Exploring exotic New Jersey
Yes, exotic. In our 24-hour tour of the Garden State, we ate seafood by the sea at one of the best places to do that, Bahr's Landing (click here for live webcam image) in Highlands, New Jersey, then mozeyed along part of what the locals call "da shore," turned inland and found a desert oasis, complete with pyramids, banana-coconut palms, and a jacuzzi. We decided to spend the night there. This morning after dropping off our rental car, we found another New Jersey treasure right next door: Foodmart International, a 138,000-square-foot building that takes up a whole block, the super-est supermarket we've ever seen. Some sources say it's "run by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization," while others say otherwise. Following journalism's traditional three-source rule (if you don't have it from three sources, you can't report it), then I don't know whose store it is. The sources do agree that it's a special international trade zone, which might explain why many of the items they sell cost less than a third of the prices in more conventional stores, and why it has food from everywhere, some of it in packages with nary a word of English. It's been there awhile, apparently, but they don't advertise in English, just Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese (and maybe Thai). We can't wait to go back — to all three places.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @4:46 PM
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15.3.03  |
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