I frequent Trader Joe's (TJ's) quite often and I'm astounded that many items I find there are what I would find in a European grocery, specifically French.

I lived in France for two years and ever since I came back, I've been frequenting Trader Joe's to do my groceries because it has a lot of the products that I would find at a Monoprix, Carrefour or Franprix.

These are some example of foods that I've encountered at TJ's that I'd find in a Frenchy grocery.

Speculoos - they're the spiced cookies/biscuits that are served with coffee or tea. at tj's it's bistro biscuits. the origin of country is belgium.

Speculoos butter - belgium. (it's basically a sweet paste/butter, like peanut butter, made from speculoos.

frozen veggie mixes - ratatouille, haricots, provençal vegetable, home potatoes with green beens, this is the the same s*** that's in the frozen section at Franprix, Carrefour and Monoprix! it's been repackaged, but the origin of product is still FRANCE.

pound plus chocolate - belgium

so i guess my real question is what company(ies) in europe supplies(y) trader joe's? they're quality products at reasonable price.

thanks.

natewrites,

first of all, i'm astounded that so many chow subscribers are of the same opinion that the cupcake food trend is fatiguing.

for me, this is my list of food trends that...hmm...just "irk" me:

cupcakes - to sum it up, it's just a f***ing cupcake. nothing special. get over it. it should never cost more than 2 $ for one.

macarons - paradoxically, i love the little fancy french oreos, but i hate how every little "french" and "prententieuse" "patisserie" in LA and NY are making them the bee's knees and charging a more than exorbitant price for one. another thing: in regards to spelling and pronunciation it's macaron [mah-cah-rohn] NOT macaroon [ma-ca-roon] (long u) NO! they're technically both correct, but for all intents and purposes refer to those fancy french oreos as MACARONS and the coconut meringue cookies as MACAROONS.

crème fraîche - every "chef" loves adding this s*** to anything. i like it too, but people need to stop going ape s*** over "fresh cream." also, the crème fraîche in the US does not taste like the crème fraîche that i've had in france. well, the trader joe's one at least and that one is too expensive for crème fraîche and i've lived in france for two years.

coconut health drinks - it's just coconut juice plain and simple. it's not a miracle drink, so rihanna, stop promoting it. but if you like coconut juice, good for you. it's cheaper at the filipino store though. if you think it's a miracle drink WRONG.

gluten free - maybe i should do some research before i start ranting about this, but what's so bad about gluten? so many good foods contain gluten. i just don't understand it. unless you're allergic, why would you suppress yourself to eating gluten free? if you live longer, cool, but you're missing out on some wonderful bites.

whole foods - i'd rather go to trader joe's (tj's). some of the products at both stores are exactly the same thing with a different package. tj's is cheaper though. look here: http://www.chow.com/food-news/54340/w...

i think that's it for now. i was gonna bag on the idea of marketing an item as french, but that's another story.

So...I just moved to Vincennes, near St Mandé, not too far from Paris and I wanted to know if some of the French/Parisian users would be able to to suggest some restaurants, cafés, boucheries, boulangeries etc around me.

Alors...je viens de déménager à Vincennes, près de St Mandé, pas trop loin de Paris et je voulais savoir si qqn français/parisien pourrait me conseiller des restos, cafés, boucheries, boulangeries etc autour de moi.

thanks!

mike