Yas Grocery Store

It was convenient to stop at Farm Stores to pick up eggs, bread or ice cream. You would just drive through and someone would give you whatever you ordered and you were on your way without getting out of the car. That was fifty years ago! In between weekly grocery shopping sometimes you run out of a couple of things. That’s when we go to Yas Grocery and bakery. It’s not exactly Farm Stores - which are long gone - but it sort of feels the same. The big difference is that it is Persian and my husband likes to pick up sour cherry jelly, and a sort of relish. Aside from those items, he has some favorite cookies too. The bakery counter is really nice! But the other main items we get are cucumbers and flat bread. There can never be enough bread in this house. It’s hard to believe that we can go though so much bread in such a short period of time. And then you get more bread if you order from Moby Dick - our favorite take out Persian restaurant that is just a block away. So, it’s a nice ride to Vienna after a morning walk and we are never disappointed. They wrap the glass jars in Persian newspaper and we have been using the cloth bag we got in Isfahan for groceries. It’s nice to have so many options. 

Giant Grocery Curbside Pickup

Grocery shopping for us has changed. I never liked grocery shopping anyway. Since March we have been ordering on line to have our groceries delivered to our door rather than go inside a store. Primarily we use the neighbors Giant, but have also tried Instacart. What I like about ordering through the store is that store employees are processing the order rather than any individual who does the shopping which can be hit and miss. This month we decided to try curbside pick up starting with Safeway, last week Harris Teeter, and yesterday Giant. Each place has its positives and negatives. Harris Teeter had covered parking, my favorite angel food cake, and an app that you can request special items and make comments about specificities on items, but paper bags are used where we prefer plastic to reuse. Safeway has outdoor spaces marked, plastic bags, our favorite bread, but once you complete your order you can’t update it if you forgot something. Giant allows you to update your order, is only three blocks away, has outdoor spaces with signage that says no tipping, and paper bags. We had a snafu with Harris Teeter which delayed pickup for 45 minutes, but the attention we got was extremely professional from Simone to fix it. It’s also the furthest location from us. Safeway was straight forward without any problems. Giant gave us a case of water bottles that we didn’t order and didn’t have cucumbers, but the process was fine. All in all, picking up groceries works quite well and gives us an opportunity to get out of the house aside from our morning walks. It’s nice to know we have so many options. A new Wegman’s will be opening next month. After it’s been open for a while we might give it a try it. It’s rare to get everything on the list from any of the stores, but for the most part it works quite well. 

Balducci’s Gourmet Market

We are on the hunt for Italian Pizzelle cookies/wafers. They taste a bit like sugar cones, but are very thin. We looked up where they might be located and Target was listed as an option. So we drove over to Reston last Sunday for the ride but also for the mission. Of course, they didn’t have any. So we then figured an Italian market should have them and drove over to the Balducci’s in our neighborhood. We spent a lot of time searching around the store. The cherries and fresh fruit all looked quite nice, and the overall feel of it reminded us of Sendik’s in Milwaukee. But the prices were out of this world compared to Harris Teeter, Giant or Safeway - even Whole Foods. We have come to the conclusion that each place has one thing we like better than the others, which means there is always something we are missing wherever we end up. I would classify Balducci’s as a specialty market for a very specific purpose or occasion and clientele. In the end, they didn’t have Pizzelle cookies either, but we ended up getting some cheese and olives. If I had ordered the cookies on Amazon they would have been here yesterday. That’s the sad thing, or good thing, about it - depending on your point of view. 

Whole Foods Three Blocks Away

Everyone in the neighborhood was waiting for the big day. Whole Foods was finally going to open in the Yards. We weren’t able to make the grand opening morning, but walked over the following Sunday to pick up something for supper. The place was PACKED. And you see a lot of Whole Foods shopping bags coming in our building. After all, it is located hardly three blocks from here - just on the other side of the overpass. So this morning we decided to stop in and pick up a couple of items - peppers, cheese, bread, and a cooked chicken for dinner. The place was empty at that time of the day. So we checked out the aisles to see what was available. I don’t see it as our “go to” grocery store because it doesn’t have a lot of the more familiar brands we prefer. But it is very convenient for a couple of items kind of thing and Amazon Prime might get us a bit of a discount. Everything looked good and maybe we just need to get more familiar with it. They do have a breakfast bar which may come in handy after the morning walk. But the timing must be right to avoid the morning/lunch change up. When we moved to DC twelve years ago none of this existed. From our house to the Nationals Stadium the neighborhood has been completely transformed. Being able to walk to groceries, restaurants, dentist, doctor, haircut, etc is really nice - if you can stand all the inconvenience and noise of an urban environment.