Ideal Food Basket

I was looking for Ajices dulce to make my sofrito. It turns out no one has them as there has been a usda problem exporting them from the Caribbean. I was pleasantly surprised at all the Hispanic tubers that were available i.e. Malanga, yautia, yucca and batatas. The prices for fresh vegetables were very good. I found avocados for $ 178 each and it was the big ones. Store had Malta India, which you can’t find at price chopper or hannaford. I will definitely be shopping here for my Spanish groceries!

The supermarket has great prices on fresh food and has a good variety of Latin American foods. They have weekly specials and I have gotten some very good deals on chicken and vegetables.

I was looking for lunch options, and happened to walk into the Ideal Food Basket. It pretends to be a regular supermarket from the outside, but inside it’s a haven for latin american food. The shelves are stocked with various types of plantains, fruits and veggies that I’m not familiar with, as well as rice, coconut juice, and anything else you can think of when cooking an authentic latin american meal.
But wait, there’s more. There’s also a small deli tucked into the far corner. This deli makes some of the most delicious prepared food that I’ve had in a supermarket, and even beats many of the restaurants. My guilty pleasure is maduros, which outside of Miami, are hard to come by. This place executed them perfectly, and I had a lovely lunch of maduros, chicken, beef, veggies, and rice.
The menu changes from day to day, and has Chicharones on Wednesdays or Thursday, and fried fish on Fridays. I recommend calling to see what they have prior to stopping by. The prepared food area opens around 11:30 AM.

***UPDATE***
Unfortunately, the Ideal Food Basket is no more. They have closed up shop. But if you have a time machine and want to travel to early 2015 or late 2014, go ahead and read my review!
The Ideal Food Basket here in Menands is small, but very handy. It probably won’t attract big name celebrities such as Lady Gaga, The Denver Broncos, or Charles Dance. It probably won’t even attract smaller names like Young the Giant, The Cleveland Browns, or Kal Penn. But that’s part of its local charm.
There are about 6 isles, and they have all the basics you’ll need in order to make something fresh. Their fruits and veggies are extremely fresh, the best I’ve seen in the Menands area. They have a wide variety of fresh meats (pork, beef, chicken, turkey, duck, salmon, and fishes that aren’t salmon that I don’t recognize because they aren’t salmon colored). There is also a much better selection of what you can buy (liver, gizzard, feet, haunch…) I was surprised to see so much. I’m a big fan of the show Hannibal (Friday’s on NBC), and the meat section here reminds me of the gourmet foods the protagonist of the show likes to make. I find that I’m always hungry after watching that show, and shopping here allows me to be more daring in the kitchen. Unfortunately, this store is very small, so it is unlikely that either Mads Mikkelsen (who plays Hannibal Lector from the show «Hannibal») or Anthony Hopkins (who plays Hannibal Lector from the movie «Hannibal») will show up in this store, either in character or out of character, to buy foods for their gourmet feasts.
If you like to create your own food from scratch, this is a great spot to visit. There is not a lot of frozen food options at this location. So if you’re looking for frozen bricks of food that you can radiate with a microwave, this spot probably won’t be as helpful.
The prices are great. Cheapest soda in the area, and I’d say they do better than Price Chopper in most regards. I heartily recommend it.