Market Bistro by Price Chopper

For reasons that aren’t quite clear, I was invited to take a tour of the new Market Bistro by Price Chopper this week. I seriously doubt what goes on at the Jon In Albany Blog has any influence on anything anyone ever does and it shouldn’t. However, I try not to turn down invitations if I can make an event. I missed what looked like a good one at The Cheese Traveler last week. Anyhow, I arrived at the Latham Market Bistro just before 1:00 where I was met by Mona Golub and brought back to what will be a teaching kitchen where the only face I recognized was Steve Barnes of the Times Union. Steve and I toured a Shop Rite together. We must be on the same super market mailing list.

 

The visit started out with some quick presentations about the concept. Mona Golub introduced Neil Golub who talked quite passionately about the concept and how development began almost immediately after the Bon Ton left the mall. The goal was to have most of America’s favorite foods made to order in one place. He called it a “Microcosm of America’s food industry.” He talked about the three deli’s the store has: Ben & Bill’s is a New York City style deli, an Italian deli with cured meats and fresh pasta made daily, traditional supermarket deli with cold cuts. The cheese section was influenced by Zabaar’s. The store has a wellness program and “Quickcare” center with a nurse practitioner. Neil also talked about new “Local” signage that was out on the shelves in the store. He was clearly hands on with the stores concept and design.

Next to speak was Jerry Golub. He talked about market research that showed people went out to eat and then went grocery shopping. This goal was to combine the two experiences in one Shop & Dine experience. He touched on a few more things like the Chef’s Grill which will be a full service restaurant in the store which also serves wine and beer. The restaurant will feature items from other parts of the store like fresh pasta and sausages from the Italian deli or corned beef for hash from Ben & Bill’s. He called the store a “living, breathing lab” where new things could be tried. Some will succeed, some will fail but the successes could be exported to the other stores.

The final speaker before the tour began was Lewis Shaye, the Vice President of Culinary Concepts for Price Chopper. He’s been working on this project for almost 5 years. He said the theme they tried to carry out through the Bistro was “Remarkable.” They wanted to do things that hadn’t been done in a grocery store before. The other concept that carries though the eateries is menu related. Each section has some specialties that are always on the menu, some limited time offerings that will change as well as made to order options. With that, the tour began. With that said, we left the cooking classroom (which is pretty nice space) and headed out to the Bistro.

First on the tour was a Starbucks near the main entrance to the store. Just adjacent to the Starbucks will be a few shelves of pastries  and and ice cream station. But the Ice cream station was the last stop, so we to a quick step to the side to see a soup area.

Adjacent to the soup area is a Subtown, an East coast style sub shop. I sampled the Italian mix and it was pretty good. Bread can make or break a sub and this was pretty good. Half subs (about 7 inches) were in the $5 to $7 range, full 14 inch subs were about $9 to $10.

 

 

Next door to Subtown is a salad station. Salads ran from about $6.50 to $9. One touch that was pointed out is that they are freezing the salad serving plates so they are chilled when you get your salad.

I liked that the salads are tossed so everything is dressed. On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d put $6 to $9 worth of salad in a bowl at a traditional salad bar. These prices are in line with a shop like Panera, but at Panera you have the option to get a smaller salad and half a sandwich. I’m sure the salad sales will be watched and any issues will be addressed, but I think some fine tuning might be needed.

Next up is Burritos. Like a Moe’s or Chipotle, you can get a burrito bowl or quesadilla. Unlike Moe’s or Chipotle, they are offering some different flavors like Buffalo chicken, BBQ, Italian and a Mediterranean. There’s a kids meal option and they had tofu also. Most everything at this station was just under $7 but could be upgraded to a meal package. We sampled a Buffalo chicken quesadilla. It had the right Frank’s Red Hot flavor and some fresh scallion added a little crunch but it wasn’t anything special. My daughter Allison would love this station and want to come shopping if she knew about it.

