ShopRite customer told to can complaints

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A company called Glass Gardens owns and operates nine ShopRite supermarkets.

Editor's note: ShopRite's Can Can Sale can be a challenge, to put it mildly. Today, I also discuss inflexible "shock" prices at Fairway Market in Paramus; a quick meal of fresh fish, brown rice and Chinese broccoli; and ways to cut down on your salt intake.

--HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Bergen County woman who complained about how ShopRite is conducting its Can Can Sale was told by a store owner that if she didn't like it, she should shop elsewhere.

The woman said she went to the Paramus ShopRite for Tetley Tea and swordfish, two items featured in the Can Can sales flier, but was told the store didn't have any.

She also wanted to use a Super Coupon from the flier for 10 cans of Progresso Soup for $10.88. She bought less and was told she must buy all 10 cans to get the discount. 

She pointed out there was no mention of that on the coupon.

She called consumer affairs, and a Bergen County official visited the Paramus store twice, eventually imposing a fine. 

A new sales flier with the Super Coupon specified that 10 cans of Progresso Soup must be purchased to get the lower price of about $1.09 each.

On one of her visits, she was told by Irv Glass of Glass Gardens Inc. that if she didn't like the policies of the Paramus ShopRite, she should go elsewhere.

Irv and Terry Glass of Glass Gardens own and operate nine ShopRites, including stores in Paramus, Rochelle Park and Englewood.

The company Web site has this to say:

"SERVICE: To provide a level of customer-driven service that exceeds the customer’s expectations and helps to take the worry out of shopping."

 'Shock' prices at Fairway

Fairway Market sometimes seems desperate to lure shoppers to its odd location in the Fashion Center, which is one of the poorest performing malls in Paramus.

At least that's how I interpret recent sales fliers heralding "shock" prices. I received two fliers with my local newspaper, one for Jan. 6-12, 2012, and another for Jan. 13-19.

Image via Wikipedia

The real shock isn't the prices, but that different items are on sale each week.

On Thursday, the last day of the first "shock price" week, I went to Fairway for freshly ground coffee and other items.

I bought a 5-pound box of clementines from Spain for $5.99, but today, in the second week of the sale, the price was lowered to $4.99. A also picked up Fuji apples for 75 cents a pound.

I took three 1-pound containers of Campari tomatoes to the check-out counter and asked if I could have the "shock" price of $5 for the trio, but was told I couldn't get that until today. 

On Thursday, the price was two 1-pound containers for $5, more than I would pay at Costco Wholesale, where I spend most of my food dollars.

One "shock" price I saw in the store was $6.99 for a pound of Colombia Supremo coffee beans, so I bought two bags, and asked for a Turkish grind.

Fairway is the only supermarket I know with coffees from around the world that are roasted and custom-ground in the store -- the only reason I continue to go there.

I also picked up another item I see nowhere else, Spanish Pajero Fig Cake with almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts at $9.99 a pound. My wedge cost $6.99.

Quick dinner

My wife picked up about 2.2 pounds of fresh, wild-caught haddock fillets from Iceland at Costco Wholesale on Wednesday ($7.99 a pound).

We had a bottle of Goya Salsa Verde, a mildly spicy Mexican sauce that is handy for preparing a one-pot entree, plus organic brown rice from Costco and fresh Chinese broccoli from H Mart.

The brown rice went into an electric rice cooker along with Organic Sprouted Bean Trio (lentil, adzuki and mung beans), also from Costco.

I cut up the fish and placed it on top of the green salsa, which I had poured into a large skillet. Covered, the fillets took about 10 to 15 minutes to cook through on a medium flame, plumping up and turning white.

I blanched the leafy broccoli, along with thick, cut up stems, in boiling water for about 5 minutes, drained the water and added a little extra-virgin olive oil, salt and no-salt seasoning. 

We spooned the fish and sauce over the steamed brown rice and beans, and served the bright-green, al dente broccoli on the side. Wonderful.

No-salt zone

You need salt with potassium iodide for complete physical and mental development, but there are a few places you can cut down on sodium when preparing home-cooked meals.

