Size matters at Costco Wholesale's Business Center in Hackensack

Whole frozen lambs from New Zealand, above, and 20-pound boxes of linguine and other pasta, below, are typical of the sizes available at Costco Wholesale's Business Center in Hackensack. The warehouse offers discounts on pallet-size purchases and delivery to small businesses, including restaurants and caterers.  

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For the Costco Wholesale member who runs out of egg whites and organic spring mix, the reopened warehouse in Hackensack is ideal.

Parking is no longer a problem, because many of the customers are small businesses who order online and get delivery.

But as a Business Center, this Costco stocks only a limited number of the food products you'll find at the enormous, far busier warehouse in Teterboro.

Still, today in Hackensack, I picked up several items we ran out of since our last Teterboro shopping trip, and found others unavailable.

Food court pizza

The food court's reopening has been delayed, however, and I couldn't pick up, as planned, a freshly baked 18-inch combination veggie pizza for $9.95.

Employees in Hackensack said two things of interest: 

Prices at the Business Center don't always match those at Teterboro warehouse, and may be lower. 

I found one item, a 1-pound container of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, was 50 cents higher on March 15, opening day in Hackensack. 

On Monday, the same spring mix was $4.29 or what we've paid several times in Teterboro.

No treasure hunt

And the Hackensack staff won't be moving items around to create the "treasure hunt" that Costco's regular warehouses are known for, even though that practice frustrates longtime members.

Other purchases today were 3 pounds of bananas for $1.39 (organic bananas aren't available); and four cartons of Egg Beaters 100% egg whites ($9.39).

The parking lot at the Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 S. River St., Hackensack, a little before 1 p.m. today. This warehouse closes on Sundays.

This pallet sale could give you a couple of decades of oil changes.

Commercial refrigerators for restaurants and caterers.

Log Cabin Syrup comes in 128-ounce bottles, above, but nearby, Costco members will find something far superior, Kirkland Signature Maple Syrup from Canada, below.

Bagels, English muffins and sliced bread also are available.

The 16-portion box of Shin Ramyun, a Korean-style instant spicy noodle soup, usually is on sale for a better price at the H Mart in Little Ferry less than 2 miles away.

H Mart also sells 50-pound bags of Kokuho Rose Yellow Label White Rice grown in California, but here Costco might have the edge on price over the Korean supermarket. On Sunday, I bought a 15-pound bag of the same rice on sale for $9.99 at the Little Ferry H Mart, and my receipt listed the retail price as $19.99. The Hackensack warehouse also stocks another Korean item, Kirkland Signature Roasted Seasoned Seaweed.

You'll find 10-pound bags of couscous, above, and 15-pound bags of quinoa, below.

I'm out of Nature's Intent Organic Quinoa, and almost grabbed this 15-pound bag before realizing it is conventionally grown in Peru, compared to the 4-pound bags of Organic Quinoa for about twice the price per pound in Teterboro.

Nature's Bakery Fig Bar is my favorite skip-lunch snack, but today, I decided to try another one, picking up KIND Fruit & Nut Variety Pack (18 bars for $17.99).

The Hackensack warehouse is offering six cans of Season Skinless & Boneless Sardines in Pure Olive Oil for $6.99 after an instant coupon. These are ideal for pasta with sardines in bottled sauce (three 4.375-ounce cans for 1 pound of pasta). I didn't see pasta sauce or cans of organic diced tomatoes in Hackensack today.

A 3-pound bag of sodium-free Whole Almonds from California ($17.99) can be roasted and dusted with cinnamon (1 hour and 20 minutes in a 275-degree oven).

You'll also find the superior Kirkland Signature line of spices in Hackensack, including Saigon Cinnamon, next to 3-pound containers for restaurants and caterers, below.

An enormous refrigerated room, bigger than anything at the old Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, above and below, contains frozen meat, individual racks of lamb, whole eggs and cartons of egg whites; milk, organic spring mix, chopped salad and other items.

