Zabar's and Fairway Market
80th/74th Street and Broadway

From the description in my guide book, it sounded like these two "super" markets were rather like Hediard in Paris, or the food area of Harrod's in London. Namely, snobby wildly overpriced gougathons, replete with $5000 wines and $41 truffle hamburger mix.

As I walked into one or the other (I don't remember now), I realized I couldn't have been more wrong. This was no upper-brow Hediard, suffocated by its own superiority.

What it was, in reality, was a microcosm of the wonderful markets that make Parisian food so rewarding, tinged with a bit of Notting Hill market's mad bohemia. Over in produce, Hispanic restaurant employees were tussling with wealthy upper west side women for Italian parsley, each stuffing prodigous amounts almost angrily into their respective bags. The man behind the bread counter kept yelling at the shoppers. I saw a couple of people fighting over the day's last rugelach, people almost brutally trying to jump the queue for meats despite it all being with numbers, and one old lady in a wheelchair desperately trying to be noticed when her turn for fish came around. People were running, and dashing, and bowling each other over, all the while buying and buying and buying.

Amid the chaos was a bevy of terrific products. Spicy sausage, aged beef, vegetables as good as I've seen in America save during my brief trip to California, all sorts of foreign and interesting bits and pieces, and great looking bread. Even the prepared foods looked good; I can now see how people in New York manage without doing much cooking. No, it's still not Paris, I have to say. I bet any little town in Italy would be better. But for America, both these stores are damned good, and have a lot to teach those ridiculous "organic" outlets which have now so heavily esconsed themselves in the dreariness of suburban American. Hail to Zabar's and Fairway! Praise them with great praise!

(Ten points for catching the reference that sentence makes!)