There is really no need to salt water for boiling pasta, because there is plenty of sodium in bottled sauces and the grated cheese you'll eat with it. And pasta boils just as well in a minimum amount of water as it does in gallons of the stuff.

When we cooked the haddock fillets, I used no-salt seasoning, knowing the green salsa had plenty of sodium in it. Fresh lemon juice also is considered a salt substitute.

I once bought jars of roasted and salted almonds from Costco, but now I buy a 3-pound bag of Kirkland Signature raw and unsalted almonds ($9.49), and roast them in the oven at 275 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes, then dust them with plenty of cinnamon.

Do we really need restaurants?

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Parmigiano Reggiano is an aged, part skim-milk cheese from Italy that goes great with crisp apples and other fruit, but try to find it served that way in a restaurant.

Editor's note: Why go out to eat in restaurants when you can dine like a king at home? Today, I also discuss further Can Can Sale adventures at ShopRite.

I had a wonderful Italian dinner on Monday night -- small shrimp and unusually tender squid in a fra diavolo sauce, vegetable frittata, shell pasta with tuna, stuffed mushroom, eggplant caponata and a nice, four-green salad  -- and drank a full-bodied Italian red wine with it.


My wife and mother-in-law ate baked fillet of sole and my son had barbecued chicken wings, all with similar side dishes.


My dessert: crisp apple sections paired with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. They had ice cream. And we enjoyed all of this in the comfort of our own home.


Why go out?


When I think of our recent restaurant experiences, I wish we could eat like this every night and never leave the house.


That morning, I stopped by Jerry's Gourmet and More in Englewood, and picked up four Meals To Go at a mere $7.99 each -- less than the cost of a restaurant appetizer.


We could have a different meal from Jerry's every night or order takeout delivered to our door from our favorite places.


Then, we wouldn't have to go out and sit in a drafty dining room, as we did recently in settings as diverse as Nanoosh, a casual, organic Middle Eastern restaurant at a mall in Paramus, and Lupa Osteria Romana, a popular Manhattan trattoria where a skimpy meal for three cost more than $100 -- without wine.


Routine gouging


And I wouldn't have to pay $5.50 for a bottle of light beer, $10 to $12 for a glass of wine or $2.95 for a cup of lukewarm coffee.


We long ago started trying to reproduce at home some of our favorite dining-out meals, such as Korean barbecue, which my son refers to as "cook on the table."


For years, we ate what is essentially mystery meat in Korean restaurants before I started buying Nature's Reserve free-range, grass-fed Australian beef at ShopRite, sliced it thin and placed it in a freezer bag with Korean marinade.


Now, we cook this fun Korean meal on a stove-top grill at home and wrap the beef in red-lettuce leaves with spicy bean paste, garlic, rice and kimchi -- just as we did in restaurants.


We don't have to tip or rush because other people are waiting for our table. And a cold beer, which goes great with Korean food, is as close as the refrigerator.


Made to order


I don't know any Italian-American restaurants in North Jersey that serve whole-wheat pasta with a red sauce and sardines, one of our favorite meals at home.


Or would be willing to add a half-pound of fresh spinach to wilt and mix with a pound of pasta with garlic, oil and anchovies.


By eating at home, we can enjoy antibiotic-free poultry and meat, grass-fed lamb and wild-caught salmon -- fresh, frozen or smoked. Our salads are usually made with organic greens. 


For dessert, there are always a few kinds of cheese in the refrigerator to have with fruit and organic black tea.  


At Lupa in Manhattan, the menu tells customers all poultry and meat are from Heritage Foods USA, a network of farms and ranches where animals are raised naturally and not pumped full  of growth hormones to get them to market as fast as possible.


Silent menus


In North Jersey, most restaurant menus are silent on the origin of the poultry, beef and pork served in their dining rooms or the owners cut corners to maximize profits.


Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay's so-called Hamburger Palace in Paramus uses Certified Angus Beef, which is raised conventionally with harmful additives. Flay could buy a more expensive natural line of Certified Angus Beef free of antibiotics or growth hormones, but doesn't.


