Taste of Europe

Awesome store with a great variety of grocery and deli items. Mouthwatering prepared foods display!

I went here, and although it seems a little small it has a fairly good selection. I went with a friend and we bought a few stuffed rolls to try (which were delicious!). Like Jodi H. (the reviewer from June 2011) I was at first surprised by the way my change and receipt were handed to me, which consisted of the woman slapping the money down onto the counter, but when I mentioned it later on to my friends, one of my Eastern European friends explained that in their culture, you never hand money directly to the customer, but instead place it on the counter to give it to them. It is what is considered «polite» so apparently the woman was being nice after all and I was just culturally ignorant. I think I would like to visit again, and maybe expand my selections so that I can truly get a «taste of europe» :)

This place has moved down the street to a few blocks before you get to Ivars and now has their own building. The same people work there, and it was spic and sparkling clean. But the delicious pastries are now stale old pastries and the farmer’s cheese in my roll tasted gritty. They’ve shifted the focus off pastry to expensive packaged cakes and big wheels of bread (although the bread looked good).
The woman took my money this time although she still threw my change on the counter. «And» she gave me a bag. A miracle!
I only went there for the pastries, and it’s been a long time, but now that their pastry is nasty, what’s the point?

Amazing dumplings () in this Russian store, going there again at the new location:
24 225 104^th Avenue Southeast
Kent, WA 98 030

Squee! So much choice in Russian ice cream and pickled mushrooms, and a passable selection of cheeses. They really can’t be beat in terms of baked goods, though, seeing as how they bake their own bread in-​shop and it’s awesome.
Lots of familiar brands from across Russia as well as the usual Eastern European stuff that you’ll find inside Valley Harvest proper and the stuff that’s sold only to Russian expats in the US. There was a very friendly woman there who really put it over the top for me – despite a huge language barrier, she was patient with helping me out with some obscure stuff I was looking for.

While it’s called «Taste of Europe,» there are two important things to know about this grocery store:
* It’s entirely inside the larger Valley Harvest store, next to McLendon’s Hardware. It takes about one-​third of their space.
* It seems the «Europe» in question is almost entirely the Ukrainian part of Europe.
Having said that — wow, this place has a great deal of Ukrainian items: deli meats, tea, coffee, soft drinks, crackers, biscuits, candies, tinned veg, tinned seafood, etc. etc. In addition, Valley Harvest proper sells beer, wine, frozen seafood, more meats, and much else besides.