Next up was the smokehouse. The actual smoker is over by the meat counter. There’s brisket, ribs, chicken and pulled pork. There’s a bigger spread of prices ($5 to $15) depending on what you order and how much you want. There are also family meal options. We tried some brisket, a rib and the pulled pork. I thought the brisket was a little over smoked, the rib was fall off the bone tender and pretty tasty and this style of pulled pork isn’t for me. I go for an Eastern North Carolina style with a vinegar sauce. This was more of a barbecue sauce. People like that style. I’d probably like it more if that’s what I had eaten first. The smokehouse chef gave Steve a taste of smoky caramelized onions and it looked like Steve really liked them. I didn’t taste them.

Moving along…the burger stand. We sampled a pastrami hot dog. A Hembold’s hot dog with mustard, onion and pastrami bits. The pastrami bits reminded of the crumbled bacon found on southern Connecticut dogs with the works. Personally, I think there are better hot dogs out there then Hembold’s. If you wanted to keep it local-ish, I’d pick Hoffman’s out of Syracuse. Just my two cents. The burger we tasted was well done but still good. It had store cured and smoked bacon on it. I give bonus points for making their own bacon. Burgers were around $6.50 but could be turned into a meal for around $10. I think hot dogs were around $3 and there were kid’s meal options.

On to seafood. My picture of the menu board came out blurry. It’s tough to eat, take notes like you are playing reporter and take pictures on a phone. I know, tough problems. The seafood shop looked pretty standard offering fried everything. We were given samples of the lobster roll. A full order of the lobster roll will set you back almost $17. I thought it was OK, but lobster rolls aren’t my thing. It was lightly dressed with mayo, but I have mayo issues.

 

Switching sides of the aisle, there is sushi. They have a new partner running the sushi stand and apparently business has doubled since the change. If you are looking for advice on where to get sushi, I could probably refer you to someone. For example, I’m not exactly sure what I tried, but I tried two pieces. The first, I think was the crunchy dragon roll. I’d never had any sushi with something crunchy on it. I thought it was pretty good. Now that I’m looking at the menu, I see that has imitation crab in it and I doubt I’d get it again. But they have a crunchy tempura shrimp roll and I’d give that a try. I thought the crunchy topping was quite good. No idea if crunchy sushi is blasphemy, but I liked it. I’m pretty sure my other bite was a smoked salmon cream cheese wrap. It was good, but I didn’t like it as much as the crunchy one. See, not exactly a connoisseur. 

 

Behind the sushi section is the cheese shop. It looked like they had some interesting choices and they are also interested in offering local cheeses. The samples offered to us were a Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue cheese (not my thing, didn’t like the smoke), a Cabot cloth bound cheddar (pretty good) and a Nettle Meadow honey lavender fromage blanc goat cheese (this was delicious). Just off to the side of the cheese shop was a growler station. It looked cool. Can’t help but wish it was a bourbon station.

 Alright, we’re turning the corner and starting to head back towards the front of the store. The Italian deli offers up many kinds of sausage. Pork, lamb, duck, turkey in various styles ranging in price from $2.79 to $5.99 a pound. They also have many kinds of fresh pasta ranging in price from $5.99 to $6.99 a pound. They also have a lot of salami and cured meats you would expect in an Italian deli too. We tried a two pasta dishes that were just so-so. I believe they would have been much better prepared and served right away. It has to be tough to prepare fresh pasta for a walking tour that will just suddenly show up.

Still reading? They got an olive oil station where you can try a bunch of oils – some straight, others are infused – and balsamic vinegar too. Twelve ounce bottles go between $7 and $15 depending on your choice. There was a good looking olive bar too.

 Then you have a regular deli with lunch meats and some prepared items. The regular deli is offering Chef’s meals for $6 which are a main and two sides.

