Page 3 of 5)
I hate, hate, hate, the Safeway on Bancroft Ave. in San Leandro. Everyday I walk by it when I go pick up my daughter in daycare – so it’s very convenient to stop there and buy the ingredients for dinner. But they NEVER have everything I need – and sometimes *anything* I need.
Today, for example, I was shopping for a leek tart I’m making tonight – but they had no chives. I was also shopping for a chicken dish I’m making on Wednesday – but they had no cut-up chicken (they had whole chickens, but the cut-up chickens were supposedly on sale). I don’t get it – why do they advertise products at a sale price, if they don’t carry them? And it’s not just that – try getting boneless chicken thighs, or lemongrass or even a cognac at an affordable price (all things I recently needed for cooking).
Part of me wishes the store would go out of business so I’d be forced to go to the other one, rather than be permanently frustrated by their lack of products.
Yesterday I went to Messob for dinner, on Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, and we happened to park just in from of Euromix Deli, a small, tidy store carrying products from all over Europe, but specializing in Eastern Europe. I’ve been here several times before, ever since my friends Victoria and Penelope bought me a huge assortment of food items from there, but I don’t think I’ve blogged about the place yet. I won’t now either, :-), but I promise to go back to the place and tell you more about what they carry.
One thing they do carry, and that Victoria & Penelope had included in their gift, are Russian spice mixes. They come in little green envelopes good for one meal and they have them for rice, kebabs, roasts, fish and other things I couldn’t really tell what they were. I’ve tried the ones for the rice, the kebabs and the roasts and they are excellent.
I made a tri-tip roast in the rotisserie with the roast spice mixture for election night, and the results were great. The meat was super tender and very flavorful. I let it sit at room temperature with the rub for almost an hour before cooking, and I’d recommend you do the same. I’ve made the kebabs before, and they also rock. You marinate the chunks of beef or lamb in some red wine mixed with the spices and then grill. Yumm.
But I think my favorite mix is the one for the rice (pilau). I’ve made it a few times last year and the results are great – very satisfying.
Alas, the packages of these mixtures are in Russian, so I can’t tell you even what they’re call. They are distributed by West Coast Trade in Newark, and, as I said, available for sale at Euromix.
This time they didn’t have the roast spice mixture, so I bought several packages of the ones for kebabs ($1.40) and rice ($1). The former consists of: sweet paprika, salt, coriander seeds, onion, MSG, garlic, red hot pepper, sugar, basil leaves, black pepper, mustard, turmeric, cumin and nutmeg. The latter includes: salt, sweet paprika, turmeric, barberry,curry,coriander seeds, cumin and ground marjoram. Of course, they smell divine.
I was just in the Alameda Safeway doing some shopping, and decided to see if there were any wine bargains to be had. Last year I got a wine for over 50% off which ended up being pretty good – so I thought I’d try my luck again. I found a deal almost as good – the 2005 Hawk Crest Cabernet Sauvignon was on sale for $10, $15 off the regular price of $25. So I bought it.
I come home to find out that all retailers sell this wine for about $10 – so either Safeway sells all its wines at 2 1/2 times regular retail prices, or just ups the prices of those it wants to put in sale, to make them look like a better bargain. Yes, I feel foolish – but I learned my lesson. I will never buy wine from Safeway again. I hope the wine is at least good.
I just came back from a shopping expedition to Santos, a sort of Indian supermarket in San Leandro. Santos is a distributor of Indian spices and other foods, but its store is open to the public. Here you can find (almost) all kinds of spices, in particular those used in Indian cuisine. They have a large variety of lentils, flours and teas – and pretty much anything you’d need to cook Indian food. What they did not have is black cumin – which is strange as that’s a very common spice in Indian cuisine – and one I need for the recipes I plan to make this week. Well, perhaps I can find it at Mangal’s. But in all, I love Santos.
In this shopping expedition I got some Indian yogurt and pistachio ice cream – and bags of almonds, cardamon pods, fenugreek seeds and sumak, as well as a big box of Twinings Tea (50 bags for $4.50!) and a jar of ghee.
