Sticker shock is everywhere on rare visit to Fairway Market in Paramus

I'm not ready to pay $31.99 at Fairway Market  in Paramus for a pound of lobster meat -- a price equivalent of four live lobsters. Are you?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I became a big fan of Fairway Market's Harlem store, which was a convenient place to shop every time I returned to my New Jersey home from visiting Manhattan.

My favorites included Fairway's extra-virgin olive oil, pasta sauces, store-roasted coffee beans and loose mesclun salad mix, which I stuffed into a plastic bag.

When Fairway opened in the out-of-the-way Fashion Center in Paramus in May 2009 -- after years of delay -- I started going there for custom-ground coffee beans, pasta sauce and other items, but the store didn't carry the goat meat that was available in Harlem.

I was puzzled that Fairway picked what is arguably the least popular shopping center in Paramus; the owners must have gotten a great deal on the rent.

And my wife told me she preferred the taste of ShopRite's antibiotic-free Readington Farms chicken to the naturally raised Murray's birds at Fairway.

I started going there less and less, and not at all after I discovered the superior coffee beans available at Starbucks.

I realized I could get just about everything else I need at Costco Wholesale, H Mart, ShopRite and other stores, often at much better prices.

And I didn't have to deal with Fairway's superior New York attitude.

Rotisserie chickens at Fairway Market in Paramus, above, cost more than at Whole Foods Market, also in Paramus, below.

Two rotisserie chickens at Whole Foods work out to about $7.50 each. Organic birds are $12.99 each.

New to me at Fairway are hot and cold food bars, like those Whole Foods Market has had since it opened. The prepared food costs $7.99 a pound. At an olive bar, you'll pay $8.99 a pound. I'm happy with the mixed Italian olives with whole garlic cloves I buy for $3.99 a pound at Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood.

Fishmonger: Clean shrimp yourself

On Friday, after visiting a friend who lives in Paramus, I decided to go to Fairway in search of wild-caught shrimp.

Fairway has a great seafood department, and sure enough I saw jumbo Gulf shrimp for $17.99 a pound (16-20 per pound).

That was a little high, but thought if the store deveined them for me, a job I hate, I would get a couple of pounds. 

But when I asked, the fishmonger just shook his head back and forth in a definite "no."

I moved on to the meat department, and asked if the store now carried goat meat. I was in luck.

I was told I could find packages of cut-up goat meat on the refrigerated shelves with chicken and other poultry and meat.

The previously frozen goat meat was $5.49 a pound, and I bought three packages for a total of $25.58.

Whole-wheat pasta

After a picked up the goat meat, I went looking for the whole-wheat pasta I saw in another shopper's cart, stopping for free samples of bread with extra-virgin olive oil and an intense pesto.

The rich pesto came in a 16-ounce bottle, but was about twice the price per ounce of the 22-ounce jar of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco.

Fairway carries several brands of whole-wheat pappardelle, penne, spaghetti and other shapes, including Garofalo from Italy.

But all of them were more expensive than the organic and conventional whole-wheat pasta I buy at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, ShopRite and Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood.

Organic spring mix

Fairway also has a great produce department, but a 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix was $6.99, compared to $4.99 or less at my Hackensack Costco.

I saw a sign for bunches of peppery arugula for $1.49 each, but when I grabbed one, it was small, about 3 ounces; that works out to a pricey $6 a pound. I passed.

Fairway also refuses to reimburse shoppers for bringing reusable bags, unlike Whole Foods and ShopRite.

Thanks, Fairway, but no thanks. You should have stayed in New York.

Manhattan is a nice place to visit, not to buy food

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Fairway Market is offering wild salmon fillet for $39.99 a pound, two to three times what the fish will cost when it appears in a few weeks at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. 

Organic garlic from Peru, left, and organic bananas are displayed on the second floor of the Manhattan store, along with many other organic items. The upper level also has a cafe and steakhouse, but the public bathrooms are on a hard-to-find third level.

