The Market Report

It's not too often that I do updates of Food Bazaars, since most of the ones I visit regularly are fairly new. But we have a couple of changes at Elizabeth and Red Hook that are worth checking out... Elizabeth The above picture of the Elizabeth Food Bazaar isn't a recent one (you can see the snow), but it's a very nice sunset shot and I think it's my only picture showing the whole store from across the street. The Elizabeth Food Bazaar opened in 2016 in a former Pathmark, which actually opened in 1967 as a ShopRite and was converted the following year. You can see my extensive past coverage here , here , and here . While the store was extensively remodeled before its reopening, most of the supermarket retained its Pathmark tile (just with the signature blue Path to Savings-era portions removed). Only the grand aisle was switched to polished concrete. This month, a lot of work has been going on at the store, including refinishing all of the flooring to polished concrete...

...but obviously the folks at Food Bazaar didn't quite get the message. The ingredients, according to this package, are: ENRICHED FLOUR WHEAT FLOUR BARLEY FLOUR NACH IRNON HAMIN MONITRATE RIBORAMM WATER SUGAR YEAST BUTTER (PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAM AND COTTONSEED OIL WATER PART WHYDROGENATED SOUBEAN AND COTTONSEED OIL CONTAINS LESS 2% HERO OWING NONA MILK DEXTROSE CORN ...and it may contain fish. Yum! This list of orthographical oddities has been replaced with simply "butter croissant" on some newer packages.

We saw the America's Food Basket in Worcester last month. AFB is the far smaller of the two urban/ethnic-based stores in downtown Worcester, the other being this Compare Foods. This Compare Foods is actually enormous inside. It looks like a good size from the outside, but it goes way  back. You enter at the far end of the storefront and checkouts run along that side wall. Deli/bakery/hot food are where the windows are, and produce is in the front corner where the black SUV is. Meat runs along the right-side wall and aisles run perpendicular to the street. Inside is a full restaurant with hot food, seating, and sandwiches, a pharmacy (unusual in these smaller ethnic stores), a cell-phone retailer, a money-order counter, a clothing and accessories retailer, and of course, a full grocery selection. It was quite impressive, and clearly well cared-for by management. But the best thing about the store? The tres leches cake from the bakery department. For only $2.25 you get a gen...

... wink wink What else is there to say? Courtesy of the Bridgeport, CT Food Bazaar.

If not, you will be soon. I figured I'd post this around lunchtime... My standard lunch at The Food Emporium at Union Square when I was in that area every day a few weeks ago -- two empanadas (from Ruben's Empanadas in Elizabeth), two scoops of vegetables, and three plantains. Usually about $8-9. The vegetable selections changed every day. I'm not generally one to take a picture of every meal I eat, but I figured I should document these!