Sunday, December 30, 2007

Domestics...

We went to Save On Foods last night in an attempt to find Fritos Scoops. Well, we failed to find them, but we succeeded in finding a great grocery store! We have been in a handful of stores here, some that I like better than others, and Save On Foods gets high marks in my book. The store was clean and well lit, and had a substantial bulk bin area in addition to a bulk foods aisle (the difference being that bulk bins store non boxed, bottled, or canned items and the bulk foods aisle is more reminiscent of what you get from Costco). They have a decent array of healthy/natural/organic products stocked and the deli reminded me a little of Whole Foods...I mean, I got a Spelt and Kamut salad...not your average fare at most grocery store delis.

Let me put it this way...the store we went to was in Vic West, an area just west of downtown over the blue Johnson Street Bridge...we'd looked at a few condos for rent there but decided that maybe the area was not right for us. The Save On Foods there is making us reconsider living across the bridge. And the free 2 hour parking in the garage below the store is tempting us there, even if there is a Thrifty Foods much closer to us in this hotel, because parking in that tiny Thrifty Foods lot can give you quite a headache. It is better to walk there and buy less food per shop than to try to park there. :P So yeah, thumbs up for Save On Foods all around.

Thrifty Foods is still a pretty good store though, and they have some of the same things that we found at Save On. They also have online shopping and personal delivery service which is cool. I think that Save On Foods is like Publix, with a stronger emphasis on health and nutrition ala Whole Foods with a dash of Costco. Thrifty Foods is similar but without the bulk aisle and maybe not as openly active on the health living/lifestyle stuff. I could be wrong about this as both stores carried a good selection of healthy/natural/organic stuff as well as bulk bins. My judgment comes from browsing their respective websites. Save On Foods seemed much more vocal about good nutrition and eating healthy.

One thing I noticed is that both stores had interesting spins on the shopping carts. Yeah, I know, shopping carts...whoopee, who cares? Thrifty Foods has the traditional push carts and hand baskets but also has the double-decker but shorter shopping carts, sorta like these only the baskets were part of the cart, and not removable like these ones. These are very nice as they are easier to maneuver and take up less space in the aisles. Save On Foods has the two traditional carts as well (and maybe the double-decker that Thrifty Foods has but I did not notice them if they were there), but an interesting contender was this EZ Pull Trolley Cart...it is just slightly larger/taller than the hand baskets, but there are 2 handles that can be lifted. One handle is for lifting the basket but the other is for rolling on the ground. Yes, the basket has wheels on the bottom and the fold up handle is just long enough for you to hold and let the basket sit and roll on the floor. Another image here, with the cart shown in use. I admit I was totally befuddled by the 2 handles and had to ask a sales associate about it. But honestly, for only getting a few things, it was way cool to use. Neato!

The other stores we have been inside are The Market on Yates, Fairway Market, and Oxford Foods. The Market at Yates is a bit more upscale like Fresh Market meets Goodings, and the latter are the ones that Chas equated to being more like the Pantry Pride, Piggly Wiggly, or Winn-Dixie of our youth, though Fairway Markets had RC Cola and that won "brownie points" for Chas, and Oxford Foods seems to be local only to Cook Street Village (and supporting local mom and pop stores is important). I think the Safeway is the only one we have not visited here yet.

Well, that's about all for the low down on supermarkets here. Sorry if I bored some of you senseless. :P

(OMFG, this Spelt and Kamut salad is frakking amazing...I simply must have some more! Nom nom nom nom!!)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh. BTW. I'm a Mac user.

Here is my Mini and desktop.

http://www.123macmini.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=3

Just in case someone updates a new photo, mine is Troy Bs Mini setup.

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