Ben and Bill’s is the next deli. The deli which is heavily influence by the legendary Joe’s (I never got the chance to eat there, but I have heard many people miss it) still features meats from Old World Provisions. Prepared properly, an Old World Provisions pastrami sandwich is heaven.  Most deli sandwiches are $6.50 for a half and $9.50 for a whole. Your cardiologist probably would recommend the half, especially if you are going to try the potato pancake. That’s no low fat pancake.Lots of smoke fish too.

This side of the aisle ends with the Stone Fired Pizza shop. I’d argue this is an area that requires immediate attention, but I’m probably not their typical pizza customer. First, I have no idea what Stone Fired is. I looked it up online and found a few restaurants with a similar name. It looks like pizza is cooked in a regular oven. Maybe the oven has a stone floor. From what I could see of the oven, it looked like it was set to 550 degrees which in my opinion is too cold. You’ve got a brand spanking new hot rod pizza oven and it is being used by a few kids that are running it like a home oven. Not the kids fault though, they need training.

And look at this pizza.

Where’s the rim? I'm going to stop beating it up. The picture says enough. If they are looking to make a quality pizza, a consultant is needed.

Coming down off my high horse, we go to the Chef’s grill back at the entrance to the Bistro section. This will be the full service, 50 seat restaurant that will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. The idea is to sample from all of the stands. For example, showcasing the fresh pasta and sausage from the Italian market. It’s ambitious and I’m curious to see how it does. They plan to open it by the 1^st of the month. 

The last stop was back to the ice cream shop which features Perry’s and Hagen Das ice creams. They make their own hot fudge and whipped cream and both are pretty good. A sundae is $569. We also tried a strawberry shake, which was also good. A 16 oz. shake is $4.60.

A few of us strangled behind and were shown the smoker back in the meat section. It’s not out on display because there isn’t much to see. If you’re interested, it’s the largest smoke Southern Pride makes. Just to the side of the smoker, I noticed a dry aging chamber. I’ve seen dry aged beef for sale, but don’t recall ever seeing a market like Price Chopper doing the dry aging themselves. I thought that was impressive.

There’s a really big natural and organic section – a little more than one entire aisle, both sides. And in that section, there is a pretty large Gluten Free area with some gluten free breads made in Saratoga.

There’s a smaller version of the Westgate Price Chopper’s international aisle and local tags on the shelves next to the products. They are currently at 520 “Local” products with local being taken to mean within 400 miles of the store. Turns out that we make a lot of tomato sauce within 400 miles of Latham.

 

I don’t know if this store will change my shopping habits. I tend to hit a few grocery stores a week. Sometimes for price, but mostly because the stores carry different things. I enjoyed the tour and in the spirit of Festivus, I took some time to air my two biggest Price Chopper grievances.

The first is because I’m cheap. On sale, a bottle of Polar seltzer is $1 at Price Chopper. The regular price at Hannaford is $0.85 and it goes on sale for $0.79. I have a major Ruby Red Grapefuit flavored seltzer problem.

Grievance #2: All of the shrimp for sale in Price Chopper have more ingredients than just “shrimp.” The all have sodium-phos-nitra-blah-blah-blah in them. If you sold just shrimp, maybe I’d try some. Preferably from the US.

After I aired my grievances, we went back to the cooking school room for the feats of strength.

Well, really we just shook hands and I left. But I left with this bag of goodies. Food blogger swag.

So if you made it all the way to the end of this, or at least scrolled down to the end, leave a comment letting me know if you plan to check out the new Bistro Market. I’ll number the comments, that random.org will pick a number and then I’ll make arrangements to get you the bag of goodies less the bread (it would be green by the time you get it). Up for grabs is a reusable tote, a bottle of sparkling cranberry/raspberry water, a jar of Thai chili roasted garlic, some cheese with espresso in it, a lemon infused olive oil, tortilla chips and a gift card of an unknown amount. There's also a series of coupons for $2 off growlers every week, but you'll miss the first week. I’ll close the contest on Saturday, March 1^st at midnight. Please be in or willing to travel to the Albany area to get the bag o' swag. Hopefully, I'll get at least one comment...not sure though. If you made it this far, your odds are pretty good.

