The Food Capital of Connecticut

If Mecca is to Muslims, this is to Fooderatis. This place. Wow. Wow. Double Wow. A million times wow. Stew Leonards claims itself to be the World’s largest dairy, but it’s more than that. It’s a fresh produce palace.

They make pretty much everything on sight. Departments include fresh coffee beans, bakery, patisserie, place where they make potato chips and rice cakes (not sure the actual name of that department, but they even make sweet potato chips – so thick and delicious that I bought a bag to take with me to New York), tortillary, pizzeria, sushi bar, cheese section, seafood, abattoir/butcher, fresh fruit and veg, juicer, smoothie bar, ice creamery, cellar and I’m sure I’ve missed some others. Each section is massive, and has a bigger range than I’ve ever seen in these departments. The fruit and veg section is probably twice the size of your specialty fruit & vegetable shops in Australia. But the thing is that you can consume all these products while you are doing your shopping. Even your trolley has a coffee cup holder in it for you! Each department offers an array of samples and simply give away all their goods that are deemed inferior (i.e. massive bowl of cookies that had fallen apart when they came out of the oven, for consumers to eat, bbq in the butcher section).

This is pretty much your entrée, because when you come to the end, there is one of the biggest buffets I’ve seen, and all of the fresh produce is utilised in it! Simply amazing – you fill up a bowl and they weigh your meal and charge you based on weight. 2lbs (just under a kilo of food) was about $10. Bargain. I don’t think I can aptly describe this place without taking you there, but it makes going to the market an experience. They even had a petting farm out the front for kids! And also a grill out the front where you could order cheap as cheap meals. That was right next to the smoothie bar too. This place – WOW. I officially name it as the food capital of Connecticut.