Asian Markets Attract Budget-Minded Chefs
Photograph from Jeremy Bautista on Flickr
Shopping at the Asian grocery chain H-Mart might be like a frenzied afternoon at Marshalls—piles of Fuyu persimmons, jars of kimchi, and stacks of slimy fish all compete for space—but the prices put Whole Foods to shame. Granted, you won't always know where your food came from (probably somewhere in Asia) but the products are diverse, inspiring, and recession-friendly.
That's why D.C.-area chefs like Michel Richard of Citronelle and Central are flocking to H Mart and Super H Mart, according to Melissa McCart in the Washington Post.
She notes that at a conventional grocery store, shoppers might find one or two brands of condiments, but at H-Mart, the variety is comparable "to the 10 to 15 pinot grigio offerings in an average wine shop."
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26 Comments:
One of my favorite places - especially for kitchen gadgets. My wife does not like me going there unsupervised.
exvaxman at 8:15PM on 01/07/09
Awesomeness; it reminds me of the 99 Ranch chain.
runnereater at 8:26PM on 01/07/09
This winter, I went twice to the Atlanta location while at home visiting my mom - the produce is good quality, varied, and cheap. An example - cilantro bunches in my local grocery chain are about 1.50 each, but at Super H Mart they were going 3 for 99 cents. Limes were going 5 for a dollar - compared to my local (Chapel Hill, NC Harris Teeter) which sells one for 59 cents and a bag of 8-10 for 3.99. I thought I would find a deal on spices, which was true but their selection was limited. I bought a jar of ground cloves (about 1/2 cup) for $1.79.
evamonos at 8:48PM on 01/07/09
Tomorrow on my day off I'm planning a trip to a Asian market, I love going there!!!! They get some fresh veggies that are great bitty baby bok choy, fresher than fresh bean sprouts. Yummy!!!!
joanpieroni2 at 9:02PM on 01/07/09
I like H-mart, but I tend shop at the Asian market that's even cheaper! Seriously, without Northern VA many Asian markets, I could never afford produce.
KarynMC at 9:09PM on 01/07/09
We've got one here in Memphis that goes by the name "Farmer's Market", but it's not a farmers market and it's inside a converted traditional grocery store. It's part Asian, part Latin/Central American, and part Indian/Middle Eastern/etc. It's a great place to go for cuts like oxtails and short ribs that are often ridiculously overpriced elsewhere. Plus, there's not that many places to get cow hearts, rabbits, duck feet, and other goodies.
Benitowine at 9:13PM on 01/07/09
I love asian grocery stores: I visit my parents often just so I can swing by the brand new QMart close to their house (it's still so new that it's still fabulously clean and well organized, and has all the asian veggies I could possibly want.)
Sour green mangoes? They got it! Kangkong? Heck yeah. And even better? It's so.damn.cheap.
lorelei76 at 9:14PM on 01/07/09
I used to have 3 decent-to-great Korean groceries in my neighborhood, and 2 have sadly closed because of H Mart. I can't quite embrace the mega-mart because I miss those small, family-run stores too much.
miamia at 9:19PM on 01/07/09
H-mart!!!! I loves it... but the counterpart H&Y is nearer to my house and PLUS there's a restaurant, korean bakery and a sushi rolls place attatched to it. I wish I could go more often...
vivosergirl at 9:21PM on 01/07/09
H-mart, yes, yes, yes. Twice as much cilantro, and twice as fresh, for a third the price of Safeway's. A whole aisle of kimchee. Another whole aisle of rice. I'm only slightly exaggerating. Irresistible packets of those spicy-sweet deep-fried wings to munch on in the car, while getting the steering wheel sticky. What's not to love?
emilydev at 9:33PM on 01/07/09
I love asian grocery stores, not for the prices (cheap food scares me actually, I don't want to eat cheap food) but for the variety of stuff. The meat and seafood section have such a huge selection of things you never see in american stores. The produce is also just as varied. They tend to have most eurocentric stuff too, so if you have one nearby you can really get a lot of your shopping done in one place.
simon at 10:08PM on 01/07/09
I have never known of any asian grocery store chains. this one is remarkable. Where is it located?
foodismyspeciality at 10:46PM on 01/07/09
we have an H mart near my house in Denver- LOVE IT! The herb prices are amazing. It's like a foodie disneyland where I wander around looking at labels thinking what on earth could that be??? My BF and his boss love the food court.
bisbee at 11:45PM on 01/07/09
Most of the time, the fruit are fresher at Hmart than at Whole Foods because of the quick turnaround. Korean people eat a ton of fruit! My family buys fruit by the box every week or so, which we eat after every meal. Sometimes when I go to Whole Foods, I'm appalled by the rotting or overripe fruits on display. Now when I go to my parent's house, my mom always sneaks in a Korean pear or white peach in my bag, which I always appreciate when I get home.
bionicgrrrl at 12:17AM on 01/08/09
H-mart rocks!
Great veggies and amazing fruit. Quality seafood.