Crate & Barrel Pop Up Store in Crossgates

Every so often, I get invited to a store opening. Not sure why I am extended the offer, but I try to go when I can make it. This morning, I was invited to preview the Crate & Barrel shop opening today in Crossgates. The store is called The Tree Lot and is next door to Williams Sonoma at the JC Penny and Pottery Barn end of the mall.

This place is seriously decked out for the holiday season and I actually appreciate them not opening before Halloween.

 

 
 At the front of the store, there is a little photo opportunity area complete with some props.

Now this shop isn't exactly what I think of when I think about Crate & Barrel. I think about their Boston store (which has apparently moved out of Copley Plaza since my last visit years ago). There where tons of kitchen gadgets, plates, glassware, pots, pans...basically a food nuts dream. But this store isn't trying to be that and there is no way they would be able to fit that kind of store in this space. This place is more about holiday entertaining and gifts. Want some holiday themed serving dishes, they've got them. Fancy glass ornaments, tons of them. And mixed in with the holiday gifts are a few things that are still gifts, but not necessarily only holiday gifts.

This is the first year Crate and Barrel is trying out the concept. I suspect the store will be packed in December. The Tree Lot opens today at 10 and will be open until December 31.

The Cost of a Thanksgiving Turkey

I get email from Farmie Market. Never bought anything from them, but I poke around their site once in awhile. The last time I looked at the site the were advertising nitrate free bacon. I sent in an inquiry to see if it was actually nitrate free (most things labeled nitrate free or no nitrates added have nitrates in the form of celery salt). The reply indicated that this bacon was in fact nitrate free. The ingredient list was pork, water, sea salt and brown sugar. The downside to this bacon was that it priced out at $18 a pound. A little to steep for me. I'd post a link to the bacon but it is currently sold out so the price wasn't too steep for everyone.

Yesterday, I got an email from Farmie Market outlining the true cost of raising a pastured turkey. Here it is.

It basically says that a farmer has $53 plus labor into a farm raised turkey. These turkeys are selling for $6.25 a pound and are delivered frozen. At that price, and 18 pound turkey costs $112. That just seems excessive to me. While it is true that meat labeling has become increasingly deceptive - organic, natural, and humane all have USDA definitions that don't necessarily match Webster's - The Co Op is selling  Local, Natural, Pasture Raised turkeys from Misty Knolls at $2.99 a pound. If you want to add organic from Jaindl it is $4.99 a pound. Comparing these farms isn't apples to apples especially with vague definitions of "pastured." Certainly a farmer needs to make a profit, but the price of a turkey breaking $100 just seems high. Although they must not be too high for everyone. They sold out last year. 

Super Market Wars Continue

In what I would believe are retaliatory renovations, both the Hannaford and Price Chopper in Latham are under construction. The Price Chopper is annexing some adjacent space and growing. It's already pretty big and I'm curious to see what they do with the space. A large portion of their parking lot is blocked off for a staging area. Other than some changes to the entrance and the removal of the little flower shop in the corner, the inside of the store is business as usual.

Across the street at Hannaford, they have completely rearranged the aisles. For awhile, I was in this Hannaford fairly regularly and knew my way around. Not so much anymore. The cashier told me they are arranging the aisles the same way tho Wolf Road Hannaford was reorganized. No more healthy foods section - everything is going to be mixed together. So that granola that used to be in the healthy section, that's in with the cereals now. Or the organic frozen broccoli, that's with all the frozen vegetables now. Personally, this is a huge pain in the ass. I used to know where the things I bought were and now I end up walking up and down aisles looking for them. It's the difference between shopping with or without a list. The way the store is set up now, I need a list or something will definitely be forgotten. Ironically, I stopped by the Latham store instead of the on on Wolf Road so I could just grab a few things and go. Instead, I spent at least an extra 20 minutes looking for stuff and got frustrated and picked up some soda at a different store because I was sick of walking in circles. I noticed a few other people in the same boat - roaming around looking at the aisle signs and sighing. I shrugged my shoulders sympathetically at a fellow lost shopper and she said, "They mooooved everything!"