Restaurant owners seeking maximum profit at the expense of their customers' health are aided by restaurant critics who don't bother to ask about the origin or quality of the food they sample and promote in their reviews.


If reviewers paid for their own meals -- instead of spending their employers' money -- they might pay more attention to the quality of the food they're served and produce critiques that are more consumer-oriented.


When we ate at Lupa, we loved the service. Still, I felt like having wine, but refused to pay $12 for a single glass when I could buy an entire bottle for less.


You can't eat paint


Why go to Sear House, a steakhouse in Closter, where the brothers who own the place claim they spent $5 million to renovate, then served a critic "smelly" tuna sushi and an ordinary, fatty rib-eye for $45? 


Yet, the reviewer still gave the place 3 stars out of a possible 4.


We liked Amici Family Restaurant in Bergenfield until the night we were served a tough, sinewy piece of fish the menu said was red snapper. When we asked, the waitress relayed the chef's insistence it was red snapper.


We won't return.


And if you believe what you read in the newspaper, why go to a restaurant where owners think you're complaining about the food to get a free meal?


Places we love


It would be difficult to kick the restaurant habit altogether, even though we usually eat out only once a week and do takeout on another night. And in retirement, I enjoy meeting friends for breakfast or lunch out.


At Rosa Mexicano, a fine-dining mall restaurant in Hackensack, I had the  wonderful, made-from-scratch fish tacos for lunch on Tuesday and a friend chose the Enchiladas Suizas. The entrees included several side dishes and terrific salsas.


We had to order a la carte, because the fish tacos and his chicken enchiladas weren't included in a $16.50, two-course lunch special. But the two light beers he drank cost $11 and the bill came to $54 and change with tip and tax.


And there are places we've been going to for years we'd have a hard time living without, such as Wondee's and Lotus Cafe in Hackensack, and So Gong Dong in Palisades Park.


Wondee's is a Thai restaurant with terrific prices for whole fish, which you can get steamed and covered with a spicy blend of chili and garlic. (In fact, a whole fish at Wondee's is only a few dollars more than the fish tacos at Rosa Mexicano.) 


Lotus Cafe specializes in big Chinese meals, such as the 11-course Formosa Banquet for Ten at about $31 per person, including tip and tax. And So Gong Dong serves a healthy meal of Korean soft-tofu stew, kimchi and other comfort foods for $10.


All are BYOs, and all are unpretentious, welcoming places where families gather for a good meal at prices that won't break the bank.


I can Can Can


We continue to shop the Can Can Sale at ShopRite with mixed results.


My wife went to the Englewood ShopRite for more Adirondack seltzer and Airwick air freshener, then wiped out any savings with the purchase of Cortizone-10 hydrocortisone cream for $8.27.


I returned the 2-ounce tube for a refund today and managed to find a 1-ounce ShopRite-brand tube of the same anti-itch cream for $2.99, the last one on the shelf. My wife said there weren't any when she shopped.


Today, I also picked up a half-gallon of Smart Balance Fat-Free Lactose-Free Milk with Omega 3 for $1.99 or half-price, compared to $3.39 for the ShopRite brand.


Bottles of VO5 shampoo were 88 cents each, but a can of Progresso soup was $1.25. I bought five of the former, none of the latter.


At last year's Can Can Sale, Progresso soups were $1.19 a can or 10 for $10 with a coupon and store card. 

Getting a kick out of the Can Can Sale

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The wild and wonderful, heart-healthy sockeye salmon is available year-round at Costco -- fresh, frozen or smoked.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss ShopRite's Can Can Sale, which isn't what it used to be; a new place for Chinese take-out, and problems with the premium produce from Costco Wholesale.

I shopped the first day of ShopRite's "World's Greatest Can Can Sale" in Hackensack today, but found a lot of items weren't on sale or weren't good buys even at the lower prices.


I wait for the Can Can Sale to stock up on Adirondack seltzer, air freshener, ShopRite extra-virgin olive oil from Italy and other items. The sales flier claims "over 2,000 items [are] on sale."


