Grocery stores Archives - Hungry Travelers

Grocery stores

In the land of great meatballs

Posted on June 28, 2024June 25, 2024 by Pat and David

As anyone who's ever eaten at the cafe in an Ikea store knows, meatballs are a cornerstone of modern Swedish cuisine. Once we arrived in Stockholm and started paying attention, we realized that köttbuller are ubiquitous. Most restaurants serve them. Huge bags of meatballs filled the ready-to-heat coolers in the supermarkets, and if that weren't enough, they were also sold frozen. Not reading Swedish, we were never sure what form of meat was involved, though Google Translate did suggest any or all of the favorite Swedish meats: beef, pork, lamb, elk, moose. Sometimes even chicken. What we did understand was that meatballs in gravy is the Swedish equivalent of American mac 'n' cheese — the ultimate national comfort food. Airbnb has changed the way we...Read More

Essex Market charts NYC’s changing tastes

Posted on November 18, 2023November 18, 2023 by Pat and David

The oldest establishment in the New York municipal market system, Essex Market's latest re-invention arguably strikes the perfect balance between supermarket and food hall. The old Essex Street Market, created in the 1930s as the flagship of the city's public market system, became essentially obsolete in the 21st century. The latest transformation, which opened in 2019, nails changing tastes and approaches to food in New York. Essex Market (88 Essex St., New York, N.Y.; essexmarket.nyc), as it's now called, is as much a gathering space as a shopping destination. It's located in a fancy new complex with luxury condos and a movie theater. The basement level is technically a separate operation called the Market Line. As you enter Essex Market from Delancey Street, the Indian...Read More

Tastes of Greece at Pantopoleion gourmet shop

Posted on June 30, 2020July 13, 2020 by Pat and David

We love shopping in grocery stores to look for the foods that local people use in their kitchens. That's usually what we bring home to our own kitchen. But Athens supermarkets proved too much for us because we are illiterate in Greek. The alphabet confounded us. We can usually figure out food names in most European languages that use a Roman alphabet. Ironically, many of those food names come down from Greek. But knowing that doesn't help when you can't sound out the spelling. So we resorted to Pantopoleion (34 Dimitrakopolou, Athens; +30 210 325 4890; pantopwlion.gr/), a local specialty store in our neighborhood, and put ourselves in the capable hands of John Kontoyiannis, one of the owners. (That's John behind the deli counter at...Read More

What to buy in a New Mexico grocery store

Posted on October 25, 2018October 26, 2018 by Pat and David

Sometimes we get a little carried away. On one of our first visits to New Mexico, we became so enamored of the flavor of green chile that we filled a couple of big cardboard boxes with fresh chiles and checked them through as baggage on our flight back to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We soon discovered that it's a lot more trouble to roast the chiles ourselves on a Smoky Joe backyard grill than it is to buy them already roasted from one of the growers at a farmers market. Now we try to be a bit more restrained. Even in a standard grocery store, there are plenty of products that will pack a punch back home. And the good news is that the most essential don't...Read More

What to buy in a Scottish grocery store

Posted on May 11, 2018May 7, 2018 by Pat and David

It's really no surprise that we bring foodstuffs home from all our travels. It's not just that we love reliving taste memories. There's a practical side to grocery shopping on the road. We live in a small space and we don't have to commit to long-term storage (or dusting) of nifty food items that we buy as souvenirs. Even the lovely city of Glasgow (above) couldn't tempt us with durable souvenirs. Consumables also make great gifts. Much as we enjoy prowling specialty food shops, even a chain supermarket can yield a shopping basket full of goodies for yourself and your friends. That's just what we did at a branch of Britain's largest retailer, Tesco, on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. Here are a few of the...Read More

Relicatessen: heavenly products for earthly delights

Posted on October 1, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Relicatessen in Barcelona solved a problem for us. When we're in Spain for any extended period, we enjoy seeking out the cookies, sweets, and other foodstuffs from the country's 38 monasteries and convents that make products for sale. Often that means placing money on a revolving window (called a retorno) and getting a box of cookies, a jar of jam, or a pot of honey in return. But we're not always in a town with a cloistered order that makes products for sale. Thank god (so to speak) that Francisco Vera opened Relicatessen (www.relicatessen.com) three years ago in stall 988 in the Mercat Sant Josep, better known as La Boqueria. Located right on La Rambla in a Modernista-style iron frame shed, the Boqueria is one...Read More

What to buy in a Nassau grocery store

Posted on March 3, 2017June 9, 2020 by Pat

Bayside Food Store (242-323-2911) is located on Frederick Street, just steps from the souvenir shops and high-end jewelry stores on Bay Street. It's the largest supermarket in downtown Nassau. Locals stream in to pick up take-away lunches and shop for the fixings for dinner. The store has a few shelves devoted to products that represent the taste of the islands. For visitors who have come to love Bahamian hot spices and sweet tropical fruits, it's a good place to purchase a few items to bring back home. Best of all, most of the products are seasonings that pump up the flavors of a dish without a lot of effort by the cook. A couple of local companies offer a broad array of products. D'Vanya's Spices...Read More

Shopping for signature tastes of New Orleans

Posted on December 29, 2016June 9, 2020 by Pat

The New Orleans School of Cooking (524 St. Louis Street, 504-525-2665, www.nosoc.com) is located in an early 19th century molasses warehouse in the French Quarter. Every day of the week, its hands-on and demonstration classes introduce folks to the fine points of such Louisiana classics as jambalaya, shrimp remoulade, pralines, and bread pudding. Its Louisiana General Store, located in the same building, is also the most convenient place to peruse a carefully curated selection of food products essential to Creole and Cajun cooking. The shelves are packed with the products preferred by—and in some cases developed by—the school's instructors. I stopped in one afternoon and soon found myself engaged in conversation with staff member Cierra Briscoe (above). She is equally fascinated with food and fashion...Read More

Sawers gourmet shop in Belfast champions Irish flavors

Posted on December 1, 2016June 9, 2020 by Pat and David

Sawers was established in 1897 to bring gourmet foods from around the globe to the people of Belfast. It is the oldest deli in Northern Ireland. The purveyor even provided the R.M.S. Titanic with game, seafood, cheese and other delicacies for its infamous maiden voyage. The people of Belfast can still rely on Sawers more than a century after that ship's larder full of caviar and pheasant ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic. They can stop by to shop for Spanish hams, Italian pastas, French pâté and escargot, Greek olives, and Turkish candies. At the holidays, the place buzzes with people filling gift “hampers” with exotic gourmet goodies. But Sawers also cherishes great Irish foods, making it a must-stop for overseas gourmands. The...Read More

Find homey holiday tastes in these New England stores

Posted on November 17, 2016June 9, 2020 by Pat and David

As the Eating Season approaches, we start craving certain flavors that we associate with the winter holidays spent with family. We want the taste of home—whether that's a cuisine from the country where our ancestors originated or something forged by Norman Rockwell and Betty Crocker. Truth is, we love to forage for festive foodstuffs. As a service to our New England readers, here are five essential shops around the region where we find special holiday foods. This post is adapted from a piece we wrote last year in the Boston Globe travel section. BRITISH AISLES Denise and Gerry Pressinger founded British Aisles more than two decades ago so that ex-pats like themselves could get everyday British foods such as HP Sauce and the pickled onions...Read More