One bright side to the Hannaford remodel, I was told they are not going to re-arrange the checkout like they did on Wolf Road. On Wolf Road you wheel your cart up to a greeter that directs you to a checkout line. Apparently I'm not the only one that really doesn't like that. I'll come back and wander around the Latham Hannaford once they are done, but I think I'm going to give them a little time to sort it all out before my next visit.

Spice of Life

My favorite area health food store is Dean's Natural Foods in Westgate Plaza. Yes, Honest Weight has pretty much all of the same stuff and I've never really done a price comparison between the two stores. And I like Honest Weight too. I just don't see Honest Weight as a health food store. I still go to Honest Weight every so often but I just like Dean's.

Everyone there is very friendly. There is one woman that works there, I should find out her name, that greets you with a warm hello. When you say, "Hi, how are you?" back to her, the response is, "Reasonable." Wouldn't it be nice if we were all reasonable?

Dean's is where I get most of my spices. They might have a little less space dedicated to seasonings than Honest Weight, but I like the set up at Dean's better. It's more relaxed,  they have little bags with stickers already on them to label the spices, and I think the spice prices are quite fair. Need a tablespoon of allspice, buy just a tablespoon of allspice. It will be cheaper and better than anything you buy in a supermarket. Plus you won't have a spice you use once and throw the rest away in 6 or 7 years. I stopped in earlier today to pick up some spices. 

I picked up some oregano and granulated garlic just to have more of both in the house. The granulated garlic is great. I also picked up some bay leaves, yellow mustard seeds, allspice, and coriander (I already put the granualted garlic in a jar - it is potent stuff). Quick spice buying tip - put the date on the label so you know how old the spices are.

I mixed up some salt, cure#1, and brown sugar in the bowl on the left. Most of the spices I bought today are in the bowl on the right. I rubbed one of the last roasts I have in the freezer with the spices. Not exactly the traditional corned beef, but I think it will work.

It will get tucked away in the fridge for at least a week before it gets cooked. This is the first time I dry rubbed a corned beef. The few other times I've used a brine.

I loosely followed the Serious Eats recipe. Here's the Serious Eats write-up and recipe. We'll see how it goes. At the very least, I hope it comes out reasonable.

Roaming The Restaurant Depot

I got a chance to wander around the new Restaurant Depot that recently opened on Warehouse Row in Colonie. Before you head over, you should know that the Restaurant Depot is not open to the public. You need a Tax ID number or the proper paperwork from a non-profit to get a free membership. Luckily, I know a few people that have already become members and was able to tag along.

From the outside, the place looks like any other really big wholesale store but there is a very nice covered area so rain and snow won’t get on your purchases while you load up. Since it is a store for restaurants, everything is bulk. Not just bulk, BULK. The refrigerated section is huge and filled with meats, cheeses and produce. Some meats were marked for sale by the piece (whole briskets, packs of pork butt, whole sirloins – like in BJs) but they were also sold by the case which makes sense if you are preparing several hundred portions of short ribs. Most of the cheeses looked to start in the 5 pound range. And it looks like a fresh seafood section is coming. Right now most of the seafood was frozen, but the empty holding tanks looked like they were almost ready to go.

When I was done in the cooler I wondered around the rest of the store. They had some nice looking kitchen equipment – stock pots, slicers, grinder, coffee equipment. Smaller stuff too – spatulas, whisks, peelers, knives. And plates, glassware, aprons, to-go containers, paper/plastic stuff, pizza boxes, the list is very long. Then you get into the dry goods. It is kind of like a supermarket except “gallon” is the smallest size. If they have what you want and you want a lot of it, the prices are good too. For example, the price of De Cecco spaghetti is $1.24 a pound. The catch is you need to buy twenty, 1-pound boxes.