On Saturday, conventional Calimyrna Figs were $6.99 for 12 ounces at Fairway Market, compared to a 40-ounce bag of organically grown Calimyrna Figs for $10.99 from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. The Manhattan store is the first and smallest Fairway Market, which has an outpost in Paramus.

Red snapper from New Zealand ($11.99 a pound) trying to look cool at Citarella, the gourmet market next door to Fairway on Broadway in Manhattan. The two food stores occupy the entire block between 74th and 75th streets.

Part of the fish counter at Citarella, which had lower prices than Fairway for wild salmon ($34.99) and boned shad fillet ($6.49). Both stores offer far more variety in seafood than Costco Wholesale, and Fairway not only offers the Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix you'll find at Costco, but other salads from the California-based organic grower you won't find in the warehouse store, including baby arugula and kale. 

The Ansonia on Broadway is a former hotel that occupies the entire block between 73rd and 74th streets, above and below.

The ornate, 110-year-old building has both condominiums and apartments.

Caruso, Toscanini, Stravinsky and Ziegfeld lived there.

ShopRite or shop wrong?

Image via Wikipedia

It seems like I have been patronizing ShopRite forever. I recall moving to Englewood 30 years ago, and visiting what passed for a supermarket downtown. I can't remember its name, but nearly every shopper felt they deserved better.

We eventually got better -- urban renewal and a shopping center anchored by a ShopRite. Late 1980s, early 1990s? Can't be sure, but it became my main source of food locally. From the outset, produce was a weak point and it never really improved, despite the addition of organic products.

But the store began carrying Readington Farms chicken, a cheaper alternative to organic that is raised on vegetarian feed and without antibiotics; free-range, grass-fed Australian lamb and beef, the latter often for under $5 a pound; and packaged cold cuts without preservatives. Unfortunately, you couldn't count on every ShopRite having these products.

For example, the Rochelle Park store, which I began to patronize after our move to Hackensack in 2007, isn't strong on Goya and other Hispanic products, and doesn't even sell plantains. It also doesn't carry preservative-free cold cuts; the deli guy told me when he stocked them, they rotted on the shelf. And the fish guy there once confided he sprays a preservative on seafood. Gross.

Now, I shop at the Hackensack and Rochelle Park ShopRites, but my wife insists on returning to the Englewood store, which has been expanded at least twice. I get most of my produce and fish at H Mart, the big Korean supermarket in Little Ferry, or at Costco in Hackensack. 


I occasionally visit the Stop & Shop in Teaneck for the chain's naturally raised food, sold under the Nature's Promise label, which can be found throughout the store -- meat, dairy, lemonade and so forth.  

But Stop & Shop doesn't carry the items ShopRite imports from Spain and Italy: artisan, bronze-cut pasta; lemony lady fingers, and carbonated, 100%  fruit juice, to name just three.


Over the years, my visits to ShopRite became less frequent as I relied more and more on Fairway Market in Harlem (and now in Paramus), Trader Joe's, Costco, H Mart, Whole Foods and Fattal's Bakery. Yet, I don't think I'll ever stop going there for something.

The original Fairway Market

After dinner at Tasteatery last night, I drove less than a block to Cafasso's Fairway Market at Anderson Avenue and Route 5 in Fort Lee for a look at one of the best small markets in North Jersey (see previous post, "A healthy meal you can sink your teeth into").

I haven't shopped here for two years or more and I miss it. The produce is beautiful. There is a fishmonger and a butcher, and drug-free Bell & Evans chicken. And few stores can match the prepared food, Italian or otherwise. Last night, I noticed baked Jersey beefsteak tomatoes and fillet of sole francese among platters of pasta, vegetables, chicken and meat.

The store has a healthy selection of wine and has had a delivery service to Fort Lee and nearby communities for years. Best of all, it has been doing all of this since 1927. So there should be no confusion with upstart Fairway Market or the Manhattan store's new branch in Paramus.

I bought a wedge of seedless watermelon (49 cents a pound) and noticed the plastic grocery bags have been redesigned. I was baffled when I noticed Cafasso's old slogan is no longer on the bag: "Where U See the Finest Foods." And, yet, the store is better than ever.