Today, I bought three 12-can packs of Adirondack seltzer at $1.99 each, a savings of $1.60 each; eight cans of Airwick Air Freshener at 89 cents each or 25 cents off, but usually 99 cents each; five small cans of ShopRite tomato sauce for $2, and a dozen Eggland's Best Large White Eggs for $1.99 or 70 cents off.


Lysol-brand air freshener also was on sale for $2.99 for a 19-ounce can, but the shelf label showed it cost more per pound than the 8-ounce Airwick cans.


There was no limit on the seltzer, but I could find only two packs of my preferred flavor, Lemon-Lime, so I bought one pack of Original.


Canned red salmon from Alaska isn't on sale. The flier lists a half-liter of ShopRite 100% Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil at $2.99 -- or $6.98 a liter -- but in the store, I saw the liter bottle of the same olive oil for $7.99.


It doesn't have to be in a bottle or can to be on sale. But the only poultry at deep discount is the crappy stuff from Tyson. The Can Can Sale is on through Jan. 14, but is usually extended.


New year, new place


We tried a new place for Chinese take-out on Saturday night, Empire Hunan in Teaneck.


I called in the order and drove the 2 miles to pick it up to avoid a $1.50 delivery charge. The BYO also doesn't accept credit cards.


The dining room is pleasant and tables are covered with white cloths. I also saw tuna and other raw fish in a sushi case and a sushi chef working behind the counter.


We loved the food, but portions were small -- less than we would receive in an order from our usual take-out place, Zen Kitchen, also in Teaneck.


I had an Empire Hunan menu with 21st-anniversary coupons for $10 off on any  check of $20 or more for pick-up or dining in, but they had expired.


Four of us tried steamed shrimp dumplings, six for $5.50; spinach with fresh garlic, instead of the listed garlic sauce, $8.75; Crispy Fillet of Fish with Hunan Sauce, $12.95; and Sesame Chicken, extra spicy, $10.95.


One takeout container was full of wonderful water spinach, another with chicken, but the fish container was far from full. My 14-year-old son told me to order more food next time.


I asked Alice, the woman who took my order, about the fish and was told striped bass was used. The fillets were breaded and beautifully fried, but they were small and thin, maybe 1 ounce each, and there were about eight of them.


The Hunan Sauce, in a separate container, was too sweet for me and appeared to be thickened with corn starch. The spinach was terrific with brown rice, but I didn't have the chicken.


Empire Hunan, 444 Cedar Lane, Teaneck; 201-801-0096.
Web site: Dine In or Take Out


Zen Kitchen, 1443 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck; 201-837-7322.
Web site: Take-Out Only


Costco quality


Thanks to Costco Wholesale, I can enjoy wild-caught sockeye salmon year-round -- either fresh, frozen or smoked.


The Kirkland Signature Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon originally was sliced and sold by the pound in a single package that varied by weight.


But last year, the preservative-free wild salmon started showing up in two connected packages weighing exactly 1 pound. I still don't know how they do it.


The slices in the last package I purchased for $15.39 were difficult to handle when I tried to pick the fish off of its cardboard base, with tiny pieces breaking off that stuck to my fingers or the board.


I use the smoked salmon in omelets and salads, usually with reduced-fat Swiss cheese slices, or simply roll up salmon and cheese for a snack.


Costco also sells three large cantaloupes for $5.99, but the last two times I've bought them, quarter-size soft spots developed when I left them out on the counter to ripen.


When I cut into them, the interiors usually were ripe, even though the exteriors were still green.


I've also found that those large, seedless hothouse cucumbers aren't created equal. 


Lately, I've been buying the Euro Fresh Farms brand, which is labeled pesticide-free, over the Sunset brand. Both are three for $3.99.


The Sunset cucumbers appear bigger, but haven't held up as well in my refrigerator, and sometimes they rot or soften after several days. I haven't had the same problem with the other brand.


But I couldn't be happier with Sunset's beefsteak tomatoes, which are sold in an open 5-pound box -- usually, you get nine or 10, and the cashier sometimes counts them to make sure customers aren't adding more to the box.


