A Costco with no parking problems, no crowds, no waiting to check out

Costco Wholesale members who fight for a parking space, then fight the crowds inside the store, fantasize about shopping in a near-empty warehouse, such as the one shown above and below.

This warehouse even has a food court with 18-inch pizzas and all of the other Costco favorites you find elsewhere.

Editor's note: We prepare most of our meals at home, so I'm still waiting for the one food store in northern New Jersey that has organics and everything else at great prices. Meanwhile, I continue to make the rounds of my favorites, including Costco Wholesale, H Mart and ShopRite.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You died and went to Costco Wholesale shopping heaven in Hackensack, N.J.

That sums up the experience of walking into a Costco warehouse where you'll encounter only a handful of other customers and cashiers waiting to check out your purchases.

This warehouse closed in October 2015, when a bigger and far busier Costco, plus a gas station, opened in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center off of busy Route 46.

Five months later, a renovated Hackensack warehouse opened as a Costco Business Center, where the focus is on such small businesses as restaurants and caterers, and delivers their orders.

That's why the parking lot and the store are such a pleasure.

The old food court also was renovated, but you won't find a pharmacy, optical services, photo department, tires, clothing or a separate store with wine.

True. The selection is limited. 

But you can pick up produce, eggs, milk, bread, water, snack bars, candy and many other items stocked by a regular Costco Wholesale.

Instead of fighting the crowds at the Teterboro Costco on Saturday afternoon, I dashed out to the Hackensack warehouse for:

One of the best salads in the world, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.79 for a 1-pound package); incomparable Campari Tomatoes ($5.49 for 2 pounds), 6 pounds of large Bosc Pears ($6.99), 2.5 pounds of Starbucks French Roast Coffee Beans ($15.49 with an instant coupon), and KIND snack bars ($18.99).

The Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack carries hothouse-grown Campari Tomatoes from both Canada and Mexico. They prove winter tomatoes don't have to be watery or mealy or both. For a real treat, pop one whole into you mouth and bite into it.

The Business Center also carries 22-ounce jars of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, a refrigerated product. Here, I dressed organic whole wheat pasta with pesto and organic pine nuts, and washed them down with a glass of Kirkland Signature Malbec, a red wine from Argentina.

After my pasta, I enjoyed a salad of triple-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, including peppery arugula, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

 

The Costco Wholesale Business Center at 80 S. River St. in Hackensack is open until 6 p.m. on weekdays, 4 p.m. on Saturdays and closes on Sundays. It's also closer to my home than the new Teterboro warehouse.

Although the H Mart supermarket in Little Ferry is as shabby as ever, managers have added dividers in the fresh fish case, as well as new signs, above and below. On Sunday, the store had no heat, so a free sample of hot noodle soup with fish cakes was greatly appreciated.

An employee acknowledged the new signs are missing a required piece of information -- whether the fish is wild or farmed -- and said the store will be remedying that. I bought three whole wild-caught red snappers for pan frying at home, and munched on free seafood samples at a nearby counter while my fish was cleaned.

I also bought Organic Brown Shimeji Mushrooms.

At the Little Ferry H Mart, the price of a 5-pound box of Spanish Clementines has fluctuated -- from $7.99 on Nov. 6 to $3.99 on Dec. 4, above, and to $5.99 on Sunday.

At the ShopRite in Paramus this afternoon, 1-liter bottles of Alonia-brand Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain were only $3.99 each, an unusually low price for an EVOO that isn't a blend from several countries. I bought three bottles with a best-by date of January 2019 for dressing salads, adding to pasta sauces and eating with bread. 

The ShopRite in Paramus, at 224 Route 4 east, also is accessible from Forest Avenue.

Amid the widely publicized adulteration of some extra-virgin olive oils in Italy, the price of this heart-healthy oil has risen dramatically, and producers have been shrinking the traditional 1-liter bottle and 3-liter tin, and selling what are called Mediterranean blends of EVOOs from several countries, including Greece, Spain, Tunisia and Portugal. Above, Colavita "100% Certified Italian" Extra-Virgin Olive was $14.99 for less than a full liter at the Paramus ShopRite.

A blend of extra-virgin olive oils was $7.99 for a half-liter bottle. A full liter is 33.8 ounces.

ShopRite says it imports extra-virgin olive oil made from Italian-grown olives. Here, a 1-liter bottle was $8.99, but I've seen it on sale for $6.99.

