Trader Joe's Upper West Side

[Fat Guy]

I grew up on the Upper West Side and am living there again now, and I have long believed that the close proximity of Fairway, Citarella and Zabar's makes the Upper West Side one of the great food shopping neighborhoods -- especially when you take value into account.

Recently, Trader Joe's opened on Broadway between 71st and 72nd Street. It's a gutsy move to open a food store so close to the neighborhood powerhouses. But Trader Joe's stands up to the competition. It's not an entirely even match across all categories, but since it opened I've been in the store something like 20 times and, for the past few weeks, I've done the main weekly shop at Trader Joe's.

It takes years for me to get to know a grocery store well, but some early impressions:

Trader Joe's excels in the area of dry goods. Their snack foods, crisps, chips, cereals and such are amazing and blow everyone else away. The nuts I've tried have mostly been excellent, except the almonds which I think are mediocre. Grocery items like flour, sugar and such are good and very well priced.

Also absolutely first rate: many frozen items, including both prepared items and raw ingredients like seafood.

Produce is good not great.

Dairy could use some work. The yogurt selection is poor and the cheese selection just okay.

Meat is shrink-wrapped but of pretty good quality.

[MarkIsCooking]

Here's a challenge. They sell frozen croissants. 2 varieties: Plain and Chocolate. I like the Chocolate better.

Buy a box.

To make them, you remove 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 (4 to a box) from the freezer at night before you go to sleep. Put the frozen croissants on a parchment lined sheet pan. Leave them out on the counter overnight.

When you wake up in the morning, the frozen croissants have defrosted and proofed. Pre-heat the oven as soon as you wake up. When up to temp, pop them into the oven (you can egg-wash them or not - I usually don't both, but do use convection for extra browning). They're done baking in 20-30 minutes. Your place smells incredible and I think you'll find these to be better than 80%+ of the croissants, even in NYC (though I had one from La Bergamote in Chelsea last week that was awesome).

Would love to hear your opinion.

Does the new UWS location sell beer and wine? Not all do near me in Boston (stupid MA law that limits how many stores they can have with wine). Best TJ wine tip is they sell a very good Barolo that's about 1/2 the price of what I find in my nearby liquor stores.

[Fat Guy]

Beer yes, wine no. That's the rule for supermarkets in New York City. I believe the "rationale" is that beer is considered food and wine is considered liquor. Food and liquor cannot be sold in the same store. So you never see wine in a supermarket or food or beer at a liquor store in New York City. What-ever.