Balcucci is a famous grocery in lower Manhattan. It was founded in 1916 as a fruit and vegetable stand by Luis Balducci, an immigrant from Bari, Italy.
Now it is a legendary grocery store that sells only high end products.
You can find the best fruit, vegetable, meat, fish or almost whatever you want.
It is just like Kinokuniya or Meijiya in Tokyo, and Ikari supermarket in Kobe area.
I only bought some fruit, cheese and wine which didn’t need cooking.

One day Shun, who was doing his Residency in San Francisco then, came to NYC and stayed at my apartment. I took him on a neighborhood tour and stopped by at Balducci's. Shun looked around the store excitedly and bought a fresh fish and made delicious sashimi back in my apartment. He was a very good cook.

Shun learned that I had no gift for cooking. Later on we worked together on the project at the American Hospital of Paris. At that time I was living alone in Paris and I didn’t cook often by myself, but I tried at least to cook a steak.
I bought a new frying pan in Paris and successfully cooked a perfect steak with thanks to the new pan. I felt so happy with the success and called my wife in Kobe.
I regrettably spoke about the episode to Shun. Since then, Shun has made fun of me saying, "Tom is such a greenhorn that he makes an international call to his wife to report a successful cooking of a steak."