Four bucks for Armando’s buns is a bargain!
I go to Whole Foods for only a small handful of reasons.
- Their hot bar is usually full of some good stuff. And it’s sold by weight.
- They have a more decently large selection of craft beers than the other local grocery stores. They also fill growlers.
- A prime steak
- The cheese counter is awesome
- They will occasionally have an obscure vegetable, grain or spice we need for something outside our normal recipe wheelhouse
It’s never cheap.
In this, if nothing else, they are very reliable.
I can’t complain too much. Ever since H-Mart built a location in Raleigh, it’s the only place I’ll go for 90% of my Asian cuisine needs, even though they’re noticeably pricier than the other places. But they’re also massively better-organized, cleaner, and better-stocked, so, well, I suck it up :)
I made breakfast for the lady and I today. From-a-can biscuits, and my hashbrowns started their life in a freezer bag, but whatevs. Came together quick and tasted good. Sorry in advance for our tragically overdone eggs; just how she and I both like 'em :)
Beer & cheese yes sir. I will pick up the occasional odd item like bonito flakes at Whole Foods if I don’t want to drive to the one of a dozen asian markets (none super close like Whole foods).
But yes. Beer & Cheese is 90% of the reason I step in to Whole Foods these days. The new Vons they upgraded to a Pavilions is almost as good for everything else and a lot cheaper.
Oh, and if I want to do Prime Rib for the holidays I usually order it there too.
One of these plates has the correct ration of eggs to hot sauce. One does not.
It’s time for the tribes to choose. Who next will be voted off The Island?
I’ve had some growlers at -below- standard price per oz of a six or four pack of the same craft beers. I have no clue if they knew or know when that happens, but I sure do and I’m there every few days until that keg is gone.
Wait. What? I didn’t know this!
I’ve gotten mine filled in exactly two places. Here. And when my girlfriend’s colleague offered to fill mine with an IPA he’d home brewed (which was excellent).
This is pretty good news.
-xtien
I thought it was Whole Foods everywhere? Here at least there is a mini beer bar with seats. They have quite a few taps at the store I go to. 20 maybe? At any rate they will fill 32oz or 64oz growlers for a decent cost, or you can purchase one of their growlers for a fill as well. If you take your own, be sure it’s clean, they don’t offer cleaning prior to filling.
In addition they have a walk-in chilled cooler with a very decent selection of local breweries and a moderate selection of widely distributed craft breweries as well. At least for this location it is a pretty vital part of their store.
Beyond the hot bar and deli, there is a mini burger place set up as part of whole foods here. So people will buy burgers from the window there, walk back to the bar area and sit down and order craft brews. Almost like a restaurant feel within a grocery store. It’s not uncommon here to see 5-6 people sitting at that very small bar in the afternoons and evenings, all enjoying beer … in a grocery store.
I don’t know if that is unique, but certainly it’s unique to the grocery stores in this area.
Beef stroganoff
Heck yeah, that’s the stuff right there. This is one of my girlfriend’s specialty comfort foods. I will show her this pic and I’m sure it will trigger her to make more.
Me either, but my store has a restaurant section like @Skipper just mentioned - I just never paid much attention to it. Now that I know they fill growlers I will check out what they have on tap.
I learned about the Whole Foods café area from a great article a couple of years ago. There’s a giant whole foods on Houston street here in NYC, right near the lower east side where, incidentally but most pertinently in this story, its construction shut down a homeless shelter.
So all the homeless and junkies hang out in the Whole Foods cafe all winter long, shooting up in the bathrooms and then coming out to nurse a small cup of coffee. It’s inexplicable why Whole Foods hasn’t kicked them out. I guess because they’re crunchy and believe in homeless outreach or something?
But you know, they smell. If you’ve never lived in a city you don’t know the very distinct homeless smell, where after months of not bathing the bodily humors ferment into a strangely sweet-smelling miasma of musk and urine.
Anyway, that Whole Foods used to have a really great ramen restaurant upstairs. It shut down. Now that I think about it, probably due to the junkies and bums.
I’ve been to that Whole Foods, right where Soho and Noho meet, basically. Stupidest checkout I’ve ever seen, took for-freaking ever.
Well, yes. At Houston street. That’s the “Ho”.
Sometimes you just have to make steak. Brazillian style seasoning… because they were so thick I got them a little medium well because I was concerned about them mooing if I didn’t cook long enough. Wegmans cuts…
Ugh, I want to go to there so badly
Damn that looks good. For thick cuts if I don’t have the time or the tools to sous vide I do a reverse sear in the oven at like 275 ish until I get the internal I want then super sear. You should give that a go next time you find yourself with a 2inch or thicker steak.
That looks great! What is brazillian seasoning? Like the cuts they serve at churrascarias?
Well, in this case it’s a McCormick seasoning blend that yes, is exactly as you say.
Good to know. I did go into the oven for a bit because I already had it on for the roasted broccoli which turned out delish. I didn’t have the time to do potatoes in the oven so those were done in the microwave with some canola oil and kosher salt on the exterior.