Confessions Of An ALDI Snob

It's All My Mother's Fault

I grew up an extremely brand-conscious kid. It's all my mother's fault. I shopped with her every week from the earliest time I can remember right up through my adult years.

My mother never learned how to drive, so when I was growing up in the 1950s, my Dad, who knew little and cared less about grocery shopping, dutifully drove her to the big new “supermarket” on Saturdays. Where I came in to the picture was if she needed something in the middle of the week or in the middle of the day when Dad wasn't home. In that case she would call the little neighborhood grocer about five blocks down the street and have him pack up her order. (Yes, grocery stores did that sort of thing in those days.) Then she would dispatch five-year-old me and my little red wagon to go to the store and pick it up. Today that would be called child endangerment or something. Back then it was called “normal.” The grocer always knew what brands to pack in my mom's order. Her well-deserved reputation as the queen of picky shoppers preceded her.

Well, Dad died soon after I turned six and unless we could beg a ride to the grocery store with a friend or relative, it was just Mom and me and the wagon. I later traded the wagon for a bicycle and eventually for a car, but, one way or another, I went grocery shopping with my mother nearly every week for the rest of her life. And along the way I picked up all her shopping quirks and eccentricities, including her most notorious foible; brand consciousness.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Mom would have sooner starved than let a store-branded or off-branded product pass her lips. Those canned peas had better be Green Giant Le Sueur peas or straight back to the store they went. Boxed macaroni and cheese was okay, but only if it was Kraft. Nothing else ever even made it into the cart. It was Land o' Lakes butter or nothing. Generic cereals? Perish the thought! Only Kellogg's, Post, or General Mills cereals needed apply for residence in my mother's pantry. Birdseye, Swanson and Stouffer's were all acceptable frozen choices, but don't you dare drop some cheap, off-brand TV dinner in there.

Intellectually I knew there was nothing whatsoever “wrong” with store brands. In fact, in most cases store brands are processed and packaged by the same companies that produce the ones with the famous labels. But functionally I was my mother's son and so I avoided “cheap” store/generic brands like the plague. And stores that specialized in “discount” foods were also shunned. I only shopped at high-end stores and I only bought high-end brands.

And then ALDI came to town.

Founded in Germany in 1961 by the Albrecht family, ALDI – short for Albrecht-Diskont – bills itself as the world's first grocery discounter. It opened its first US store in Iowa in 1976, built on the company's core premise that “great quality shouldn’t come at a high price; rather, great quality should come with everyday low prices.” And to achieve and maintain those everyday low prices, you won't find hardly a familiar “name brand” in any ALDI store. Oh, there might be a smattering of “real” Coca-Cola or actual Cheerios rather than some knockoffs, but such are the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, up until quite recently, my rule was that you would never find me in an ALDI store. In fact, years ago I frequently wrote articles in this space denigrating “cheap,” “low-quality” food products in general and ALDI stores in specific. I looked down my nose at friends and relatives who shopped there and actually pitied them for not knowing any better. I was, you might say, an ALDI snob.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks and overcome a lifetime of learned prejudice. After at least twenty-five years of sneering at ALDI I now find myself shopping there whenever I'm in the neighborhood. And that neighborhood is expanding: ALDI expects to have around 2,500 stores in the US by 2022.

Now, that's not to say that I no longer shop at Publix or Kroger or Harris-Teeter. No, those are still my go-to stores for most things because I still believe that quality counts and high-end stores still provide the most consistently high-quality products. Unlike my ultra-finicky mother, though, I have at least tried store brands and off brands from time to time and I have frequently found them lacking. Usually it's a funky texture or too much sugar or not enough salt or something that affects the taste and overall quality. Just because they come off the same production lines as the fancy brands doesn't mean they're always the same grade. There is a reason why they're so much cheaper, you know.

It's not always true: for instance, I have found very few Publix-branded products that I don't like. But by and large I still tend to stick with the familiar brands I grew up with. And I definitely didn't grow up with any of the brands that populate ALDI shelves, so I still generally shy away from them. Again, not that I haven't tried them. I recently took a chance on a bag of their “Clancy's” brand knockoff of Baked Lays potato chips. Meh. Not so much. They're....okay, but they'll never replace the original in my pantry. And I was equally underwhelmed by some of their other snack offerings. On the other hand, their “Millville” replica of Kellogg's Rice Krispies is dead on. My wife actually prefers some of their cereals, and they carry a thin mint cookie that would make a Girl Scout weep. So it's kind of a crap shoot.

