Our first shopping experience at an Italian Grocery Store

We finally went shopping at a local Italian Grocery Store! It was for sure an experience but we tried to blend in. I only wanted to punch about 4 people for bumping into me & Amber or about plowing us over and not saying excuse me but that’s the way people are here so I tried to ignore it. The store was called Emisfero and it was located inside the mall called Palladio. It was kind of like a Walmart I’d say. There was a small department for clothing but I didn’t notice if there were shoes. There was a department for household goods, garden center, party supplies, electronics, baby items, etc. The strange things was that you had to deposit .5 Euro to rent a shopping cart! We got a small basket with a handle & wheels that was free.
The main part of Emisfero’s was the grocery store. It was isle after isle of Italian foods. There was a large selection of fresh fish (and you can smell it before you see it), fresh meat or packaged meats already weighed out, frozen meats, and live animals just roaming the store waiting to be purchased. . . Ok not really live animals! I was just seeing if you were paying attention! The selection of bread like sandwich bread and hot dog or burger buns was scarce but loaves of fresh bread seemed plentiful. Of course the cheese selection was wide and packaging varied from prepackaged processed cheese to fresh sliced or by the chunk that you would have to slice yourself at home.
My favorite isle was the pasta isle! There was pasta for what seemed like miles! Round pasta, square, thin, pinwheel shaped, pasta nests, ziti, flat pasta! I didn’t even know they made pasta in so many styles! I’m not joking when I say there had to be a thousand different pasta varieties and styles!
The other parts of the store that had a large selections were the dessert or cookie isles, frozen foods, yogurt, & wine/beer. There was probably five to six isles of Italian cookies and desserts. I’ve not tried any yet but I’ve heard the Italians love their desserts but they do not taste good to Americans! The frozen department had mostly the same type frozen things we have in America just more of it and in most of it in Italian. Jonathan picked out some pistachio Ice Cream. It was about 4.50 euro for 6 pretty good size ice cream bars. The yogurt isle was crazy! Both sides of the 25 ft long isle was nothing but yogurt! I didn’t buy any but I heard it was really good. We will try some another time & let you know. I just glanced at the wine and beer isle, I mean isles! There was a very large selection and I saw one bottle of wine that was 60 euro! I noticed the canned beer was packaged by the 2 pack, yes I said two! Jonathan bought a 3 pack of Budwieser. It was just over 3 euro if I remember correctly.
A department that I found lacking was the soda isle. It wasn’t even really an isle but more like a display in between two isles. We found coca cola packaged in a 4-pack of 1 liter bottles for about 5 euro and they had Pepsi by the regular 2 liter bottle but I didn’t see the price on those. The other soda they had was lemon flavored (we got that kind) orange, grape, and that’s all I can remember. They drink a lot of carbonated water here I guess because that was something I saw a lot of. The lemon soda tastes like carbonated lemonaid. It’s much better cold. The lemon soda is not bad but I think it would be better to use as a mixer with vodka or something rather than just drinking a cup of it with lunch or something.
When we got to the fresh fruit and vegetable section it was crowded but smelled wonderful! I’m going to assume most things sold there were from local growers because everything smelled & looked very fresh. We got strawberries (a regular size you would buy in America) for 1.29 euro. We didn’t need anything else but I might start going there for my fruits and vegetables so I’ll let you know how that goes.
The check out was different than in America because they charge you for the bags if you don’t bring your own. When we are loading your items onto the belt you grab a few bags from under the register and after she scans the items you start bagging your own groceries. We had 4 bags and there was a .2 euro charge at the end of our receipt so I’m assuming the bags are .5 euro each. We will bring our own bags from now on! Obviously they only take Euro or Credit cards. We paid with Credit/debit. The cashier slides your card for you. As for the receipt, everything was listed out with the price and the total at the bottom just like in America.
I personally liked Emisfero better than the Commissary & PX because of their larger selections but I don’t know if they accept coupons and I’m not even sure where to get the coupons if they do accept them. I think I’ll get my fresh fruits and vegetable and some different Italian foods and maybe some household goods from Emisfero but the regular American foods that I have coupons for I will get at the Commissary.