I accidentally found a great Eastern European grocery store in Newton this morning. It’s on a side street just off Needham Ave. in the Newton/Needham nexus (near the Mobile Book Fair) a block down from Filene’s basement. It’s big enough that you could do all your shopping there, about the size of a Trader Joes or Village Market in Rozzie.
Stand outs are the selection of herrings, smoked, dried, salted, and the salamis. I’ve certainly seen impressive arrays of salamis before – hanging from the rafters in salami enthusiasts basements or overhead in fancy meat markets, but here they are neatly arranged in the deli cabinet with their English names and prices easily visible (which can be a problem at other markets for those of us who learned all their Russian from watching A Fish Called Wanda). There’s also a nice selection of Czech, Polish and Lithuanian beers and a variety of black breads from Lithuania and Russia.
In addition to the standout salami collection, there is an intriguing selection of hams and bacons (largely special ordered from delis in Chicago, Queens and Brooklyn) and their own turkey and roast beef. The roast beef and the Moscow Summer Salami that I got were big winners – the salami had the slight afterfunk of genuineness, and was delicious on some Armenian flat bread that I somewhat randomly picked up. The regular meats had some great specials as well as moderately priced lamb (including some marinated kabobs that looked suspiciously like the Upstate NY specialty, spiedies, but probably aren’t) and an array or Chinese marinated pork and chicken (??? but they looked pretty good – like those inexplicably red boneless spareribs) as well as your staples (93% ground beef and boneless chicken breasts were both $1.99, so you’re not going to trash your food budget over there.)
Bulk candies, confections, borscht, veal brains – you could really do some damage. And they almost have a website. Head on over to Baza!
When I finally get around to starting my own punk rock band, I’m going to call it “The Slight Afterfunk of Genuineness.” You’ll get a credit on the CD cover (back).