Adventure In Food Trading

Giant capers on the stem. Wild boar meat. Python. Antelope. A 1-​oz tin of saffron for $ 103. Are you in your car yet? Then there’s Korean citron juice. 3 liter bottles of white balsamic vinegar. Green peppercorns. Lavender buds. Truffle salt. More cheese than you can shake a stick at. And did I mention the Kobe and Waygu beef and the pigs’ tongues and trotters? And the pheasant and squab?
Adventures in Food Trading sells mainly to the restaurant trade, but Jordan in the warehouse is super friendly, will show you around, and is happy to sell to you in small quantities. Prices are fair, not inflated, and you don’t pay shipping as from some web gourmet shop.
This place is REALLY hard to find, in an industrial park just before the bridge over the Hudson to Troy. Look for the Midlands dairy facility, enter at the public road south of the facility, then proceed past Ace Hardware and Midlands and turn right on a private road. From there, wander around until you find it. If it’s a hot day, be sure to bring a cooler, but Jordan will be happy to throw in a cold pack.
Open Monday-​Friday only, from 8 am till 4 or a bit later.

I consider myself an amateur foodie — I like to eat locally and I like to experiment in the kitchen. I went in hoping to find chocolate feves, which are similar to chocolate chips but bigger and fancier, I guess.
It’s a little awkward when you first walk in. I was the only customer there at that time, and there was a handful of staff walking around or sitting at computers. Someone immediately came up and asked me what I was looking for. He pointed me to the chocolate feves — unfortunately for me they only sell them in 10# bags. I don’t ever expect to make that many cookies and can’t imagine using that much, so I declined. The employee asked around the other staff to find out if there’s a place locally where I could buy a smaller quantity and was successful. Great service!
I was time pressured and couldn’t linger, but they had a remarkable amount of interesting meats and gourmet products. Perhaps not the best place to shop if you’re looking for small amounts of things, but if you’re cooking for many or want to try out some exotic stuff, head down.
N.B.: Google Maps will get you to the big parking lot but after that it’s a little tricky: When you pull in to the gigantic parking lot, the first thing you’ll see is some kind of generic Farmer’s Market office building right in front of you. Turn right and follow the edges of the parking lot. It’s in the far right corner.

It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous place for a food lover.
Adventure in Food Trading supplies gourmet provisions to some of the best restaurants in the region… and they are open to the public… selling amazing food at wholesale prices!
Seriously, once you go wholesale, it’s impossible to return to the world of retail shopping. Granted, some items come in wholesale quantities. For example if you want some pork belly, you have to buy an entire eight pound pork belly. But theirs isn’t any pork belly, it’s Berkshire pork, which is a prized heritage breed.
I went in for a pack of fresh grass-​fed skirt steak, which at the time was less than $ 6 a pound, and came in convenient two pound packages. However they were out of stock so I left with a pork belly (and a bunch of other delicious stuff).
If you go, bring a jacket. You’ll want to spend some time in their walk in refrigerator, and you may want to spend time in their walk in freezer (that’s were all the farm-​raised game lives). Also bring a sense of adventure. None of the prices are marked, but the staff is incredibly friendly and loves talking about food. They are incredibly knowledgeable, and will gladly look up prices for you.
Since my initial discovery of the place, I’ve now started an account. So I can show up without any money and they’ll just bill my card.
And that’s pretty dangerous. Because it’s really inexpensive for what it is. But when you are confronted with duck and foie gras sausages, tubs of duck fat, cured Ibierco loin, Old Chatham Sheepherding Company cheeses, bottles of extra virgin olive oil, caviar, and cured salami made from happy pigs, it requires a lot of willpower to leave the caviar behind.
Oh, it’s also hard to find the place, the below link has the right address and directions. It also is another love letter I wrote about my favorite store in the area.