So we branched out recently.......
Normally, every week (or at least every week that we are in town), we visit the fresh market on Vasilievskiy Island on the weekend. I've mentioned before that, by far, it's where you can buy the best quality fruits and vegetables. Chicken and pork is pretty good as well, and you can get all sorts of interesting pickled products and fresh cheeses. Honestly, I don't bother buying these things at the grocery store if I can avoid it. Especially during the late Fall - early Spring, when the grocery store quality is a little questionable!
I've shared these photos before, but here we are in Vasilievsky Rynok, or Market
So a few weeks ago, we visited the Kuznechy Rynok, which is probably a 30 minute walk from our apartment (we stopped for a coffee at the halfway point). It's much bigger, but they have everything you could need.
Most of the fruits and vegetables come either from 1.) the old southern Soviet Block countries, like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, or 2.) Middle East (mostly Egypt and Turkey) or Northern Africa (Morocco).
The fish is mostly local, Siberian, or imported from the Baltic Sea
That's a young lamb at the back of the cooler, and to the right of it is kid (goat), and some beef.
You can see that we get a lot of variety. The pomegranates and clementines are almost done for the season. The apples (mostly from Kazakhstan) are really sweet and crisp right now. The tomatoes are from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - we tried some, and it's a little early, but they were better than US grocery market quality. And the grapes (from Azerbaijan) are pretty good.
The pickle ladies at the markets are by far the most annoying, but you can get tons of free tastings. They pickle everything - cabbage, beets, carrots, cucumbers, onions, seaweed. They are also starting to sell some Asian-style pickles like Kimchi.
So we bought 2 kilos of new potatoes, a big pack of strawberries, a small melon (that was absolutely
delicious & like eating sugar), 6 tomatoes, and a cauliflower. Did we over pay? I'm pretty sure that we did, which is why we normally go to our regular market where they know us & no longer over-charge us.
But I decided several years ago that I would pay what the markets charge because a.) they need the money more than me, b.) the quality, variety, and freshness makes up for the additional cost, and c.) I'm not eating spoiled (but cheap) food from the grocery store.
