Fine Dining at Costco and Tesco

It's been a great boon to have Costco open in Farnborough.  So much easier to go buy things in bulk that we have no place to store in our little English kitchen but still it is so much fun to go and wander around and image that some day again we might have a freezer big enough to actually buy some meat and put it all in the freezer to use before it gets freezer burned.  But not the topic of the day.


We tend to hit Costco a lot more often when my daughter is in town because you can buy certain vegetables in bags that are ready to cook.  No messing around with the cleaning and tossing of the leaves and such that is not edible.  We like to time it so that we hit Costco when most of the samples are out on view and ready for tasting.  Yum.  For awhile, we were missing it each time, just getting a single bite of something, IF we were lucky.  But our last three visits, we have hit the gold mine, so to speak.  There have been tables set up all over the place with something to eat at each one.  Usually, we manage to hit the dessert/pudding samples first.   That established a pattern in that if we liked it, we probably bought it.  Usually we don't buy anything else because they come in containers too big for us.  But we have managed to buy: sticky toffee pudding cake, chocolate croissants, and we almost bought last week's yummy: bakewell cherry tarts (where we both got 1/4 of a tart each to taste!).  Then we go on to the other taste treats and have had things such as:  noddles, lasagna, sushi, soups, fish sticks, cheese, sausage (we bought that), crisps, chips, bread, spreads and dips, salami, and several different kinds of sauces, some of which we bought.  

On occasion, we have had a mouthful of something nasty.  We try to be polite and head for the next trash bin before we spit it out or throw it away.  Once, it was too nasty to do that and the poor lady had to see us take this thing out of our mouth (into the napkin at least) and toss it in her bin.  Wow, her bin was full too.  Maybe they don't get to choose what they are displaying because not many people liked her taste sample.  That day, we also had to immediately head back to the dessert table and get another sample of the sticky toffee pudding cake to get the yucky taste out of our mouths.


Our last three visits, the taste treats have been my lunch.  By the time we get to the checkout, I am full and have no need to go home and fix lunch.  What a bargain!  And a couple of times, we moved on to Tesco!  More dining out.


Tesco, Meadows, store has a taste kitchen.  We were first approached several months ago to stop and do a taste comparison for them.  They take you to the kitchen, you park your shopping trolley outside the door (it's in the back of the store), go in and sit at a computer and they give you two samples to try.  You judge them on appearance, texture, smell, and taste.  Since our first time, we have been approached about 5 times to do the taste comparison.  Each time we have agreed.  In fact, I think you can walk up to the taste kitchen and tell them you'd like to do a taste comparison and if they are working that day, I think they will let you - although we haven't tried that yet.


Anyway, we have tried: rice and beans, cake, biscuits, creamed corn, and I forget the last one.  Usually one is pretty tasty and the other is pretty yuck.  Hopefully you will get the yuck first so you can eat the entire second sample and have a nice taste to leave the store.  Once we got the yuck last and it was hard to get that taste out of our mouths.  We opened something as soon as we got to the car to gobble it down and erase the yuck.  


Anyway, it is fun to dine out at such posh establishments as Costco and Tesco.  Hoping to continue our eating experiences at both places.

International Day at Tesco

International Day at Tesco

            Had to run over to Tesco this afternoon for a few items.  We were unaware that Tesco was having a half price day sale.  The traffic should have definitely been a clue when it took us twice as long as usual to reach the parking lot but we persevered and went on into the lot and found a place to park.

            I like to go shopping with my husband and he doesn’t mind it and usually enjoys himself as well.  When my daughter is in town, we will also sometimes make it a family outing and all of us will spend some time browsing up and down the aisles.  It’s always fun in another country as there is always something new to find.  We may not want to buy it but finding it and seeing what it is or does is just as much fun.  With this said, it still sometimes surprises me to see whole families going through the aisles doing the shopping together.  My maximum family size is three.  I am talking now of families that have 3 or 4 children and they have decided to bring along the grandparents as well.  So there is a family of between 5 and 8 people wandering up and down the aisles together, pretty much blocking any access to anything until they choose to move on to another product. 

            Today was much the same but even more crowded than usual because of the half-price sale.  I thought Tesco was crowded at Christmas!  It was almost as bad.  Today I also noticed all the different nationalities that are making Tesco their home base of shopping. I know the area around here has a large population of immigrants turned citizens and also a large population of ex-pats here for whatever reason such as we are living here.  Today, a large population of the “foreigners” in the area all descended on Tesco in their family groups for the half-price sale. 

            First I noticed the Nepalese families.  I have spent several vacations in Nepal so am fairly confident that I can identify Nepalese and faintly recognize the language.  The Nepalese families there today were just the nuclear families but 2 or 3 children per family and really taking advantage of the sale with one or two carts full to the brim of goodies.  I also noticed the Indian families.  A few of them had brought along the grandparents where the woman was usually dressed in a sari while her more Anglicized children and grandchildren would be dressed in the equivalent clothes per age group of what English families wear.  I think I noticed some Thai families but not really sure if they were Thai or another Southeast Asian family.  Some Eastern European families were also stocking up but not sure from where but I did hear at least two different languages from that side of the continent.

            Finally there was one lone Chinese woman doing the shopping on her own.  She was a lovely person to see because she had dressed up for the occasion.  She was in a long red velvet dress which skimmed the tops of her shoes.  Her coat was a deep burgundy velvet type material.  Totally made up face and fine jewelry and a magnificent fur hat which covered her ears topped the ensemble.  Her cart was almost overflowing as she pushed it to the checkout line. 

            I really had been grimacing when we pulled into the parking lot because I am not very fond of crowds nor do I like to push my way through the aisles while people hem and haw over what to buy.  But I’m very glad I went today.  It was delightful to see so many different people and cultures all intent on their shopping, all at the same place, and all living the same kind of life on a Sunday afternoon.