On refrigerated shelves outside the cold room I found two of our favorite items, Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, made with Italian basil ($7.99); and 3-pound bags of Christopher Ranch Whole Peeled Garlic Cloves ($7.39).

A 2-pound "gourmet medley" of greenhouse-grown Tomatoes from Sunset were $6.49. I tried them in my organic spring mix salad. A 2-pound container of Sunset Campari Tomatoes were $4.99.

Cut-up goat on the bone in 15-pound boxes, New Zealand racks of lamb in 19-pound boxes, whole ducks and other frozen meat is available.

Frozen goat meat from Australia is sold in 35-pound boxes, too.

Fresh seafood isn't sold in Hackensack any longer, but you'll find bags of frozen salmon burgers, wild Alaskan salmon, mahi-mahi and other fish from Trident and Kirkland Signature, Costco's house label.

You'd have to do a lot of Mexican cooking to use a 100-ounce can of tomatillos.

Here's why you should never pay retail for food

At the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Thursday afternoon, employees were restocking shelves with items left behind by customers at checkout counters or elsewhere in the store after last-minute changes of mind.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Costco Wholesale's fair food prices are a persuasive argument for never paying retail for what we eat.

Why pay $6.99 or $7.99 for a pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix -- one of the best salads on Earth -- when Costco sells it for $4.49 to $4.99 year-round , and makes a profit?

Why pay ShopRite $6.99 for 2 pounds of those wonderful Campari Tomatoes, when you can find them every day of the year at Costco for $4.99?

When ShopRite has one of its Can-Can Sales, the reduced prices of seltzer, marinara sauce and other items approach and sometimes beat the deals you can get at Costco all the time.

But fewer and fewer items go on deep discount during those ShopRite sales, and shoppers can sometimes do better with manager's specials, such as the bottled Dress Italian pasta sauces I bought at the Paramus ShopRite for $1.99 each or half-price.

Today, I saw the same imported sauce at the Englewood ShopRite for $3.49, a 50-cent discount, at the Super Can-Can Sale.

Despite long lines at other checkout counters, employees at the ShopRite in Hackesack didn't open the 20-item express line on Monday. It also remained closed on a previous visit.

Costco members 

You say Costco Wholesale is a members-only store with an annual fee of $55 to $110 a year, negating the savings on food?

With a no-fee American Express-Costco credit card, you get as much as a 3% rebate at the warehouse store, and outside rebates on gasoline, restaurant meals and other purchases -- money back that easily surpasses the membership fee.

Costco also sells such winners as Natural Peanut Butter and Basil Pesto that are difficult to match in terms of quality and price. 

At H Mart in Fort Lee, frozen South Korean yellow tail -- a fish often served raw at sushi bars -- were only $1.99 a pound on Sunday. I bought fresh, wild-caught croaker for $3.99 a pound.

Fresh mustard greens and prepared Korean pancakes, stir-fried vermicelli noodles and stewed tofu from H Mart and H Mart Fresh, both in Fort Lee.

Price variances

At Costco Wholesale, you won't run into price differences from one store to another in the same area.

That's what happened when I purchased a 16-portion box of Shin Ramyun, a spicy instant noodle soup, for $12.99 on Sunday at the Fort Lee H Mart, only to see it for less the next day at the Little Ferry H Mart (regularly $16.99).

I'm kicking myself for passing up the same box of Shin Ramyun for $9.99 at the H&Y Marketplace in Ridgefield.

Mouth-filling ribbons of Garofalo whole-wheat pappardelle noodles in bottled Dress Italian Arrabbiata Sauce with baby spinach. The pasta's name derives from the verb "pappare" or "to gobble up." How appropriate.

For a filling breakfast the next morning, I served myself the chunky pasta sauce, which is made with Italian chopped tomatoes and white wine, over organic brown rice and stewed tofu, plating them and reheating them in the microwave.

