V & T Supermarket

Summary: I kind of love V & T Supermarket in Hempstead, Long Island.

Scoring the car for the day for some errands, I knew I had to hit V & T Supermarket on Franklin street in Hempstead. I had been seeing it for years, the huge white cryptic building off the side of the busy road with the Chinese characters. I was usually on my way to the Hempstead Salvation thrift. And though it’s true that I wasn’t into foodie exploration back then, I always was intrigued. With some recent scores at the Indian mart in Hicksville, I knew there was magic awaiting me within that mysterious building.

I was glad I was alone. I was going to scour every inch of the place, spending as much time as needed to check labels, scan, dig, piece together needs for their unusual goods. Of course I knew vegan goods would be abound. And given they took cards, I knew I would leave with a motley assortment of ingredients for some blog-worthy eats. My first score was a jar of Roland wild berry blue cherries. Carmine-free: no boiled beetles here just good ol’ healthy chemical coloring. Who needs beetle-red when Roland makes such a variety of chemically-colored cherries? Notice also the raspberry and strawberry Fluff. Not until I reached the crazy candy aisle had I seen such color variety.

Mock duck! You know that wheat gluten with the textured skin you get from Thai restaurants? I bought a can for 99 cents. A section at V & T had a bunch of canned wheat glutens at rock bottom prices. I bought the vegetarian mock duck in curry sauce from Wu Chang for a little sodium-fueled fun. 1/3 of this small can has 650 mg of sodium. If you eat the whole thing, that’s your sodium for the day, so says the USDA who sets the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) you see on nutritional labels. And the USDA is just no good. They’re downright disgusting. Um, I’d rant to by local and direct, but here I am buying cans from Taiwan.

Tons of kooky tofu! Vacuum-sealed, flavored, fresh-pressed, sliced and diced, the tofu section at the far end of the store was wonderful. And, like most everything else in the store, cheap. Being I spend so much time on Long Island I celebrate in this discovery. Imagine a huge supermarket

[wait Brooklyn, there’s more],

free of bustling crowds

and employees whose jobs are solely to stand at the ends of long lines to alert customers of its ending

[still more]

with prices not meant to exploit your tastes and dietary preferences

[I’m talking to you, Khim’s Millienium Market and Sunac, and your $6.99 Tofurkey sausages]

and offer you different and affordable options than the “variety” of processed

crap in the Kraft/Kellog/PepsiCo world of mainstream supermarkets. Thanks V & T.

I bought some mochi.

Some sesame rice paper, which I had never seen before. Some flavored tofu strips.

Chinese spinach buns and some japanese dipping sauce.

And some Jello-brand Flan, which is vegan.

I’ll be back, V & T Supermarket!