ALDI has this to say about its “exclusive” brands: “More than 90 percent of what you find in our stores is exclusive brand product. Tested in the ALDI Test Kitchen, these products taste the same or better than national brands and are backed by our Double Guarantee. If you’re not 100 percent satisfied, bring it back. We’ll replace the product AND refund your money.” Okay, if you say so. Maybe I'll be swayed someday. But not quite yet.

No, what I really shop for at ALDI are the “perimeter products.” These are the things you find around the perimeter walls of most grocery stores: the produce, the meats, the dairy products, and the frozen foods. This is where ALDI really shines. When it comes to milk, butter, eggs, cheese, etc. nobody can touch ALDI for either price or quality. Same goes for their meat. They have absolutely unbelievable prices on some of the best quality cuts of meat I've seen anywhere outside a butcher shop. The seafood selection is equally good and I've picked up some killer frozen entrees and ice creams at killer prices. They don't have the biggest produce section in the world but what they carry is good stuff and their breads are surprisingly good for store-bought product, which I usually eschew in favor of my own home-baked fare.

And I love the little hidden jewels I occasionally find. Since ALDI is European-based, there are a boatload of European products lining the shelves. The European chocolates you'll find at ALDI are to die for at a price that won't kill you. A particular favorite of mine is a DOP Sicilian olive oil that easily rivals the best “high-end” product I've ever used, and it's dirt cheap. Less than half of what the brand name stuff costs and every bit as good if not better. In fact, ALDI carries lots of DOP/PDO (Denominazione di Origine Protetta/Protected Designation of Origin) products that are rarely found outside expensive specialty shops, a real bonus for any Italian cook.

And one other plus: ALDI has so much good junk to plunder through. They have an aisle devoted to “home goods” and apparel and such. I bought some socks for my wife at a price Walmart couldn't touch. It's really nuts some of the things you can find there. But stock rotates quickly, so buy it when you see it 'cause it probably won't be there tomorrow.

Alright, I'll admit it; I was wrong about ALDI. And their German cousin, Lidl, too. You may not want to do all of your shopping there, because the stores are deliberately small and the selection purposely limited. It's part of the chain's cost-cutting business model. It's a bare-bones, no-frills shopping experience right down to bagging your own groceries in your own bags. And you've probably heard about the quarter for a shopping cart thing, right? The shopping carts are all chain-locked together and you have to insert a quarter into a slot to unlock a cart. Of course, you get your money back when you return the cart to the chain gang. That's the way the store saves by not having to pay some kid to constantly round up carts in the parking lot. It's all very austere and functional, but if you're the kind of shopper who doesn't mind looking around a bit for good finds at good prices, ALDI is a must stop.

Excuse me, now. I have to go prepare a dish of crow and some humble pie. I wonder if I can get the ingredients at ALDI? 

Restaurant Review: First Watch, Winston-Salem, NC

First Watch or Last Choice?

We were in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for some weekend shopping and business when we got a little hungry for a midday brunch. We did a Google search for such places and got a list of three that looked interesting. Based on the reviews, we chose a place called First Watch. I wish we had chosen one of the other two.

In all my many years of dining on the road, from diners in Georgia to themed restaurants in Tennessee to high-dollar eateries in New Orleans and Las Vegas, I have seldom walked away from a place regretting having gone there. So First Watch was a first for me. I actually came away with buyers' remorse, except there was no viable way to return the product for a refund.

Oh, sure, I've eaten at places I didn't like and to which I've said “never again,” but this is the first place I've ever gone where I actively wished I had never wasted my time and money. Especially the money.

This experience also reinforces my long-held opinion that most of the people who write restaurant “reviews” on Google are friends and relatives of the restaurant owners and employees. That certainly must have been the case here because the reviews were overwhelmingly glowing and positive. Even the one where a member of the dining party apparently got food poisoning from a salad and wound up in the hospital. The enthusiastic “reviewer” cited the fact that nobody else got sick as validation for the positive write-up. Uffa!