I added fresh basil leaves to the bottled Dress Italian sauce from a plant I found at the ShopRite in Englewood for $2.49, above and below. The plants, grown in Belvidere, contain no GMOs.

What goes up ...

I was surprised last week when the price for Kirkland Signature Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon at Costco jumped by more than $3 for a 1-pound package.

On Thursday, I returned to my Hackensack Costco, looking for more wild mahi-mahi fillets, a recently added item.

Instead of going when the store first opens at 10 a.m., I decided to visit after 5 in the afternoon, and found the shopping experience a lot more relaxed.

However, the parking lot was the usual zoo, with shoppers looking for parking spaces close to the doors and backing up traffic.

An employee was adding more shrink-wrapped mahi-mahi to the fish case, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the price had dropped to $5.99 a pound, from $7.99.

One pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring mix was $4.79, 2 pounds of Campari Tomatoes were $4.99 and 3 pounds of peeled Christopher Ranch Monviso Garlic, an heirloom variety from California, were $5.99.

Jumbo Shingo Korean Pears were $6.49 for three (weight is 2.8 pounds).

A homemade frittata and stewed tofu with mashed sweet potatoes from Costco Wholesale. They are sold in 10-pound bags only during the holidays for around 49 cents a pound.

The mall entrance to Whole Foods Market in Paramus.

'You can't see it'

Whole Foods Market and ShopRite are the last two supermarkets I patronize that give shoppers credit for bringing re-usable bags.

But on Thursday, when I purchased three 1-pound packages of imported organic whole wheat pasta at the Whole Foods in Paramus, the receipt didn't show the usual 10-cents credit for my one bag.

I said to the cashier, "You didn't give me credit for my bag," and she said, "I did, but you can't see it."

That didn't sound right, so I handed her the receipt, she looked at it and handed me a dime.

More smoked salmon

At Marshalls, near Whole Foods, I found a box containing a pound of smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon for $19.99.

The fish, in a vacuum-sealed pouch, is fully cooked, preservative free and doesn't require refrigeration until it is opened.

The label says the salmon is "smoked [over alder wood] in the same careful and time-consuming Native American tradition."

It's from Alaska Smokehouse and carries a sell-by date of January 2018. 

Lavazza beans

Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood restocked and had more Lavazza coffee beans from Italy when I stopped there today.

A 2.2-pound bag of Crema E Aroma was $19.99, a good price, though I've seen Lavazza beans at Jerry's for a few dollars less.

'What's for dinner?' is driving me crazy

Maine lobsters were $4.49 a pound on Sunday at H Mart in Little Ferry.

Green-lipped mussels from New Zealand.

When I was single, I was a dedicated food shopper and I cooked up a storm, ordering takeout or dining out only two days a week.

Now that I'm married, we still cook most of our meals at home, and my wife and teenage son pester me almost every day with "What's for dinner?"

Even though my wife and mother-in-law are away, my son gives me no quarter and continues to expect "dinner" five nights a week.

Canned fish salad with lump crab meat.

This past Monday, I stopped at the Rochelle Park ShopRite and found antibiotic-free Readington Farms boneless and skinless chicken thighs at half price ($1.49 a pound), and Coleman Organic chicken drumsticks ($1.99 a pound).

At home, I rolled the drumsticks in a mixture of bread crumbs and spices I keep in the refrigerator, and prepared his favorite side dish, white rice, in an electric cooker.

Coleman Organic Chicken Drumsticks.

Calamari Stuffed with Crab Meat from Jerry's in Englewood.

He ate leftover drumsticks Tuesday night, and tonight, I picked up a restaurant-quality Italian pork chop dinner from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood for only $5.99 or $7.99 before 4 p.m.

We're having Trader Joe's whole wheat pasta with sardines on Thursday, and ordering Chinese takeout on Friday. 

On Saturday, we'll have our one weekly meal out, possibly Korean soft-tofu stew in Palisades Park.

On Sunday, I'll look for more inexpensive Maine lobsters at a Korean supermarket. We've had Maine lobsters with either clams or mussels two Sundays in a row.

