I'm still waiting for the day Costco has the good sense to stop selling the low-sodium-chicken-meat Spam and bring back the original fully-salted-pork-only Spam onto its bulk-buy pallets (in the meantime I buy my Spam at Fresh & Easy). A while ago, they also stopped stocking the Skinny Cow ice cream cones I used to horde like a fiend.
But alas, last week I found a new item at the Tustin Costco that I hope they never ever stop selling. These are simply labeled generically “Helados Mexico”, and they are paletas, Mexican ice pops made of fruit and, in this case, also milk. A friend said that he's been enjoying these paletas for years and that Costco has carried it for as long as he can remember.
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If that's the case, I'm sorry I waited until now to try them. The
coconut is packed full of the grated meat suspended in a rich, milky
frozen confection that melts like smooth coconut ice cream. The mango is
just slighty tart, but silky going down, and not cloying since it's
flavored with the real fruit. The fresa (strawberry) is the perfect
amalgam of strawberries and cream.
They're still no substitute for the homemade wonders and the myriad of flavors that mom-and-pops like Nevería Flor de México
offers; but if you're looking for an entry-level paleta, these are a
good buy. At $9.19 for 24 pops, it comes out to a very reasonable
38-cents a piece.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.
OMG, got these the other day and I’m addicted! I’m in Charlotte NC and have never seen them at Costco until last week. They are fantastic and a really inexpensive treat.