Cactus leaves

A new store just opened up in our area, called Orchard Fresh. Owned by another area grocery chain, it seems like a Whole Foods reinvention. We decided to investigate and it was a lot of fun.

In the produce section I was happy to see everything was organic and they had some interesting things I can’t find locally, like cactus leaves, plantains, and tons of fresh herbs. I picked up some pea shoots

Fish

and ginger root (which has suddenly been absent from my usual store).

I hit the jackpot in the fish department though. Stone crab! I recently wrote about how to prepare these and mentioned they are non-existent in my neck of the woods. Now if I have a craving, I know where to find them. There was also a tank of live crayfish (which looked way too much like bugs for me to even imagine bringing them home). Then I stumbled on the fresh Hawaiian fish, which is flown in daily. What a treat to be able to bring some of this home. I get tired of salmon, sole, tuna, haddock

Fish for dinner

and mahi. We bought home hapuka and sunfish, which I made that same night. I grilled the hapuka, which is an oily fish, but with a mild flaky texture. I loved the sunfish which I breaded and panfried. It has a small white flake and is very mild. I find the best way to learn about a new fish is to make it very simply prepared, with just lemon on it. I would make the hapuka again, but it needs a sauce to balance its oiliness. The sunfish was perfect panfried. I might add a brown butter sauce with some sliced almonds if I wanted it to be a little fancier.

Other treats awaited us, such as a gelato bar, Sarabeth’s brand baked goods, a wide selection of different sea salts and even a very interesting sea salt block, which you are supposed to set right on your stove or grill and cook on top of.

I was a bit disappointed by the gluten free selection. There was an aisle marked “gluten free” but it didn’t have much. We then found GF items stuck in among other aisles. Some had

Game

gluten-free tags on the shelves, and some didn’t, making them very hard to find.

To match the seafood selection, there was also a great selection of game. Fresh frog legs, fresh bison, and quail eggs were in the butcher’s case. In the frozen section we found elk, camel (?), alligator, and high end beef.

It was fun to visit a new store and bring home some fun new foods to try.