There are many things I love about having Grocery Outlet so near my house, and one of them is their ever changing brands of tea. I used to pretty much only buy Twinnings tea (waiting for it to go on sale, as it’s usually $4 for 20 bags), but so many of the teas I’ve found at Grocery Outlet are comparable in flavor, that I am no longer tied to that venerable branch.
I’m usually a black-tea girl, but I do make an exception for Earl Grey, a black tea flavored with bergamot orange oil. I’ve recently had those produced by Taja Tea and Dilmah, and they were both excellent.
Taja Tea specializes on “saffron” teas and offers five flavors. The Earl Grey is made with black tea from Argentina, and artificial bergamot flavors (I checked). Still, it is delicious. Other Taja Tea flavors also get good reviews, and I may try the red rubio and the assam if I catch them at GO.
Dilmah is a Sri Lanka based, family company, established soon after Sri Lanka gained its independence. They specialize on Ceylonese tea, as you’d expect, and their Earl Grey is very satisfying. It’s not as flavorful as Taja’s, but it has nothing to envy Twinnings. It uses Ceylon black tea and artificial bergamot flavoring.
They are both cheaper than Twinnings as well. I’ll check the actual prices next time I go to GO, but they’re about $1.50 to $2 per box of 20.
I will admit it. I’m an instant coffee drinker. I know I’m not the only one in America, but I’m one of the few who will admit to it. I drink instant coffee because it’s easy to make, but also because I like my coffee fairly mild. I do have a strong preference for Taster’s Choice and Nescafé – so I do have some standards of sorts, but clearly they are not very high.
I found these at Grocery Outlet (in San Leandro) for $1.50, and I figured they were worth a try. I don’t think I’d buy them again.
I came across this fish yesterday at Grocery Outlet. I was a bit reluctant to buy it because it was only $4 for a 2lb bag – at least one third the cost of most fish I buy. But it was the only fish I could find at that store that didn’t come from China or Vietnam (instead, it was wild caught in the US), so I figured it was worth the risk. I think it was.
As an Argentinian I grew up eating dulce de leche every day. We ate it on sliced bread and toast and in pastries and cakes of all types. We use it as a topping for flan and, of course, in panqueques (crepes). And as an Argentinian I still LOVE dulce de leche. For years, I made the fake kind by boiling cans of condensed milk. Then a bit over a decade ago importation of Argentian products took off and I started being able to get the *real thing*, all the way from Argentina.
at only $2lb (at the San Leandro Grocery Outlet). I compared the ingredients with those in regular dulce de leche and they’re pretty close (milk and sugar) – though La Lechera’s doesn’t contain vanilla but includes salt as well as sodium and disodium phosphates, in addition to a preservative. I’ve no idea why.
I just found some 
This is yet another frozen product that no business tasting as good as it does. I’m not the biggest fan of hotdogs in the first place, but these smoked bratwursts are quite good. The smoked flavor really comes through, and the bun is soft and tasty. And they’re cheap (85c. each at Grocery Outlet) and microwaveable – ready in 90-seconds.
For the last month or so, 
Tuesdays are a hard dinner day for me. The kids have classes until late, so we don’t get home until 5:30, and then Mike has to go and rush to make it to his School Board meetings. While I love cooking, I don’t like cooking when I’m rushed and I don’t particularly want to cook just for the kids and I (if I make what they want, I won’t be happy, if I make what I want, they won’t be). So often times, if we have no leftovers, we rely on take out or frozen food. Last night was one of those nights, so I headed to Grocery Outlet for some frozen pizza.