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.

Avoiding higher produce prices, enjoying a bargain lunch in the city

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Roma tomatoes are grown in hothouses and sold under the Sunset label.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Field-grown produce in Florida and Mexico has been damaged by cold weather -- leading to shortages and higher prices in New Jersey supermarkets and warehouse stores -- but consumers might find what they need by looking for vegetables grown in greenhouses.

One of the biggest such producers is Mastronardi Produce Ltd. in Canada, the company behind the Sunset brand. It sells hothouse-grown Campari tomatoes, large cucumbers, bell peppers and other items, many from Mexico, and they have been unaffected by the weather.

An employee who gave his name as Al said the supply is steady, but that shortages "in the field" have led to more demand for hothouse-grown products.

I have been under the impression Sunset-brand tomatoes and other produce are herbicide free, but Al said a small amount of herbicide is used and that his produce is close to organic. 

"We can't legally call it organic," he said. The company does sell organic produce, but I haven't seen it in North Jersey.

At Costco in Hackensack this week, I bought 2 pounds of Sunset-brand large Gourmet cucumbers for $3.79 and 2 pounds of Campari, European-style tomatoes for $5.49. Sunset Roma tomatoes were $4.99 for 2 pounds.

Web site: Sunset-brand produce

Fish on ice in Manhattan

Estiatorio Milos, one of those expensive Greek fish houses in Manhattan, has an impressive display of fresh seafood and produce on ice, and charges up to $49 a pound for whole fish. 

But the restaurant also serves a three-course Restaurant Week menu year-round, and its $24.07 lunch attracts a full house of business people and tourists.

My wonderful lunch today started with two plump sea scallops atop orange-section slices in a balsamic reduction. 

My wife had a tomato salad with feta cheese, and my son chose a platter of appetizers, including spinach pie, hummus, taramasalata and strained yogurt with garlic.

My entree was a whole grilled fish -- loup de mer from Greece -- de-boned and served butterflied with extra-virgin olive oil and capers. 

The fish was moist, but needed fresh lemon juice, so we asked for lemon edges. The side dish was broccoli. My wife had the same. 

My son ordered a single, thick lamb chop (cooked medium) with french fries, broccoli and cauliflower.

Dessert was either honey cake with ice cream or fresh fruit. I chose the fruit. We were served toasted bread and olive oil during the meal.

The interior of the ground-floor dining room is industrial -- mostly unadorned concrete, painted walls and ducts, and the "wine cellar" is on the second floor.

Estiatorio Milos, 125 W. 55th St., Manhattan, 1-212-245-7400.

When I really needed tomatoes

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I planned to have a Roma tomato with breakfast Saturday morning, but when I opened the clear-plastic container, I could see a black spot forming on one and another split open and oozing juice. I bought them at Costco last Monday -- two pounds of Sunset-brand, herbicide-free tomatoes for $3.99, so decided to take them back.

Costco in Hackensack appeared to be overrun, with a long line of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot. In the store, register lines were just as long. I got my refund, and spoke to a produce manager about customers who open packages and hand-inspect the contents. He said employees have been alerted to discourage that behavior. 

Not wanting to wait on a long register line, I left without replacement tomatoes and lemons I needed, figuring I could get them at Fairway Market in Paramus, while my wife was shopping for a summer dress on Saturday.

Tomato prices at Fairway stopped me cold. Vine-grown Canadian tomatoes were $1.99 a pound, the same price I pay for herbicide-free tomatoes at Costco. Herbicide-free Campari tomatoes were $2.99 a pound, compared with the Fairway sale price of 3 pounds for $5. One reason I like Costco is that prices fluctuate only slightly, and often go down.


So I bought loose Roma tomatoes for $1.49 a pound at Fairway, along with two lemons for $1. Two pounds of organic lemons (about four lemons) were $3.99 at Fairway. I also picked up four boxes of Barilla pasta for 80 cents each, and Kozy Shack rice pudding for $1.99 -- about half the price at ShopRite.

