Excellent Shopping Adventure
The new HEB Plus! stores opened this fall with great advertising fanfare (those Queen-inspired choral arrangements!), but it took me a while to plan a shopping excursion to one of the two area locations. Two weeks ago, a friend and I spent an afternoon traipsing up and down the aisles of the gigantic new store on Highway 79 east of Round Rock, not far from the Dell Diamond. The new concept is impressive: an upscale HEB with a few aspects of Central Market and a product diversity approaching a SuperTarget/Wal-Mart. More than 10 years ago, HEB corporate planners looked into the future and visualized Central Markets – this new hybrid store is their current vision. While I personally am not interested in shopping for food, light fixtures, furniture, motor oil, and DVDs all in the same place, research must have shown that a substantial percentage of consumers are clamoring for just such a shopping experience because that’s exactly what this place has to offer.
Though I’ll have to admit I was tempted by a bench for my front porch in the Texas Backyard department, I really had my best time in the produce section. I snapped up a bag of tiny, super sweet clementines; a few flavors of POM-Wonderful juice to assuage my newly discovered pomegranate jones; and several bottles of HEB’s signature salad dressings called Texas Twisters. The Texas Twisters are my new favorite dressings, marinades, and sandwich spreads. We bought and used them all, and here’s what we can suggest: Brush the creamy Sesame Honey Garlic on salmon before grilling or roasting; use the Orange Habanero Vinaigrette to marinate pork; the Roasted Poblano Caesar is great on hearts of romaine with warm polenta croutons; toss boiled shrimp and Ruby Red grapefruit sections in the Creamy Avocado; and slather the Chipotle Thousand Island on sandwiches or big chunks of iceberg lettuce. I like these a lot and will look for them in my neighborhood HEB.
Yan Can in Austin
Acclaimed Asian chef Martin Yan will be very busy in Austin this weekend. He’s scheduled to direct a master class and give the commencement address at the Texas Culinary Academy (11400 Burnet Rd., 837-2665, www.tca.edu), be the guest of honor at Midnight With Martin at Satay Restaurant (3202 W. Anderson Ln., 467-6731, www.satayusa.com) on Friday night, Jan. 20, from 10pm to midnight, and finally be the keynote speaker and receive an entrepreneurship award at the annual Texas Asian Chamber of Commerce Lunar New Year Gala (www.txasianchamber.org) on Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Hilton Downtown. In between galas, he’ll squeeze in some time to sign copies of his new Chinatown Cooking. Check online for ticket information for any of these events.
This article appears in January 20 • 2006.