Restaurant Depot is a lot of fun for a food nut to walk around. I went in hoping to find one, specific ingredient and I did. But it only came in 100 or 50 pounds bags.

Guess who has 50 pound sack of high protein pizza flour.

New Arrivals at Price Chopper

Every so often, I get an email from Price Chopper letting me know about some new products or an event. The first thing I would have been interested in knowing about and not a word from whoever send the emails....I was hurrying through the Latham Price Chopper and this new display in the meat section caught my eye. Several small shelves filled with D'Artagnan products. I had wanted to try some of their stuff during the Charcutapalooza challenge, especially since they were nice enough to offer participants a discount each month. I never got around to it. Couldn't believe I was looking at their stuff in a Price Chopper. First shelf, Jambon de Boyonne ($7.49 for 4 oz.), small container of duck fat ($5.99 for 7 oz.) and a duck leg confit ($7.99 for a 5 oz. leg). I bought a package of the ham.

But wait, there's more....smoked duck bacon ($10.99 for 8 oz.) and more duck legs confit.

And still more... lamb merguez, saucisson de canard and wild boar sausage (each $5.99 for an 8.5 oz package).

A bit on the pricey side but my hope is that the products are of very high quality. Wow, duck fat and duck confit at Price Chopper. Color me impressed.

Completely off topic side note: All Over Albany did a nice little write up on the Schenectady Curling Club.

And last but certainly not least... Happy Birthday Ma!

New Shop Rite Coming

The new store is opening soon and I just got invited to a preview. Surprisingly cool. Plus I'm writing this on my new phone. So far this is looking like a good week. Hopefully I'll get to the summer sausage tonight.

The Fresh Market

If you are into food and never leave your cave, you will be surprised to know that The Fresh Market opened in Latham today. I love going to new super markets. I didn't write about it, but I was horribly disappointed in the Davenport, Florida super markets outside of Disney.I just can't believe locals do their weekly shopping there.

I didn't go to the actual 9 AM opening. I love new super markets, but not enough to use vacation time. So, I stopped on the way home. The place was packed at 4:15. So packed, that it was more of a once around the store look, than actually going shopping. The store looked nice. Produce looked good (better than what is in most local markets). The prepared foods looked good. Everything looked good. In fact, I would say this store is nearly identical to the one I visited outside Raleigh, North Carolina.

The main goal of the visit was go quickly poke around, grab some stuff that could go on the grill and get out. I saw some very nice apricots that the kids would love - grabbed 4 of them. The prepared food counted had a line that was 10 people deep. Peeked at the case and moved on. The seafood counter was packed - didn't really even get a look. There was a lady heating and passing out crab cake samples as fast as she possibly could. Missed that too. Looked good though. The baked goods looked nice. Meat counter looked good too. I don't buy beef out (got half a cow in the freezer), but there were several cuts of veal, pork, chicken and lamb. They actually had a flanken cut of short ribs. I've only seen that in Asian markets up here. Several kinds of prepared sausage. I got 3 kinds of chicken sausage and 1 turkey sausage to try. The 3 chicken sausages were much better than the turkey sausage (nothing special about that one). Wandering into the cold section I saw a few kinds of yogurt that I never heard of. In the home good section, I grabbed some cheesecloth - I'm was out of it. And with my 3 items in tow, I wandered over to try and check out.

That took a little while. And with nothing to do, I turned into that guy on his cell phone. I was talking to my buddy Joe. He and his wife are starting to freak out about having a kid in kindergarten. The idea of their kid being on the bus scares them. Anyhow, we talked for about 25 minutes (he's got a long commute) and then I was at the register.

I am pleased to have another market in the area. I expect to be in this one regularly. I am also curious to see how their pork tastes in homemade sausage. I also hope the Times Union article today is correct in theorizing that if this store succeeds, others like it will follow. Based on today's turnout, people want this store around. Maybe we can all coordinate days to go shopping there. The "everyone in the world show up on Wednesday" won't work in the long run.