Santos Spice Products
1188 Montague St
San Leandro, CA 94577
(510) 357-0277
The Oakville Grocery store seems to have a much larger local reputation than it size would imply. I had heard of it (no idea how), even though I’d never been to Healdsburg before. Still, I decided to go there to get pic-nic supplies for our canoe trip down the Russian River.
The little store sells mostly high-end gourmet products. They have a very nice selection of cheeses and charcouterie, a deli with expensive prepared food, a small bakery, and somewhat random choices of other gourmet delicacies. They didn’t have packaged cookies, however!
We ordered a couple of roast beef sandwiches to take with us. They were very nice and large, well balanced and had a lot of meat. I think they were around $8-9. I’d order one again.
Oakville Grocery
124 Matheson Street
Healdsburg, CA
Tel: (707) 433-3200
8:00am – 6:00pm Daily
The International Food Market opened on the little outside mall where Prince Dim Sum House is located, a few months ago. I went to visit it a couple of weeks ago after having lunch at Prince.
The store is not very big but has big intentions. It sells Greek, Asian, Middle Eastern and Mexican products. You can find Indian spices and Mexican spices (not on the same isle), cheap avocados and fresh eggs, lots of boxes of Greek products and so forth. Their inventory is pretty eclectic and you really need to drop by (or, more conveniently, call) to see if they sell something in particular. I think the market will be most useful for Greek and Middle Eastern products, as there are plenty of stores specializing on Asian and Mexican products in town. I don’t know how big the market is for what they do offer, and I’m concerned that the store may not survive. The woman who runs it, Eleni, is very nice and I’d like to see it succeed.
Now a note to my readers: please let me know of specific markets in San Leandro (and vicinities) that deserve to be visited and mentioned in this blog.
International Food Market
14624 East 14th Ave.
San Leandro, CA
510-352-1600
M-Sa 8:30 AM – 7:30 PM
Su – 10 AM – 6 PM
As I reported before, San Leandro has a new Farmers’ Market, this time downtown. The downtown market is located on Parrot street, in front of The Englander and will operate throughout the summer on Wednesday evenings from 4 pm – 8 pm. The market was inaugurated yesterday, with a ribbon cutting ceremony involving the local politicos.
I think I like this farmer’s market more than the one at Bayfair – which seems to be getting smaller. For one, it has more activities for children – including a stand where you can get elaborate balloon animals/characters made for only $3, another where you can get a caricature made for $10 (this was not a cheap trip to the FM) and one with face painting and so forth (which we fortunately avoided). They also have activities for adults, yesterday was cooking demonstrations (which I didn’t stay for). They’ll also have family entertainment, live music and wine tastings in subsequent Wednesdays.
As you would expect, there were several fruit and veggie stands – lots of ripe strawberries, cherries and even raspberries. There were a couple of bakeries, one stand selling honey, one selling Indian breads & spreads and another one a variety of dips. There was a flower stand, a fish stand and an egg stand – which means that if we miss the quail eggs on Saturday, we’ll be able to get them on Wednesdays.
As far as food went, there is a tamales stand, a stand selling foot-long hot-dogs and teriyaki sticks ($6-9, I think) and The Englander has a burger stand. Unwisely, we decided to eat at The Englander instead, so we didn’t get to actually taste the food from there. Next week.
I’ve heard rumors that Zocalo may open a stand at the farmers’ market to sell its beans.
Here are some pictures of the market:
Mike (my husband) reports today in San Leandro Bytes that the city council will be voting on allowing a new farmer’s market to operate in San Leandro. This market would operate downtown on Wednesday evenings from 4pm to 9pm starting on May 14, 2008, and continuing through October 22, 2008. I, for one, would really like to have it!
More information at http://www.pcfma.com/markethome.php?market_id=21
I’ve written here before about how much I like Joaquin Deli before. It serves the best sandwiches in San Leandro and offers a quirky assortment of Eastern European products. Its roasted pork shoulder is also to die for.
But Joaquin Deli is closing. The building is up for sale – and there is no guarantee the new owners will want to keep the deli. Indeed, the current owners seem to think not as their flyer says that the downstairs could be used as as “medical/dental office”.
Apparently the business is not doing badly, but the owners are just tired of running it. Still, it can’t be doing that well if they’re not trying to sell the business itself. So I’m not optimistic. I’ll just have to say goodbye to those delicious sandwiches 🙁
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