The prices for Campari and Roma tomatoes are around $2.25 to $2.50 a pound. But at $5.99 a box or about $1.20 a pound, the beefsteaks are a better buy and taste great, too.

Our Korean lunch had a hot sauna appetizer

Image by FotoosVanRobin via Flickr

The gochujang in a squeeze bottle at the King Spa Fitness restaurant is among the spiciest I've encountered in Palisades Park.

We sat down to a nice Korean lunch on Friday in Palisades Park -- after our bodies were heated and cooled, scrubbed and showered at King Spa Fitness.


I counted eight saunas on two levels of the Korean spa, and tried most of them, but took only a few steps into the hottest before my burning bare feet forced me to leave. 


I had forgotten to use the burlap foot protection provided in a bin outside the door. A sign warns customers to leave cellphones, eyeglasses and the plastic wrist band with their locker number and key outside the 250-degree sauna.


At one sauna, a sign says customers with heart conditions should not enter. Another sign cautions that drinking alcohol before using the sauna may trigger a heart attack. Most of the saunas are small, accommodating about 10 customers. 


One Korean woman I spoke to said she took the day off and "left the kids at home." I also saw families and businessmen enjoying a few hours at the spa. 


The ceiling of the Gold Sauna resembles the inside of a pyramid. The Mud Sauna is made of mud. Bags of herbs hang from the domed ceilings of other saunas. All have mats and wood headrests on the floor.


After you heat your body, you can sit on a log stool and cool off in the Ice Sauna.


Customers are provided with shorts and T-shirts -- pink for women, white for men -- but everyone goes barefoot. They mingle in the restaurant or common areas, which have reclining chairs, big screen TVs, chess boards and computers for surfing the Web.


Men and women use separate levels with lockers, showers, hot and cold tubs, and steam rooms. Messages and body rubs are available. No clothes are worn in the shower/tub room.


I paid extra for a 20-minute body scrub, which included rough and soapy scrubs, a back message, stretching of arms and legs, and rinsing with pails of hot water  -- all while I lay on a narrow, slippery table.


The Korean attendant apparently didn't understand when I pointed to my 9-inch scar from open-heart surgery in September, and asked him not to scrub it. He did the opposite.


Still, I felt great afterward and spent some time in a hot tub before I dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and met my wife in the restaurant, where you order and pick up your food at a counter. 


A counter worker scans a bar code on your wristband to add the meal to your bill.


We both had bibimbap -- julienned vegetables, rice and a fried egg in a steel bowl, with or without ground beef, and we both added gochujang, a vinegared red-pepper paste, mixing everything up and eating it with a spoon.


Four side dishes -- tiny dried fish, potato, eggplant and kimchi -- and a hot seaweed soup came with each entree. The kimchi was just OK, but the gochujang was among the spiciest I've encountered. We drank ice water. 


A visit to the spa is a splurge. Admission with an e-coupon I found on King Spa's Web site was $28 each. My body scrub cost $50, including the gratuity. Our lunch was $22, and I tipped the parking valet $2.


King Spa Fitness, 321 Commercial Ave.,
Palisades Park; 201-947-9955. 


Web site: Icy Hot Relaxation

Hummus with an organic difference

Image by tk_yeoh via Flickr
Passion fruit.

Editor's note: We tried "an organic take on classic Mediterranean," found slim pickings in the Costco Wholesale fresh-fish case, witnessed a food-shopping frenzy at Whole Foods Market, and just got a flier heralding low "shock" prices at Fairway Market.

A mid-week break with dinner and a movie on Wednesday night confirmed once again that organic food tastes better and is worth the extra cost.


Our dinner at Nanoosh -- which calls itself an "organic take on classic Mediterranean" and a "Mediterranean hummus bar " -- tasted good, but failed to deliver the full flavor of authentic Middle Eastern food. 


My wife and son both chose the Hummus Chicken Wrap ($11.75), which came with a diced Mediterranean Salad of tomato, cucumber, parsley and onion.


