Dark Roast at Dunkin' Donuts, sodium in roasted seaweed and more

With a little whole milk, the new Dark Roast from Dunkin' Donuts makes a terrific cup of coffee. A medium cup (14 ounces) was only 99 cents, plus tax, today at the store on Hackensack Avenue and University Plaza Drive in Hackensack, compared to the usual price of $1.94.

At Joe Coffee at 405 W. 23rd St. in Manhattan on Saturday, a 12-ounce cup of drip coffee was $2.30, plus tax. I prefer the smoothness of the Dunkin' Donuts Dark Roast.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I had some time to kill today while the Firestone store in Hackensack checked out a slow-leaking tire on my Toyota Prius, so I walked across the street to try the new Dark Roast at Dunkin' Donuts.

I'm a loyal fan of Starbucks, but have to admit this is a nice cup of coffee, especially for the special price of 99 cents for a 14-ounce cup.

Costco Wholesale's Kirkland Signature Roasted Seasoned Seaweed, imported from South Korea, has less sodium that the brands I've purchased at Korean supermarkets. The quantity of addictive seaweed in each Costco package is about three times what you get with other brands.

For a snack, I wrapped seaweed, smoked wild salmon and homemade canned fish salad in a slice of reduced-fat Swiss cheese. Most of the ingredients came from Costco.

A display of roasted seaweed packages at the H Mart in Little Ferry.

This brand of roasted seaweed or laver I saw at H Mart on Sunday comes in .17-ounce packages, compared to the .6-ounce packages sold at Costco. The nutrition labels of the two brands list different serving sizes, making it difficult to compare sodium, but Costco's seasoned seaweed tastes less salty and its label lists less sodium and a lower percentage of the recommended daily maximum allowance.

When I combined organic quinoa and organic brown rice with organic diced tomatoes, black beans and whole peeled garlic cloves and prepared them in an electric cooker, I found the resulting dish a little drier than when made with quinoa alone. Use two cups of liquid for each cup of quinoa and rice -- plus olive oil and a little salt. Here, I had the side dish with fresh wild Atlantic cod from Costco that I had coated in a homemade Super Spice Mixture and baked in the oven. The fish, long-line caught in Iceland, was $7.99 a pound.

I took a break from eggs this morning and had the organic quinoa-brown rice dish with a curry sauce I prepared for a tofu recipe last week, and leftover sauteed cabbage and sweet peppers.

Costco Wholesale supersizes Korean roasted seaweed

Kirkland Signature Roasted Seasoned Seaweed is made in Korea and sold at Costco Wholesale. Ten packages are wrapped in clear plastic, each weighing  .6 ounce. I paid $7.49 at my Hackensack Costco.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss a popular Korean snack now being sold under Costco Wholesale's Kirkland Signature label, and food-shopping frustration at the International Food Warehouse in Lodi and Corrado's in Clifton.

Those addictive sheets of roasted and  salted seaweed from Korea are now being sold under the Kirkland Signature label at Costco Wholesale.

Each package weighs .6 oz, and appears to contain many more sheets than the smaller packages I've purchased at Korean supermarkets and Trader Joe's.

On the Web site of H Mart, a chain of Korean supermarkets, packages of seaweed, also called laver, weigh only .15 oz and .17 oz -- less than a third of  Costco's version.

Costco sold a brand of Korean roasted seaweed in the traditionally sized package, but the Kirkland Signature version comes in a bigger package that can be shared by two.

This afternoon, I snacked on seaweed sheets wrapped around canned-fish salad with chickpeas.

The Costco package shows the sheets wrapped around rice, shredded over raw fish and as an ingredient in canapes.

Ingredients are seaweed, corn oil, grape seed oil, sesame oil and sea salt. The package is marked "Winter Harvest."

An expensive Bentley automobile was parked on Sunday in the lot of the International Food Warehouse in Lodi, which sells many ethnic foods at a discount.

A liter package of this 100% juice from Turkey was 88 cents.

Out of oil

I drove over to the International Food Warehouse in Lodi to pick up another 3-liter tin or two of Isle of Cyprus Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which a sales flier offered for $13.99 or a dollar less than before.

But the store had sold out. 

I use this thick, fruity olive oil for frying eggs, omelets and frittatas, and to dress salads. 

So, I took three 1-liter bottles of the same Greek extra-virgin olive oil to the register, but the manager wouldn't honor the $13.99 price. Each bottle was marked $6.99.

Consolation prizes

I picked up four 1-liter cartons of Aroma-brand 100% Pomegranate-Apple Juice from Turkey at 88 cents each; four 1-liter bottles of Vintage Lemon-Lime Seltzer at 59 cents each, and yams at 99 cents for 3 pounds.

The store also sells wine and beer, but nothing appeared to be a bargain.

Two organic brown eggs fried in Isle of Cyprus Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Kirkland Signature refrigerated pesto from Costco Wholesale. Instead of bread, I warmed up leftover organic brown rice for a delicious breakfast.

Out of salt fish

Stores like the International Food Warehouse can drive you crazy when you make a special trip for an item, only to find it was sold out or never came in.

On the way back from an errand in Morristown last week, I stopped at Corrado's Family Affair in Clifton to buy 1-pound bags of salted cod from Canada.

The previous time I drove to the store, there was a  sign at the fish counter listing the price for large pieces of dried cod fish, with and without bones, and for dried fish in plastic bags, but I couldn't find a single bag.

Ackee and salted cod fish with Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce.

On Thursday, the same sign was there, but still no bags of cod fish.

I went over to the customer service counter, only to find a line of shoppers checking out their purchases.

In frustration, I shouted out for help, and an employee said the store had ordered the bagged cod fish, but that it "never came in."

Stolen fish?

Imagine: A truckload of dried codfish hijacked somewhere between Canada and New Jersey. 

Next time, I'll call the store before going there.

On the way back to Route 80, I stopped at Food Basics on Getty Avenue in Paterson, and picked up three 1-pound bags of dried Alaskan pollock at $3.98 a bag.

Pollock is a wild-caught fish that tastes similar to cod, but my wife prefers the latter.

Another problem I encountered at Corrado's is missing price signs.

In the produce section, 16-ounce plastic tubs of Uncle Vinny's spring mix and other salads had no price stickers or price signs on the shelf, but a sheet of paper hanging from a shelf gave prices for smaller packages.

An employee I asked just shrugged, and said he didn't know the price of the larger package.