Fresh or frozen? And from where?

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The latest sales flier from Fairway Market in Paramus is filled with a lot of information -- some of it totally useless. And when the flier raises questions, it doesn't always answer them.

For example, the flier that came in the paper today offers wild-caught salmon for $9.99 a pound. However, shoppers can't tell where the fish is from and whether it is fresh or had been frozen, or even what kind of salmon it is (king, sockeye and so forth). The flier is silent on these questions.

This also is the case with the prime beef that is on sale frequently at the Paramus store (rib steak is $8.99 a pound). Prime is the highest of three USDA grades, but merely denotes the fattiest beef. There are no details in the flier on how the cattle were raised and what they were fed, so it's likely they were raised conventionally with antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts while confined to feed pens.

One good buy is two pounds of Sunset-brand, herbicide-free Campari tomatoes for $4 -- about a dollar less than Costco's price for the same tomatoes. Another consistently good buy is the weekly, freshly roasted coffee selection for $4.99 a pound. The sale starts Friday.

Fairway's flier is filled with photos of the baker, butcher, cheese monger, coffee roaster, organics director and even the rabbi that certifies kosher meat. Two employees appear on the same page with their chins resting in their hands. How cute. What is the shopper to conclude? Do they stand behind the quality of the food they sell? Can you take any item back for a refund, as you can at Costco and Whole Foods Market? The flier doesn't say.

The flier trumpets: "The World's Greatest Food Store." I don't think so.

Who took the plain out of plain breadcrumbs?

I needed plain breadcrumbs to complete the chili-breading recipe I wrote about the other day (see post, "Chili chicken, pork and seafood"). I usually grab and run, but I was at the ShopRite in Paramus to buy antibiotic-free Readington Farms chicken at 25% off and to pick up some other stuff, so stopped to read ingredients. (A home-improvement store in being built on the land being cleared near the store; it was a parking lot, not covered by trees, as I had feared.)

One plain breadcrumbs I looked at had high fructose corn syrup and grated cheese, plus a long list of other ingredients I didn't want. Another shopper pointed out Jason-brand breadcrumbs, which I had never heard of, and the ingredients list was the shortest of all, but they were the most expensive, more than $4 for the large cannister.

I ended up buying 4C seasoned, Japanese-style, panko breadcrumbs, which were on sale and had a relatively short ingredients list, including grated pecorino-romano cheese and spices.

I bought Readington Farms leg quarters for $1.11 a pound and a roaster for $1.81 a pound. I also found another brand of Campari tomatoes that were pesticide-free, like the Canadian ones sold under the Sunset brand at some ShopRites and Fairway Market. These were grown in the U.S., but are sold under the Euro Fresh Farms brand, "The Foodies' Favorite." The small, deep-red globes on the vine were $4.99 for two pounds.

One grower, two lines of tomatoes

Have you tried those delightful, greenhouse-grown Campari tomatoes -- small, deep-red orbs on the vine that are bursting with flavor? They taste so good year-round, you may not miss Jersey's famed beefsteak. But if you read the label carefully, you'll discover that not all Campari tomatoes are created equally.

These beauties are grown in Mexico, distributed by a Canadian company, Mastronardi Produce Ltd., and sold under the Sunset brand, whose motto is "Goodness Grown Naturally." That motto is true for the Campari tomatoes you'll find at Fairway Market or ShopRite, but not for those in a special package sold by Costco.

The 1-pound package I picked up at Fairway for $2.99 this week is "greenhouse-grown, vine-ripened and herbicide-free" (look for a two-tone green label). The 2-pound package I bought at Costco yesterday for $4.49 says only, "Greenhouse-grown, vine-ripened." That label is blue and tan.

The label's of both say the contents are "the tomato-lover's tomato." That's no hype, but I wonder why Costco is selling the lower-quality version.