More wonderful things to eat from stores in northern New Jersey

Manchego 100% sheep's milk cheese at Costco Wholesale is aged twice as long, but costs much less per pound than the version sold at Whole Foods Market.

Colavita Whole Wheat Capellini with langostino in vodka sauce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco Wholesale in Hackensack sells more than 50 cheeses, but the 100% sheep's milk cheese from Spain has a special place in my heart.

I first enjoyed the rich, distinctive taste of manchego as part of a dessert in the 1970s after a meal of rabo de toro -- tail of the bull -- in a Madrid restaurant. 

I had spent the late afternoon watching bullfights in Madrid's famous ring, Las Ventas.

The dessert is Manchego y Membrillo -- sheep's milk cheese and quince paste -- recommended by author James Michener in "Iberia."

In the 1980s, on another trip to Spain, I brought home a 2.2 kilogram wheel of Manchego, hidden in my luggage.

I stopped going to bullfights decades ago, and no longer eat meat.

But I can still enjoy manchego from Costco Wholesale, and now pair it with fig marmalade from Lebanon, just one of the many Middle Eastern products sold at Fattal's Bakery, 975-77 Main St., Paterson.

Salloum Bros. Fig Marmalade is accented with anise.

Slices of manchego and a big spoonful of fig marmalade go wonderfully with the unsalted almonds I buy at Costco and roast at home.

Or you can pair the cheese with crisp apple slices or slice it thinly for use in an open-face omelet or with eggs sunny side up.

Earthbound Farm's Organic Half & Half is a great way to end a meal.

Our dinner one night this week was thawed, fully cooked langostino, Colavita Whole Wheat Capellini and bottled Paesana Vodka Sauce, plus a salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Half & Half (Baby Spinach and Spring Mix).

Langostino tails, from a crustacean that falls somewhere between shrimp and lobster, are sold frozen.

I didn't use a recipe. I just assembled the meal:

First, I heated up the sauce, adding some red-pepper flakes and several ounces of extra-virgin olive oil.

Second, I cooked the capellini until it was al dente in just enough unsalted water to cover the pasta. 

The 3-minute cooking time on the Colavita package is optimistic.

Then, I drained the cooked pasta and transferred it and the thawed langostino tails to the sauce, mixing them well over low heat.

The wild-caught, preservative-free langostino, vodka sauce and salad mix are from Costco. The whole wheat pasta came from Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood.

Baskets full of merchandise left behind by spoiled Costco customers who change their minds, but who are too lazy to return the items to where they found them.

Part of a mural at Trader Joe's Chelsea store in Manhattan.

As much as I like Colavita's imported whole-wheat pasta, the whole-wheat pasta from Trader Joe's has several advantages.

Trader Joe's pasta is made from organic durum whole wheat, it contains no sodium, it has more fiber and it costs 10 cents less for a 16-ounce package.

Today, at the Paramus Trader Joe's, I compared the nutrition labels of whole-wheat pasta and Trader Joe's Italian pasta made from durum semolina.

The major difference is more than twice as much fiber in the whole-wheat product.

Two ounces of whole-wheat spaghetti, bottom label, has 5 grams of dietary fiber.

I also stopped at Fairway Market in Paramus, but didn't buy anything beyond what I went for: 3 pounds of coffee from Colombia and the Dominican Republic for $6.99 or $7.99 a pound.

With small pieces of baguette, I sampled a few of the expensive extra-virgin olive oils the store sells.

I saw fresh wild king salmon for $15.99 a pound, compared to $12.99 a pound at Costco.

A Manchego cheese aged for 15 months was $18 a pound, compared to Costco's 6-month Manchego for $8.29 a pound.

Some of the cheeses are so expensive, signs give the price for one-quarter pound, not a full pound, as in most other stores.  

I saw Sunset-brand Campari Tomatoes in a 1-pound package for a high $3.89. 

The store did have 3 packages of grape tomatoes for $5, but many of them contained crushed tomatoes and I passed. 

Jerry's takeout container is marked "MICROWAVABLE SAFE."

We continue to enjoy restaurant-quality Meals To Go from Jerry's in Englewood, but never heat them up in the plastic Anchor-brand takeout container.

I usually get the multi-course meals on Wednesdays after 4 p.m., when they are marked down to $5.99 from $7.99.

As we've done for many years, we plate the food before heating it up in the microwave to avoid a potential transfer of chemicals from the plastic container.

A red-snapper dinner from Jerry's was heated up on a plate, never in the plastic container.