Yeah I know, it was just so crazy I wanted to mention it somewhere and this post worked lol. Fwiw it was from https://www.draegers.com.

Draegers is probably the most expensive grocery store I have ever set foot in. The one near San Mateo has a crazy wine selection sometimes but I literally cannot fathom buying a week's groceries there. Beautiful produce, but you can get beautiful produce at a farm stand for a couple bucks too.

Not sure how to feel about the existence of luxury grocery stores. I'm sure the people who shop there are happy.

It's the only place that has guanciale and decent pancetta near me, plus they sell pasta from my in-laws village in Italy, which is fun to cook carbonara with from time to time. They also sell wagyu which is hard to find in the Bay Area! I absolutely would never ever do my actual weekly shopping from there!

Speaking as someone who spent an hour last week fruitlessly looking for pancetta that wasn't factory packaged in plastic, you raise a good point!

Check it out! It's really quite good - comes in a proper slab you cube yourself. They also have some pretty nice American Wagyu steaks around the $30 mark which I've been using for yakiniku parties (thinly cut and cooked on a grill in the middle of the table)! As long as you want something semi-specialist they're great but general items like chicken breasts or broccoli are just mental.