At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, a customer behaves badly

At Costco Wholesale, unsalted raw almonds were $9.89 on May 7 and $10.99 on May 29. To put some crunch in these nuts, I roast them in the oven at 275 degrees for 1 hour.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss food shopping at Costco Wholesale, ShopRite and H Mart.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

My wife couldn't believe her eyes as she stood in line to return Fuji apples at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A woman in front of her was seeking a refund for a 1-pound container of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, which she apparently didn't finish before its expiration date; three 1-pound packages of Black Tiger shrimp, and a bag filled with Romaine lettuce.

My wife said the Organic Spring Mix was rotting.

Costco has a liberal return policy, giving customers a full refund for any item they don't like.

Executive Members of the warehouse club don't even need a receipt.

But if this woman and others abuse the policy, Costco may change it, hurting honest customers.

We were returning the Washington State Extra Fancy apples because two of three we cut into were brown inside. The week before, we returned pears from Chile because they were mealy.

We've asked for refunds for Organic Spring Mix that rotted before its use-by date on the package, but never after.

A 1-pound package of the best-tasting salad mix in the world is only $4.99 at Costco.

Free-range beef

ShopRite has knocked $3 off a pound of Nature's Reserve free-range, grass-fed beef from Australia -- perfect for Korean barbecue.

A whole tenderloin for filet mignon is $5.99 a pound with the store's PricePlus card through Saturday.

In the Paramus store, I bought a tenderloin weighing about 6 pounds, and my wife trimmed it and sliced it thinly, dividing it into three portions and adding Korean bulgogi marinade.

We put two portions in the freezer. 

She grilled the remaining beef on a stove-top grill, serving it with red-leaf lettuce, white rice, red-pepper paste and Korean side dishes.

I ate wild salmon with pesto.

ShopRite also had a sale on seedless watermelons for $4.99 each. I bought one, but it was smaller than Costco's $5.99 melons.

Neither store has a scale that allows you to weight the melons

I bought 2 pints of Jersey blueberries for $5 after comparing their weight to an 18-ounce package of Jersey blues for $4.99.

The pints weighed a couple of ounces more.

You roll up beef, rice, red-pepper paste and seasoned radish in red-leaf lettuce, and pop the package into your mouth. Below, Korean side dishes are seasoned radish, stewed tofu and pan-fried fish cake with carrot and jalapeno pepper.

Mexican mangoes

In addition to buying prepared Korean side dishes at H Mart in Little Ferry, I picked up Champagne mangoes on sale-- a box of 20 for $9.99, a discount of $4.

These Mexican mangoes are intensely sweet and not at all stringy.