R & G’s Food Basket

This review is only of the hot food counter only. Food is not great. Dry, over priced under spiced. I ordered some tamales one was supposed to be cheese and jalapeño and the other pork. The cheese on little to no cheese in it set of jalapenos they use Anaheim chiles sliced long. The pork tamale was almost completely holo no meat no flavor. Would not try again.

I’ve lived in Norwalk for almost 13 years and have been a Food 4 Less/​Superior fan the entire time. I would get their weekly circular, look at it and say, «eh, I’m good» then toss it to the side in favor of my F4L, Superior circulars. Well, I opted to give them a shot a couple of weeks ago and I’m sold! The produce and meat selection are really expansive and affordable. We loved the pastor meat for tacos — killed that on the first day! I was able to score some really great deals and the service was good. The store is small, like that of Payless of Fresco Foods and the aisles are narrow, so beware. They have a panaderia and a carniceria so you can get fresh, hot authentic Mexican food if you like. Parking isn’t too bad, but I can see how it could get a little hairy because its a pretty small lot. That said, it won’t deter me from returning this weekend!

Cheap deals; especially on wednesdays
However, I’ve gone to the same cashier twice, and she always gives me the «stink eye» (Maria A.)
I’ve never been anything more than an average customer, so I don’t know why she always seems like she doesn’t want to service me.
There is a minimum $ 5 for credit card purchases.

The parking is tight and the interior aisles are even tighter. This is the typical Latino product grocery store where you can expect great prices and selection of produce. The butcher shop is also good. If you buy other essentials like toiletries or cleaning supplies, you will pay a huge markup. Overall this is a decent store if you’re in a crunch, otherwise I prefer Northgate up the street.

my boss makes me come here to pay the electrical bill, its a nice little Mexican store that has a lot of products from the home country. you can cash your checks and pay bills here.

I used to drop in here to pay some of my utilities, they have a check cashing place at the back of the store. Last time I was here, I decided to browse a little, I found a few items not available at my regular grocery store. I’m talking about Mexican coke, I like the taste of it. Also there are baby mangos, key limes, Mexican pan dulce, Mexican gelatins in different colors and fresh homemade salsa. You can also find good quality tortillas, chips for salsa which are great for chilaquiles. There is a
Mexican meat counter in the back which is pretty good. lastly, they sell tacos and tortas here, horchata too. I gave 4 stars, could have given 5 but I dropped one because the store as awesome as it is, it isn’t the cleanest. Sorry, just being honest.

The worst quality food ever!!! Anti-​sanitary, some of the produce molded (check the expired sausage links and so on), marinated meat tastes like cleaning chemical solution, the whole store is disorganized. I have a strong suspicion the produce sold there is what big stores like Ralph’s writes off their accounts as spoiled produce. But instead of the dump it ends up in this store — owners make a quick buck and open a second store while people get sick! My husband ate food from their food stand (despite my suspicions cautions about the spoiling meat they couldn’t sell that they use in their food stand) and he was sick for almost a week. Too bad he paid cash and didn’t keep the receipt. We would so sue them for the nightmare taking place in that place! I don’t know where the city sanitation department is looking at– they obviously still let that place exist!

The burritos here are delicious.

Located in a not very nice part of town, dented cans, fruit flies/​flies in general always present, very small, and to top it off they have really old carts.

Pork tamales are melt in your mouth delicious.

Let’s see… My main reasons for shopping at R & G’s are:
*Diana’s King Corn Tortillas (always buy 2 packages at a time)
*Pan Dulce (decent selection, my whole family has their favorites)
*Key Limes (they’re called Mexican Limes here sometimes and it’s usually $ 0.99/pound)
*Deli food (not bad, actually, and there is a pretty good carnitas dinner special)
*Horchata (paid for in the deli section)
*Cucumbers (3 for $ 0.99 sometimes)
*Bag of fresh diced nopales (meh… nothing else to add…)
*Green bell peppers (so much more better than the ones at Ralphs)
Oh, and one time I went to this market with my mother in law. As we were leaving the market and putting the groceries in her car, she left quickly to another shopping cart in the parking lot. She then proceeded to put a 24 pack of Coke into her car.
I guess someone left their Coke purchase and my mother in law swiped it…
Did you know Coke tastes so much better when it’s free???
:confession:
P. S. $ 5.00 minimum purchase to pay with plastic…

