Aldi's

There is an Aldi's a couple miles from here, I drive by it all the time.  Yet for some reason I never went.  I saw someone on Chowhounds mention that they got good chocolate at Aldi's so I decided to go yesterday.  It was a bit different than a regular supermarket experience.  

When you get there you have to have a quarter to get a cart.  They have those things where you put your quarter in and then you get your quarter back when you return the cart.  I remember seeing them at all the supermarkets when I was younger but then they went away.  I usually have all sorts of change everywhere but when I pulled in to their parking lot I had all sorts of trouble finding any.  Apparently I took most of it out of my car at some point and what I've got left did not include quarters.  I eventually found one in my purse.  Whew, that would have been sad if I had finally ventured over there and did'nt have a quarter for the cart.  So I got my cart outside and headed in.  They had all sorts of Valentines day stuff right by the door.  

I saw these boxes of truffles a lot like the ones they have at Whole Foods, same style box though obviously no Whole Foods logo on it so I got 2 boxes, one of regular truffles, one of cappuccino.  They were $2/box vs the 8 or so at Whole foods.  The regular truffles are pretty good, sweeter than the Whole Foods ones but it definitely is good chocolate.  Haven't tried the cappuccino ones yet.  I'll probably take them into work.

I got a thing of mixed peanuts.   I've been needing snacks in my office, it's been pretty sparse for a while now.

I got 4 boxes of cereal, one was Kellogg, the rest was their brand.  Their brand was $1.50 a box, I forget what the Kellogg one was.  I'll take them in to work and see how they are.  (are we picking up on a theme here?)

I got a few cans of tomato products, one of each, diced, sauce, paste to see how they are.  I'll use them... eventually... though apparently I really don't use that much tomato.

I got some frozen stuff, a frozen pizza, onion rings and texas toast, I expect those will be fine.

I thought about getting cheese, it looked fine and I read afterwards it is the same as Sargento's but I have tons of cheese in the fridge and it isn't exactly happy on the stomach so I decided not to.  Their milk was only in 1 gallon jugs and their eggs were the same price as the lady at the Renningers so I decided to stick with Renningers.

I also got a Crofton brand electric kettle.  It's 1.8 quart, the kettle comes off the base so it's portable and it was $10.  I haven't gotten my french press yet (and almost all of my tea is in my office) so I can't make a cup of tea.  It has the heating coils directly in your liquid in the kettle.  It looks OK, but obviously I haven't used it yet.  Maybe I'll make hard boiled eggs.

I think that's all I got.  They had 2 employees working, both at the registers.  Throughout the store, everything is in boxes, the way they are shipped.  I guess that's another one of their cost savings things, not having to pay someone to restock.

I think this may be a bad store for me because I am more inclined to impulse buy because it is so cheap.  Like I so didn't need 4 boxes of cereal but now I have them.  Well it's not like they go bad or anything.  It's a good store.  Can't get everything you need there but so far I am happy with what I got.

I did some more digging on chowhounds.  The canned goods are a bit questionable because they say they have more water filler in there than brand names but I don't buy canned veggies anyway.  

Things I will need to find and try: 

chocolate bars (they say they are good european chocolate, I didn't see them, I was focused on the truffles)

olive oil

ice cream bars

salad mix bags

frozen stuff