It's no secret that I love Aldi. I'm not even really sure why I love the place so much. The fact that we save a lot of money by marketing there certainly explains some of the affection I feel for the place. Also, though, I think I just really like shopping where most people don't shop. I feel the same way about my choices of computer operating system and web browser. I like knowing that my Aldi and Linux and Opera are as good, or better, than the Wal-Mart and Windows and Internet Explorer that everyone else is using. It makes me feeli like I am a memeber of some kind of super-cool secret club. And, by the way, I am fully aware of how stupid and shallow these feelings are. Aldi is not a super-cool exclusive club. Aldi is a place where you have to deposit a quarter to check out a cart (you get your 2 bits back when you return the cart to the pen), where you have to pay for bags, and where you will only find brand-name items if they happen to be on special that week.
But what's strange is that I love all of those strange little kooky aspects of shopping at Aldi. The cart thing is done so that employees don't have to spend all day wrangling carts; if you want your quarter back, you have to return your cart (or hand it off to the next shopper for a quarter, which is considered good etiquette). The bag thing is great- we should all be reusing our shopping bags anyway, so just bring some old bags with you when you shop at Aldi. And the no-brand-names thing, well, we've been buying store brand items for years, so for a whole store to be just store brand items does not phase us.
Plus, Aldi's stuff is almost always as good or better than name brand (and some of their items likely are produced in the same plants as name brand goods).
In fact, her's a long list of items that we have bought at Aldi, along with our impressions of them:
Milk- well, it's milk. No different from any other milk, except $1 cheaper per gallon.
Chocolate- Choceur is their in-house brand. Dee-licious. Tastes like Lindt.
Potato Chips- Their premium, kettle-style chips are called Cowboy Ted or some such. Excellent. Aldi has fantastic junk food.
Pretzels- Just your regular pretzels, but cheap, cheap, cheap.
Snack mix- their usual choice for a Chex Mix-type snack is a bit too salty (really, it's true) for me, but they recently featured a BOLD variety of snack mix that I quite liked. Also featyred at the same time was their version of the SWEET 'N' SALTY mix that Chex introduced a few years ago. Also good.
Cereal- All of their cereal options are as good as, or better than, the name-brand versions. Really, though, all that matters is that their koko krispies are acceptable (and, of course, they are).
Peanut butter- I really like the Aldi peanut butter, and I especially like that it contains no high fructose corn syrup. So, to review: it's cheap, has no corn syrup, and tastes good on bread with grape jam (which does have corn syrup).
Frozen pizza- Okay, this is no lie, Aldi has some of the best frozen pizza we've ever eaten. Their Margherita Pizza is fantastic, and some of their specialty, once-every-three-months pizzas are better than pizzaria pizza.
Pasta- Pasta is pasta, but theirs is good and cheap, so we buy and eat a lot of it, often in combo with Aldi's Grandessa pasta sauce and F'n'A turkey meatballs. F'n'A!!!
Salsa, chips- Staples. Again, good chips, decent salsa, and cheap. It's not like going to the Tex-Mex restaurant, but their salsa and chips is as good as any Frito-Lay products.
Cola, root beer- I guess I've reduced my consumption of soda pop to such a level that I can no longer detect significant differences between Coca-Cola and Koka-Kola. I just can't tell much of a difference between name-brand and generico, so I like the Aldi versions fine.
Canned fruit and veggies- Not a huge selection, but everything we ever need, and then some. Like their green beans, carrots, potatoes, and their fruit cocktail. I really like their citrus cocktail, which is somewhat extravagant at over $1 per can, but, you know, sometimes you have to live large.
Fresh fruit and veggies- Ok, I won't lie- the selection is limited. The sad fact is, however, that we really don't eat a huge amount of fresh fruits and veggies. We should, and we will try to do so, but for what we typically need (apples, bananas, bagged spinach) Aldi serves us well.
Jelly beans- Alright, back to the important stuff. Around Easter every year, Aldi sells their own variety of gourmet jelly beans. I bought a few bags of these earlier in the year, and they were great. Not exactly like Jelly Belly, but pretty darn close. In fact, some of the flavors were better than the Jelly Belly versions (buttered popcorn, I'm looking at you). Unfortunately, this is a seasonal offering only.
Fruit juices- All good. Apple, grape, mixed berry- no discernable difference in quality from name brand options.
Drink mixes- Kewl Aide. Some of the flavors are a little wacky, but, c'mon, this is sugar water-flavoring that we're talking about. I'm not particular. It's impossible for Kool-Aid to taste more authentically like fake fruit than the competition. Fake grape is fake grape.
Coffee- For some reason, Aldi offers more options for coffee than for any other type of product. You have your mega-cheap, Maxwell House-type coffee in the giant can. You have the Grandessa German coffee, which I purchased for a while. And you have 2 different kinds of Beaumont premium coffee. Recently, I have been buying the Dark Roast Breakfast Blend and have been extremely pleased. I am certain it's the best $3.99/lb coffee I could find around here.
Tea- The tea selection is poor. They carry green tea and black tea. Haven't tried the green, but the black tea is typical and unremarkable.
Mac & cheese- Okay, if you're really down and out, broker than broke, but you have some mac & cheese, some ground meat, and some ketchup, you can cook yerself up a hearty meal known as the redneck casserole. I can tell you honestly that I have rarely felt as thoroughly satisfied in my life as I feel after consuming a man-sized portion of the fantastically rustic dish. Oh, and, ALDI MAC & CHEESE RULEZ ($.29!!!).
Beer, wine, et al- Our Aldi carries a limited selection of beer (limited in the sense that they carry only three kinds- German pilsner, knock-off Heineken, and knock-off Corona) and wine. I have tried 2 of the 3 kinds of beer, and have been satisfied with its quality to price ratio. We have also enjoyed some of their wines, although Chauntelle once broke out into a red rash after trying one of their Chardonnays, which was odd.
What else-
Aldi has weekly specials of all sorts- food, mostly (Germany week, Mexico week, Italy week, China week), but also: computers, GPS systems, DVD players, exercise equipment, plants, toys, and clothing. At first, I thought it was weird that a discount food store sells digital cameras, but now I think it's cool. Hey, we have a swimming pool in our back yard that we bought from Aldi. I look forward to the weekly sepcials. Aldi sends me emails to tell me about them.
Also, since Aldi is a European company (European? No, I'm a peein'!!!), their stores offer a surprising variety of certain items that you wouldn't expect to find in a small discount store. Like meusli. Or gourmet cheeses. Or schnitzel, tiramisu, and black forest cake. Or chocolate/hazelnut spread. The fact that Aldi carries 2 kinds of olive oil is also a testament to its European heritage.
Umm, can I think of anything else...Oh, yeah, they have been know to sell Tagalong and Samoa cookies under their own brand. I don't mean to imply that these cookies were interpretations of the Girl Scout cookies in question- I mean that the cookies sold by Aldi were identical in every way to Tagalongs and Samoas, to the extent that I'm sure they were produced by the same folks who produce the Girl Scout cookies. But no Thin Mints- arrrrghhhh!
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