Jaffe

Where are the real grocery stores????

It's been a few days since I unpacked my dishes, and I've been on a mission to find a place to get some normal food to make simple dinners at home - basically pasta. In particular, filled pasta. Have to say, I got into the habit of getting the 2 for £2.50 filled pasta at Sainsbury's in London, and I can't find something similar here at all. The closest thing is massively overpriced ($4.99) tortellini at pretty much every local 'grocery store' in the area. So it looks like I'm going to have to find a substitute cheap, easy dinner. A lot of the grocery stores I've been to here are filled with 'gourmet' products, which are 2-3x more expensive than the same items in Europe... Illy espresso is over $12 for a can? Are you kidding me? Will have to bring a separate suitcase next time I go to Europe just to bring back coffee! The places that most closely resemble real supermarkets are Gristedes, which a friend in the lab described as being 'Morrison's quality at Waitrose prices', and The Food Emporium, which is definitely Waitrose quality at Waitrose+ prices (there the Illy was $14.99). Now I know why people were telling me it's not much more expensive to eat out!

posted by Aron @ 10:08 PM