The wrap was whole wheat, and my son praised the tender, naturally raised chicken, but my wife complained there wasn't enough hummus in the dish. They both drank Organic Lemonade with fresh mint leaves ($2.75), which they loved.


I ordered three sides: Hummus Tahini ($4.75), made with organic chickpeas; Lebane ($4.75), and Tabouleh Salad ($4.95), and discovered they weren't as flavorful as the same dishes I have sampled over the years in Syrian and Lebanese restaurants in Paterson's wonderful Mideast bazaar.


I drank an unsweetened Pomegranate Raspberry Ice Tea ($2.75), though a "lightly sweetened" Organic Iced Mint Tea is available at the same price. 


The Hummus Tahini was bland, because it is made without an essential ingredient, garlic. The Lebane or spreadable yogurt cheese was garnished with extra-virgin olive and za'atar thyme mixture, but there was so little of the latter, I couldn't taste it.


I enjoyed the Tabouleh Salad, even though it wasn't the mound of chopped parsley with a little bulgur wheat you'd find in a good Lebanese place. Nanoosh's salad is mostly bulgur.


Nanoosh also serves whole wheat pocket bread, but the two that came with the Hummus Tahini were unpleasantly thick and doughy, unlike anything you'd find in Paterson's Syrian bakeries.


The no-frills setting at Garden State Plaza seats just under 50 people, and the soundtrack is some sort of Euro or Mideast pop. I was able to make out the words to only one song, "Brasil."


But the small dining room is open to a busy mall corridor, so it's drafty. There's a hostess at the entrance and table service. 


Almost everything served is organic and ground beef and poultry are raised naturally. Dinner for three reflected that quality. We paid $56.44, including a $7 tip.


Sadly, this is one of the few restaurants in Bergen County that serves almost an entire menu of organic and naturally raised food, despite the astronomical prices you see in some places.


From the Nanoosh Web site:


"We have an abiding belief in the power of food to help us live a healthier and more fulfilling life."


Nanoosh, 1 Garden State Plaza, Paramus; 201-556-1300.
Other locations in Manhattan.
Web site:  The Power of Healthy Food


Fresh fish failure


On Tuesday, I went looking for fresh, wild-caught fish fillets at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, but found only cod and haddock, and both packages weighed 2 pounds or so -- more than I wanted.


So, I had to settle for a 4-pound freezer package of The Ultimate Fish Stick from Trident Seafood, made from wild-caught Alaska pollock fillets ($11.99).


When I got home, I felt like wild salmon for dinner, so I defrosted a sockeye salmon fillet from a Costco Kirkland Signature bag in the freezer.


I squeezed on fresh lemon juice and seasoned it with a little Aleppo red pepper before broiling it for about 15 minutes. I fried a single egg, sunny side up, and slid it on top of the fillet, which I had plated with a small Korean yam baked on a "Speed Cook" setting in the microwave. 


A small salad made for a wonderful dinner.


I also bought two 26-ounce jars of "sugar-free" fruit spread from E.D. Smith in Canada for $7.39. But "sucralose" (an artificial sweetener made from sugar) and artificial colors are listed on the ingredients labels of both the Wildberry and Apricot, Peach, Passion Fruit.


I went looking for Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix in the usual place. Instead, I found Earthbound Farm Organic Half & Half, a tasty combination of Spring Mix and Baby Spinach ($4.79 for 1 pound).


Although I didn't find fresh, wild-caught fish, the atmosphere in Costco was relaxed -- in contrast to frenetic holiday food shopping.


Whole Foods


On Monday, we stopped at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, and the store was overrun by rushing food shoppers who apparently had rested up the day before, New Year's Day, but now had to restock their refrigerators and cupboards. The parking lot was packed.


At the fish counter, previously frozen, wild sockeye salmon fillets from Canada were on sale for $9.99 a pound, and Maine lobster tails were $5.99 each or $4 off. 


But my wife decided to make soup after we found two packages of frozen organic chicken feet in the store freezer ($3.49 a pound). I ate leftover whole-grain pasta in garlic and oil, from my own recipe, which I'm still perfecting.


