Best Grocery Stores in Southern California? (Glendale, Rancho Cucamonga: buying, organic, prices)

[UB50]

Aside from Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons, what are the best grocery stores in Southern California?

Some of my favorites are:

1) Trader Joe's (great cheeses, breads, and a lot of other things)
2) Vallarta Markets (fresh meats, good cerviche, fresh salsas)
3) Seafood City (the one in Panorama City -- always has really fresh seafood)
4) Golden Farms (Glendale -- fresh, cheap produce; Armenian/Russian foods)
5) Koreatown Galleria (carries every Korean item you can imagine plus has a good seafood section)

What are your favorites?

[enlightenme]

Trader Joe's - hands down.

[Roundtruck]

Trader Joe's for sure. Whole Foods is pretty good.

[smu7070]

Gelson's and Bristol Farms, of course! XD

[rdukes412]

Although I don't deliberately go shopping for organic or natural foods, Henry's is a pretty cool store!!! They just recently put one in Rancho Cucamonga but they have em in lots of places in CA and AZ.

And despite higher prices, I love the small markets with personal service (and much better meat) - ours is a Jensen's. And when I go broke - it's back to Stater's for me .

[brian_2]

Trader Joe's. Shop elsewhere for your produce. TJ's has some produce, but you can do better. Shopping at TJ's makes the Albrecht family richer all the time. They are already on the top list of world's richest people. Forget buying stock as an investor - they're a privately held company. I'll keep giving TJ's my money though, it's that good. Perhaps Tesco will give them a run for the money if they ever get their US operations up and running.

These days it's all about the very rich, not the rest of us poor schlubs. Thank goodness we have the corporate lobbyists to help us out. Right? Our elected officials wouldn't dream of giving more breaks to the super rich, that would be unethical - wouldn't it?

[la_welcome]

Trader Joe's is the best deal in town, with low prices and pretty good food.

If you're totally anti-preservative, though, Whole Foods (or your local Farmer's Market) is the way to go. I often found that by shopping the sales, I could get better deals -- and better food -- at Whole Foods than at the "regular" supermarkets in L.A. And, as a bonus, they're not tracking your purchases via a club card (if you care about that sort of thing).

[aguamarina4u]

I thought Tesco's will be more like a 7-Eleven? That would be great if they market it more up scale and if they carry some yummy British favorites!

[UB50]

I've found that a lot of the big ethnic supermarkets have fabulous produce at really cheap prices. A lot of them buy downtown at the produce market everyday so they always have some great buys.

That was why I put Golden Farms (which also has a store named Gefer's -- same owners) on the list. Also, there is a Korean market near 8th street and Western named Assi Plaza (?). They have a huge selection and exceptionally good pricing. We're talking cherries for 99 cents a pound when everyone else was selling them for around $3 a pound.

I rarely buy produce at the major grocery stores anymore. It's just too expensive and half the time it isn't as fresh as the other places. Americans tend to eat a lot of canned and frozen fruits and vegetables. It seems like people from other countries shop more frequently and use fresh ingrediants more. There are lots of big ethic supermarkets throughout the LA region and quite a few of them are worth at least checking out.

I like the foods Whole Foods carries but I think they are expensive to shop in.

[brian_2]

When I was last in England (2003) I did get that impression about Tesco aguamarina4u, but then I read a piece in the NYT this year about an expanded Tesco possibly coming to the US. Will it ever really happen? Who knows. You can get some of the English condiments and candy at Cost Plus Worldmarkets. Does anyone remember the "Gourmet Garage" stores in NYC? They were kinda like a small TJ's with some of the same items. My favorite small grocery in NYC was Agata & Valentino (back in 1999-2001). I'm such a sucker for Italian foods.