One of the choices at Jerry's was Lemon Garlic Grouper.

My son no longer eats at dinner time. He might get hungry at 9 or later after many hours playing video games or a visit to the YMCA gym.

Just after 5 this afternoon, I plated my calamari, crab and vegetable dinner from Jerry's, heated it up in the microwave and poured myself a glass of wine.

He ate chicken drumsticks two nights in a row, but he hates leftovers and won't touch mushrooms, even if they are in one of his favorite dishes, such as the Korean vermicelli noodles called japchae.

I made bibimbap at home and after he tried it once, I couldn't get him to have it again.

I made a salad of canned salmon, tuna, sardines and lump crab meat -- with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin -- but he won't lift a hand to make himself a sandwich.

If he gets hungry during the day, he's more likely to open a package of his favorite instant noodle soup, Nongshim's Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy, leaving the bowl and spoon in the sink for me to wash.

I had the last of the bibimbap for breakfast this morning, topped with eggs.

Introducing the 50-cent lemon

Image via Wikipedia


My wife called from the ShopRite in Englewood, where she was picking up an Ace bandage and a painkiller for our son, who saw a doctor for his sprained foot. Did I need anything?


I also saw a doctor in Englewood on Thursday, and picked up 4.5 pounds of fresh king whiting at H Mart for a fried-fish dinner ($3.99 a pound). But we had run out of lemons, so I asked her to pick one up.


When she got home, I looked at the receipt and was shocked to see a single lemon cost 50 cents.


We usually buy them at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, and today, I went there to pick up photos and get more lemons.


I bought a 5-pound bag of lemons from Chile for $6.79. That works out to about 57 cents for each of the dozen lemons in the net bag, although these are almost twice the size of the ShopRite lemon.


When did lemons get so expensive? 


H Mart credit


In an earlier post, I described how I returned a stainless-steel pot that started to rust to the H Mart in Little Ferry and how getting a $19.99 credit wasn't easy.


But I made sure to ask whether I could use the credit at other H Mart stores, including the ones in Englewood and Fort Lee. I was told I could.


I put the credit slip in my wallet and wanted to use it in the Englewood store on Thursday, when I bought the whole whiting, a 20-package box of spicy Shin Ramyun, green-leaf lettuce, a freshly made seaweed-rice-vegetable roll, white peaches and Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. 


My total was $46.32. The cashier accepted a few H Mart coupons, but wouldn't take the credit slip, saying it wasn't good at that store.


She got on the phone, and another woman came over, but she said I couldn't use the slip, either. I protested, and said I was told it was good at any H Mart.


Finally, she called over another employee and he OK'd it.


There must be a lot of bureaucracy in Korea.

Filling up on spicy soup while saving gas

Image by shindoverse via Flickr

Shin Ramyun noodle soup from Korea is labeled "Gourmet Spicy."

I made a second visit to the newly renovated H Mart in Englewood over the weekend, and picked up a few sale items. 

I like to combine trips, so when my 13-year-old son asked me to drive him to a friend's house in Englewood, I could have stopped on the way home at the Arirang kimchi factory, Best [Korean] Dumplings, Jerry's Gourmet & More, Balthazar Bakery or Ashanti International for Jamaican food.

But I returned to the Korean supermarket, because we had run out of Shim Ramyun, a spicy instant noodle soup my son loves. A box of 20 packages was on sale for $11.99, a discount of $4.

Although the sodium content is 44% of the daily recommended intake, that's one of the lowest for an instant Korean soup. You can dilute it by adding more water than the directions call for.

I also picked up two 1-pound packages of Driscoll's strawberries for $2.99,  jumbo brown organic eggs for $2.79, a nice bunch of fresh, big-leaf spinach for 99 cents; and two prepared items, stir-fried anchovies for $2.25 and stir-fried noodles for $2.99.

H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave., Englewood; 201-871-8822.