When we walked into the place on a Saturday afternoon, it was, in spite of COVID protocols, buzzing. In fact, it was buzzing so loudly that we opted to sit outside, even though the weather looked a little dicey. I mean, you couldn't hear yourself think in there. Typical “modern” design: all open spaces and hard surfaces with nothing to absorb or redirect sound. Every noise, from clattering dishes to loud music to even louder conversation just bounces off walls and floors and ceilings and tables and goes right through your head. Thank you, no. We'll take our chances with the thunder and lightning.

Now, the menu ballyhoos the virtues of fresh, local food, and you know those are often buzzwords for “overpriced,” right? I expected that. And, sure, I could've gotten bacon and eggs at the Waffle House down the street for about a third of what I paid here, but this place is “trendy,” you know, and they've got all that atmosphere and fresh food and clever advertising and everything. Okay. Even so, I was shocked at the shekels I had to shovel out for the quality of the food and service I got.

I'm not gonna do the whole menu here because it's full of kitschy names like “Bacado” and “Veg'd Out” and “Key West Crepeggs.” My wife ordered what she thought was a traditional eggs Benedict and I got two eggs, scrambled, with bacon, hash browns and toast. Pretty straightforward fare.

Once we were seated, our server did a creditable imitation of the Invisible Woman. Maybe she was afraid of the impending and aforementioned lightning and thunder, I don't know. When she finally returned some twenty-five or thirty minutes later, she was bearing our feast. And what a feast it was.

I've been in the food service business, okay, and I'm pretty understanding and easy to please and you have to do something fairly egregious to get me to complain about food. When our server set my plate before me and I got one look at the absolutely hammered eggs thereupon, it was one of those egregious occasions. Had I been on the line or on expo duty, I wouldn't have even let such a travesty leave the kitchen. Some poor hen somewhere – somewhere “local,” I'm sure – produced two eggs that were subsequently presented to me in the form of burnt offerings. It's not hard to scramble eggs, it's really not. Whip 'em up with a whisk, maybe with a little milk and some salt if that's your preference, add them to a buttered pan over medium heat and stir them until you get nice, fluffy curds. Or you can do it the way the so-called “cook” at First Watch obviously did it: whisk the eggs up and then dump them into a dry, screaming hot pan and cook them until any semblance of moisture has been driven out and they have been rendered brown and crispy on top and around the edges. Needless to say, I sent them back.

The bacon – which they call “million dollar bacon” – was wafer thin and so laden with grease that I could have let it slide down without chewing it. Maybe I misunderstood and the “million dollar” part was a reference to the price and not the quality.

The hash browns came out as home fries, which is fine. I like home fries. Except when I make them, I remember culinary school 101: if you want something to cook evenly, you have to cut it evenly. When you chop up potatoes so that some of the pieces are big and some are small and some are even smaller, they may look exceedingly “rustic” and “homey,” but they are going to cook exactly the way these did: the big pieces are going to be borderline raw, the smaller pieces are going to be about right, and the teeny pieces are going to be charred mush.

Top it off with a single slice of very dry toast, and you've definitely got a memorable meal. One I wish I could forget.

My wife didn't fare much better with her fare. The poach on her eggs was good. Not “ohmygod” good, but acceptable. But her “traditional” eggs Benedict was anything but. Instead of an English muffin, it was served on some sort of ciabatta roll and it was sliced deli ham rather than Canadian bacon. There were tomatoes on it for some inexplicable reason and it was topped –drowned? – in a Hollandaise that was so loaded with lemon you could have made lemonade with it. And she had the same "three bears-style" potatoes on the side that I had. You know, a mix of undercooked, overcooked, and just right?

And because my mother taught me that if I couldn't say something nice I shouldn't say anything at all, let me say this: Mom, the fresh-squeezed orange juice was delicious.

And then it rained. But we were both finished and done by then; finished with our meal and done with First Watch.