I’ve always like this place.
It’s your typical mexican market.
Cheap produce, cheap meats, jam packed aisles.
The aisles are so small that they actually have to use mini-​carts on the inside. Last time I was there I thought how scary it would be to be inside this place during an earthquake. I would certainly be crushed by mountains of penafiel and jarritos.
Did I mention they have tons of fresh baked bread and a mini-​restaurant?
Well the bread’s great but the food is a bit too greasy for my taste… it’s not bad, but nothing to write home about.
Oh, before I forget. They have awesome tres leches cakes… yummy!

This little market sits on the main street of Pioneer Blvd in the lovely city of Norwalk. I always pass by it on the way to my gym… sometimes I’ll venture into the market. It’s a Mexican market… so you’ll see a lot of things that you usually don’t see at Ralphs or Vons. I didn’t really venture through all the isles… I mainly stuck with the produce section… that was enough for me to explore.
I don’t know very many places that has such cheap produce… but this place is one of them. Everything looked very fresh… and it’s way cheaper than Ralphs. Plus they had some items… I still don’t know what it is. I know I recognized cactus… not too sure how to cook it. I tried asking a lady who was buying some, but she only spoke spanish… I wish I studied more in Spanish class… perhaps I an google some cactus recipes.
Overall this place is pretty awesome… if your looking for something ethnic in the latin world… this is a cool little place to head to.

there’s something serene about bbq’ing, perhaps in part, due to the primitive nature of it. after all, it’s just meat, fire, and yourself (with a beer in hand).
needless to say, the «fire» and «yourself» components are easy… it’s often finding/​preparing the right meat that differentiates a good bbq from a bad one, which brings me to R&G’s Food Basket.
this market has THE tastiest and most reasonably priced marinated chicken (used to be 1.69/lb or something but i think it’s 2 + change now) hands down. even though you’ll be tempted to splurge and go for the marinated carne (roughly 5.00/lb), from my own experience, the chicken is always a winner (moist and bursting with flavorful juices), whereas the carne can sometimes be dry/​chewy.
seeing as how it’s a supermarket, R&G’s is a one-​stop jackpot: go to the back to get your chicken, swipe a bottle of tapatio, scoop up a bag of tortillas, grab some brews, make your way to the produce section to pick up some onions, radishes, and cilantro, and then head towards the register.
granted, i’m sure primitive mankind never viewed bbq’ing as «serene.» so with that in mind, thank you, R&G’s!

This was a weird encounter and a luck of a find for me.
On a sunny Sunday, I found out a local restaurant of Thai Issan:
was reopened after closing for better part of this year. So I decided to go in to the restaurant and ordered a few items.
While waiting for my order, I decided to pop in to this market and check it out on the big deal. As I seemed to be amaze on big of a Latino themed market it was. They seemed to carry many of Spanish brand products and other accessories.
When I got in, it looked like a little bit of a make shift Grand Central market. No, not because of various vendors or shops, but rather the way on how the place was set up. Interesting to observe that a made-​to-​go food heat counter was set up next to the front door where you can order various deep fried food. The fried chicken and ribs were the big deal.
Right next to it was a little bakery shop. I noticed that they have a flan cake (like the ones you seen in a Cuban bakery) and empanadas. I especially the creamy custard on the inside of empanadas:
. It reminded me so much of various custard buns in Chinese bakery shop, but with a different dough texture of a bun. I just want to order it.
This market also have a huge Carniceria (butcher shop). The meat selections was outstanding in terms of variety of different meat. The butchers here cut it very well. I guess you can cut off the fat from the meat if you wish so. This was tempting for me because I can have a huge BBQ and this would definitely be a place to go.
Fruits and produce sections was not bad. The groceries are the ones that are so so in here. I think most people come here to shop for meat and produce, but it wouldn’t shocked me if you want to get household necessities in here to kill three birds with one stone.
As I walking out and ready to pay for my empanadas and flan cake, I noticed the restaurant owner was shopping for meat. I can only guess it was for my order.
I hope he cut the fat off the meat!