Today, I dropped my wife off at Costco, and drove to the H Mart in Little Ferry for fresh, whole croaker ($2.99 a pound), Chinese broccoli (88 cents a pound), and Kokohu Yellow Label white rice grown in California, on sale for $13.99 for 20 pounds.


The parking lot of the Hackensack warehouse store was packed, recalling the holidays, because it was the first day customers could use Costco discount coupons that arrive in the mail. 


'Shock price'


A new Fairway Market sales flier is advertising what the Paramus store calls a "shock price" for rotisserie chicken, USDA Prime boneless top round London broil or roast, clementines and other items.


The prices are in effect Friday through Jan. 12, 2012.


No organic or naturally raised products are included in the "shock price" sale, nor is whole-bean coffee. 


"Shock" sale prices include a conventional Fairway rotisserie chicken for $4.99; boneless top round, $4.99 a pound; 2 pounds of Fuji apples, $1.50; Eggland's Best Eggs, $5 for two 18 packs; clementines, three 3-pound bags for $10; and pork tenderloin for $3.99, presumably raised on antibiotics and growth hormones.

Why I love spending money at Costco

Image via Wikipedia

The interior of a Costco in South San Francisco, Calif.

Editor's note: How many food retailers publish their markup or try to sell for as little as they can? That's part of the philosophy behind Costco Wholesale. Today, I also discuss a sour note during an otherwise great Korean dinner at Gammeeok in Palisades Park.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I am spending more and more of my food dollars at Costco Wholesale, lured by high quality and low prices -- plus cash rebates that more than cover the annual membership fee.

Now, an article in in the January 2012 edition of Costco Connection -- called a lifestyle magazine for members -- explains the history and philosophy behind the warehouse store.

The writers say Costco's well-known strategies are "keeping markup to no more than 14 percent over cost (15 percent for Kirkland Signature products); providing a money-back guarantee on products and membership fees; focusing on a narrow selection of products in a wide range of categories; proceeding with steady, but cautious growth; and never selling seconds or other inferior good."

Costco also pays "above-average salaries," and offers health insurance to most employees. 

The history of Costco Wholesale is traced to a new retail concept established by Fed-Mart in 1954 in San Diego, then to the Price Club, which opened its first store in 1976 in San Diego. Costco, which opened its first store in Seattle in 1983, merged with Price Club in 1993.

Today, Costco sells the highest quality food outside of Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's, and its prices are often unbeatable.

We paid for rice

Rice is an integral part of every Korean meal, but when we used a Groupon at Gammeeok in Palisades Park on New Year's Eve, we were charged $3.74 for two small bowls of the starchy staple.

The Groupon was for pork-filled dumplings, a seafood pancake and beef barbecue -- two appetizers and an entree that normally cost $37.85. The Groupon was $18.

But if you ordered that same meal at any other Korean restaurant, you'd get free rice. I suppose the discount coupon we used at Gammeeok made a difference.

My wife and son shared those dishes, and they especially liked the hot, thick, crisp pancake with tender bits of squid and other seafood.

I ordered a stone-bowl bibimbap, and asked the kitchen to hold the ground beef and cook the raw egg that are usually placed over steamed rice and shredded vegetables ($13.95). 

You also get a mildly spicy red paste called gochujang that you add before mixing everything up and eating it with a spoon. It's my favorite Korean comfort food.

Free side dishes

Of course, we got four free side dishes: napa cabbage leaves, hot green peppers, shredded radish kimchi in vinegar and Gammeeok's wonderfully spicy cabbage and cubed radish kimchi, which are sweeter than most.

We had three small plates of cabbage and radish kimchi, and ordered a large container of the cabbage kimchi to go ($6.95). I brought a bottle of French sparkling wine to toast the new year during our meal.

Our meal for three cost $46.41, including the $18 I paid for the Groupon, a $9 tip and tax. 

UPDATE: This restaurant is no longer in business, and the original New Jersey branch in Fort Lee was closed by a fire.

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• Kimchi is the star of a Korean meal for 10 (doyoureallyknowwhatyoureeating.blogspot.com)