First Watch is a chain, so your experience may vary. But if you happen to find yourself on South Stratford Road in Winston-Salem and are tempted to visit the location there, resist the temptation. Unless you like greasy bacon, overcooked eggs, half-raw potatoes, and lemonade Hollandaise, all served up by an invisible server who will present you with a bill that will make you say, “Why the f**ck did I do that?” Then First Watch should be your first choice. For me, it's the last.

Find First Watch – if you dare – at 1602 S Stratford Rd, Ste 140 in Winston-Salem, NC. Strip mall parking. They're open daily from 7 am until 2:30 pm. Call (336) 773-8440 or go to firstwatch.com. Staff is masked and temp checked and masks for diners are required during COVID protocols. 

Thoughts On McDonald's Perennially Broken Ice Cream Machines

A Strange Irony

When I was young and so was McDonald's (we were both born the same year), my go-to order at the home of the Golden Arches was some of their life-changing French fries and an icy-cold, creamy chocolate milkshake. Later, after Ronald McDonald started selling soft-serve ice cream at his establishments, McDonald's became a great place to stop for a quick cone. Mickey Ds locations were a heck of a lot easier to find than Dairy Queen's and the product they served was almost as good. Almost.

Alas, somewhere around 1990, McDonald's caved in to the activist campaign to eliminate fat and cholesterol in the American diet and stopped frying its exquisite shoestring spuds in beef tallow, opting instead for bland, flavorless vegetable oil. This switch from animal renderings to vegetable squeezings immediately “rendered” McDonald's fries inert, dull, and lifeless. They became nothing more than a run-of-the-mill vehicle to deliver salt and a modicum of texture to your palate.

But, hey! At least we still had ice cream, right? And delicious, fresh, creamy shakes? Eh, not so much. The ice cream formula changed, too. In fact, it literally became a “formula” instead of a fresh dairy product.

And now we don't even have that last vestige of so many youthful memories. Have you tried to order any ice cream products from McDonald's lately? Good luck finding one with an operating ice cream machine. It's actually become an Internet thing: you can go online and find dozens of sites dedicated to tracking and cataloging McDonald's non-operating ice cream machines. There's even an app for it.

However you look at it, it's frustrating as hell. You get your mouth all set for something and whammo! “I'm sorry. Our ice cream machine is out of order.” That's what I heard the other day when, after a warm afternoon of yard work, my wife said, “Hey, why don't you run over to McDonald's and get us some fries and shakes?” Sorry, honey. Settle for a nice cup of water with those fries? At least I didn't go to the extreme that three women went to in Daytona Beach. When they ordered ice cream at the drive-thru and were told the machine was down, they went into the restaurant and proceeded to beat up the kid behind the counter. Or the guy in Delray Beach who pulled a gun on the drive-thru worker when he was told the ice cream machine wasn't working. Obviously, people in Florida take their ice cream very seriously.

Now, I was going to try to do some in-depth research into the phenomenon in order to find some explanation that I could pass on to you desperate, ice cream-starved readers. But, lo and behold, one Andy Greenberg over at Wired has already done way, way more legwork than I'd ever dreamed possible and has detailed everything you've ever wanted to know about McDonald's ice cream machine woes right here. Read it and.....weep.

Speaking of weeping, I'll bet Ray Kroc is weeping in his grave as he spins like one of the five spindles on his iconic “Multimixer 9B.” Isn't it a bit of strange irony that a burger chain founded by a guy who sold milkshake machines for a living should be in such straits today? Totally at the mercy of wonky digital technology?

C'mon, McDonald's! It's the twenty-first century. We have personal computers in our pockets and helicopters on Mars. Don't ya think you could come up with an ice cream machine that works at least fifty percent of the time? Surely somebody's got a cache of the old manual clunkers in the basement somewhere. Drag 'em out! At least they were dependable.

As I said before, McDonald's and I have a long history. I actually went to Store #1 when I was a kid. Located in west suburban Chicago, just off US Hwy 12 in Des Plaines, Ray Kroc always said it was his favorite store before they tore it down and rebuilt it as a museum. Even as a museum, you could see a mannequin in a paper hat standing by what I'm sure was a working shake machine. Ah, for the good old days.

Bah dah bah bah bah, McDonald's, when it comes to your perennially malfunctioning ice cream machines, I'm not lovin' it.