Fair and Balanced: a decent Walmart, plus a kosher market

Ok, I was a little rough on Walmart in the previous post. So I thought I'd show'em some love.

I like the Walmart Neighborhood market on the east side of Coit between Belt Line and Arapaho. No big box stuff, only groceries and related gear. The selection is about normal (decent) and the price is about normal (good-to-great) but the overall ambience is really why you would go. It's like walmart and Whole Foods had a baby.

Quiet, not crowded, and good prices. If it weren't on the other side of town from me it might be my go-to grocery.

BTW, the my Chinese connection at work (Speaks Cantonese) says that Tong's, which shares the same parking lot and was thought to be the best authentic Chinese food in the north Dallas area, has sold and lost its luster. :-(


Also in the same parking lot is a relative newcomer, the Milk and Honey Jewish market. A small market full of kshr goods, it also has a lunch counter. I bought some tea and crackers there. Picked up a QBLH newsletter and chatted a bit with the cashier. Turns out his brother owns the place. I'd like to stop in and have lunch some time. The bad pic above is an attempt to show where Milk and Honey is.

Speaking of kshr, my recent forays into Arabic markets has introduced me to halal, which seems to be ritually pure food for Muslims the way that KSHR food is for Jewish folks. I ate some halal marshmallows; they were better-than-average but also cost about 3x as much as a bag of Kraft marshmallows would.

Now that's a pretty good digression. Walmart to halal marshmallows in about 5 minutes.

Worst. Walmart. Ever.

Ok, so Walmart can be exasperating even under the best of conditions. (A comic once noted about NASCAR, "if I wanted to watch rednecks go around in circles I would go to Walmart".) But the one at 75/Midpark is horrific.

I think you can sometimes tell about the inside of a retail store by the parking lot situation outside. This parking lot is chaotic, dirty, and full of people who cannot walk, drive, or park like humans. The inside of the store is full of people who cannot walk, shop, or park their carts like humans.

Here are the special features available once you actually get inside the door:
* loud parents that shout to each other across the store
* Screaming snotty kids
* carts parked side-by-side in the aisle so no one can walk by
* staff that actually blocks your shopping activities (I don't care if you don't help; please don't keep me from selecting an item or from paying for it).
* slothlike cashiers
* moronic customers who want to jabber and "confront" the sloth about some percentage of rung-up items.
* moronic customers whose cards get declined and who then have to "confront" someone about it.

Then there are the carts dragged across the nearby neighborhoods and abandoned upside down or on their side. Items opened in the lot and the packaging thrown on the asphalt. Used diapers and wipes in the lot.

If you find yourself needing AA batteries in the middle of the night, go to 7-11 instead and happily pay the 50% markup. You will be happier for it and be less likely to be shot.

This place needs to be bulldozed.

Star of Siam - Dinner review

When I lived here before I used to swing by for the salad rolls.

The Dear Wife and I stopped in for dinner. The parking is horrible, spaces tight, and there are shady characters walking around (the area to the immediate west of this location along Spring Valley is probably the roughest part of Richardson).

The place is small and somewhat divey on the inside but that doesn't bother me.

Win: Attentive and pleasant service from a young (presumably Thai) waitress, who held the place down by herself despite her age. Salad rolls are excellent, crisp and seem to radiate healthiness. Yum!

Lose: Comic Book Guy at the next table. I learned I don't like coconut soup although theirs is supposed to be good. Ditto for tom yum. Wife's Thai fried rice was not the lovely, light, fresh dish we have had at other Thai eateries, but rather a heavy, dank mess.

I don't think we will be going back, unless I get a craving for those salad rolls.

Star of Siam
708 W. Spring Valley
Richardson Tx
972 497 9542

Recycling

The wife was gung-ho on recycling, but I was only mildly interested. I did want to try my hand at composting, though. Seems wasteful to throw out all those spent tea leaves.

Turns out that Richardson has a pretty good recycling program and picks up 1x/week on one of your normal trash days. After we started getting the compostable and recycleable materials in their respective bins it turns out that most of our waste no longer goes in the trash.

It's astounding, really. I assume we'd have something like a 25% decrease in trash, and it's more like 65% decrease. We only fill up a trash bag about every 10 days now.

It takes almost zero work and it seems like we are doing something useful.

Pho Pasteur II - dinner review

Ate at the famed Pho Pasteur II today. It was good but not transcendant. The DW and I have eaten at the (original?) Pho Pasteur in Carrollton and like this Richardson restaurant and food better.

Win: great decor; almost hip. Well-constructed spring rolls. Attentive service. Good (though not great) broth; slightly bland with a barely noticeable soapy aftertaste? Good tripe. Discreet but easily viewed flatscreens for football. Nice big coke glasses.

Lose:spring rolls small and somewhat more expensive than usual. Screaming children during our visit though that is not the fault of the restaurant.


In case you're wondering, here is how I rate pho:

1. Pho Huy from the mid-late 90s. Amazing.
2. Tie: Pho Huy now, Pho Pasteur II. Good.
3. Pho Pasteur (Carrollton), Pho Bistro (Carrollton). Respectable.

Pho Pasteur II
1342 E. Beltline Rd
Richardson, Tx 75081

Que Huong - dinner review

First off, if you haven't had a hot bowl of pho ("fuh") you need to do so ASAP. It's seriously good stuff.

This is not my favorite pho place (quy hong is, or was) and I've heard great things about Pho Pasteur II, but it made for a nice dinner.

I like the bo (meatballs, aka "beef balls") so that's what I had. Most folks have one of many styles/types of thinly sliced beef.

Win: decent broth, quiet ambience, decent flavor on spring rolls
Lose: fried onion bits in the rolls were a good idea, but were unexpectedly hard.


Pho Que Huong
300 Terrace Dr
Richardson, TX
(972) 497-9661

Post-mortgage scammers

Before we bought the house I was listening to some mortgage-related podcasts. One of them mentioned to be wary of any mortgage-related snailmail and phonecalls you receive after closing.

Boy, were they right.

Each day we get 1-2 pieces of scareware junkmail that mocks up the correspondence to make it look like it came from your mortgage company. There is a tiny asterisk which leads to a footnote that says something "we are scammers, and are not associated with your mortgage company". But how many gullible folks fall for this?

The wife and I are fighting back in a small way. We dutifully mail back each "no postage necessary" envelope back to the mothership. These envelopes contain no information that identifies us. Hopefully {this} return brings income to the USPS and dings the scammers a few cents. We shred and recycle the rest of the packet.