Yay for the twice baked almond croissants, although they’re priced at a 1.66 each (in a box of 6) vs 66 cents each (in a box of a dozen) for plain ones that I can fairly easily fill and bake at home as I posted in the baking discussion last October.
I’m a big fan of the Extra Fancy Unsalted Mixed Nuts: cashews, almonds, pecans, and pistachios.
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Yay - O’Sole Mio Manicotti, cheese and spinach. Sauce is flavorful and the pasta doesn’t turn to mush. Quick and easy meal for two with leftovers. Add a salad and some garlic bread and three can eat plenty. $10ish.
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YAY for Norwegian Hot Smoked Salmon Trio. Three flavors: Peppercorn (excellent, very tender and flavorful), maple (very good, just enough maple flavor so you know it’s there but not at all overpowering), “traditional” (kind of boring, a bit denser texturally than the other two, but good). Priced very well at ~$16/lb. Will definitely buy this again.
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I looked it up, says out of stock. I can’t tell if it’s from wild or farmed salmon.
It doesn’t say wild, so I’d wager a large amount that it’s not.
Edit: found it on the back of the box:
I wonder how easy it is to find WILD smoked salmon.
I’m afraid to buy these because I can get turned off easily by fishy things. I think the last time I had it was in 2012 when I was visiting NYC and took Anthony Bourdain’s advice and had the Nova bagel.
Ate it on the Staten Island Ferry. Memories.
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Pretty easy. Coscto carries it, so do TJ and whole foods (and most grocery stores). There’s a texture difference between the two.
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I find wild salmon to often be a bit fishier-tasting than farmed salmon. And definitely a texture difference as mentioned by @Saregama; wild is significantly leaner and can be a bit dryer/less luscious, depending on the species. Unless I can get wild king salmon, I tend to prefer the taste and texture of the farmed stuff in most preps. But cold smoked wild sockeye can be really good. TJ’s has a nice one.
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I eat mostly wild salmon, but for (cold) smoked and gravlax (homemade), I prefer the texture of farmed: as you said, it’s more luscious and silky.
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meh on the La Vie portugese tarts, heated in an air fryer, the crust bakes nicely but they’re just too sweet to like. Now what to do with the other 17 
best,
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Said everyone who has ever made an impulse purchase at Costco!
You could pull a Chopped move: Scoop out the cores, add some cream, blend, re-freeze into pastel de nata ice cream, top with a crumble made from the shells. Or…just eat the rest with really strong coffee?
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lol, before I go full chopped mode, thinking I’ll try a pinch of salt and overbaking.
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this actually worked pretty well, added some flaky salt, baked until the top darkened and the pastry crust was just slightly burnt. Not going to rebuy but it is nice to have hot custard in crunchy pastry for breakfy.
best,
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Costco’s bacon crumble/bits are very handy. Someone on reddit says they’ve gone downhill. I’m not sure but I like them. Handy to pump a dish a bit, great for potato salad. I used it for fried rice if I have them on hand. Tried some in Spanish Omelette and thought they worked well. I think it ws $8.99 for 20 oz, already cooked. Way easier than frying and chopping bacon up.
So if you’ve ever walked past the Lunar New Year specials they put out every year and haven’t cared to try them, I went on a splurge last weekend and bought a couple of the high-end stuff. I’ll add reviews of them when I make them. I splurged on the canned abalone and the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall packs.
First up, Golden Nest Premium Bird Nest Soup. Bird’s nest is usually made into savory or sweet soups and treated as a beauty supplement, so it’s marketed a lot towards females in particular. Most off the shelf products will barely have any actual bird’s nest in it (it’s a luxury ingredient, often a few hundred per pound, at least).
I ignored this at first, but out of curiosity picked up the package and looked at the ingredients. Surprisingly birds’ nest was the 2nd ingredient listed, which was a sign you weren’t getting a speck added to a sugary soup. Lower sugar sign was also helpful. The jars are quite small, so I just chugged it room temperature and it was pretty tasty - not too sweet. There is actually a decent amount of birds nest in here (a good Chinese soup spoon full). Has mild “birdy” aroma – I don’t have the right vocab for this, but if you’ve had birds nest in other Chinese soups you might know what I mean. 
Verdict is that it’s tasty and has good amount of birds nest – thumbs up.
Now is it WORTH $45, for 8 tiny jars of this stuff? The eternal question and this could extend to any birds nest product you may try.
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Has anyone tried the roast duck? I’ve been eyeing it for a while.
(Seems like a decent price for cooked & partially boned compared to whole raw duck.)
I will have to look for this. I used to buy these at local supermarkets ~20 years ago. They were good then.
But then you don’t have any delicious bacon fat for future use!!! 
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How much was this at your local Costco? I haven’t seen these yet, but if reasonably priced, I’d give this a try.