Fun dry goods (hard to find flours and starches, specialty salts, etc), curious but very useful products like fresh clam juice in a bag (better than the bottled kind! Tastes like clams, not like salt), all kinds of preserved veggies, great prepared foods like marinated beef, kimchi of every stripe, little crunchy whole baby crabs in chili.
Our H-mart also has an excellent food court and bakery, coffee shops and small home goods/gift shops attatched to it. You can go for bedding, liquor, a Korean CD, a new cell phone PLUS your groceries and lunch all in one trip.
H-mart is pretty awesome. Most of the time, a trip up to Mitsuwa means a stop at H-mart, too! Prices are cheaper at H-mart than at Mitsuwa, definitely.
fuuchan at 12:59AM on 01/08/09
They opened an H-Mart near my home (south of ATL--it's on GA 85 if any of you are here in Dixie) about a year or so ago and a ton of my friends have raved about the prices and the quality of the produce. Pinapples were selling for a dollar! They are normally $3.99 at the cheapest at Kroger or Publix. I'm not sure why I have not ventured in, but thanks to this post, I definitely will now.
Unfortunately, I believe this goes against the whole current and very PC "support local growers" mentality, but if it saves me money in the long run, I'm going for it. Plus, I'm suddenly having a craving for Kimchi.
juliebugsmama at 8:50AM on 01/08/09
Avoid going on Sundays. Every Korean family in the area goes there to shop after church service and it's chaos. CHAOS!
LHSK12 at 9:33AM on 01/08/09
I love H-mart (we also have a "Grand-mart" here in Virginia). It's where I buy my sushi grade salmon! I make sushi at home every week (I think that's really how I won over my gf), and the salmon is incredible.
It's also where I get my 20 pound bags of rice, 2 pound bag of wasabi (just twice the price of the 4 ounce can!) and durian! (just kidding about the durian. They have it there, but I sure don't want the smell of rotting death in my house!)
jumpyfroggy at 10:31AM on 01/08/09
I love the big Asian groceries; I couldn't live without them. Going from a mainstream American supermarket into one of the Asian ones is like seeing the screen suddenly shift from black-and-white into luscious living color. But the exotic razzle-dazzle doesn't mean you've left planet Earth: Your shopping still has consequences in the wider world. Sure, they do a great job with the miscellaneous meat cuts, but it's all thoroughly industrial meat, which usually means cruel and seriously polluting. Seafood? Yeah, a fantastic array, and most of it harvested with no concern for the future of those resources, or even the well-being of those who eat them (us!). As for the myriad workers providing that bounty, it's pretty much the same story as in a mainstream low-priced store, if not worse: If you could trace it all, you might have a hard time finding a single item that someone wasn't underpaid to produce.
So, as precious as they may get sometimes, the Whole Foods-type stores have at least begun to bring these issues to the public's attention, and without that discussion there's no future for any of us. Let's hope that in the long run the Asian stores can shame the hippie stores into juiciness, while the hippie stores shame the Asian ones into having a conscience. In the meantime, I for one will need them all.
Barry Foy at 10:57AM on 01/08/09
Well said Barry, spot on.
simon at 12:21PM on 01/08/09
Yes, you do have to be more wary about what your buy at these supermarkets, but no more than you do at a non-Asian supermarket. The Asian supermarket is no more earth-killing than the supermarket that doesn't proscribe to the Whole Foods way of doing things.
Ultimately if you are not going to Trader Joes or Whole Foods, you still have to be a smart shopper and not expect the supermarket to do all the work for you in choosing food that is sustainable, fair trade, local, and/or organic.
However, at least at the H mart near us, they label which seafood is farmed/wild caught and where. The frozen seafood (if you're really inclined, their fresh selection is so much better) is also labeled with where they came from (most likely Chile or Indonesia it seems), so its still pretty easy to steer towards the smarter choices.
fuuchan at 5:26PM on 01/08/09
The closest H-Mart to me is 3 hours away. I've been to the one in Atlanta (Duluth) and fell in love with it. However, now that I prefer to know the source of my food, shopping in the Asian markets at home and out of town isn't something I'm prone to do for perishables. And for non-perishables, I spend a whole lot of time doing label reading and getting in the way of other customers.
So while I do love the places and could, frankly, spend all day at the H-Mart in Duluth, I can't quite bring myself to eat the chicken I could buy there.
FoodPorncess at 5:48PM on 01/08/09
Why wouldn't you shop for perishables in an Asian market?
Its in the U.S., chances are they get their perishables from the same places other supermarkets do...not some top secret Asian place with practices more questionable than your average supermarket.
If you're willing to buy a chicken breast strapped to a bit of styrofoam at the Shop Rite, there's not much difference in buying a piece of chicken breast strapped to a bit of styrofoam in an Asian market. If you have questions about sources, you can ask the market, too.
I actually am more likely to buy meat and seafood in an Asian market than I am in a regular supermarket. Turnover tends to be high because the typical clientele buys so much of it all the time.
There's also an honest to goodness butcher counter in all the Asian markets near me, I don't need to buy ANYTHING strapped to styrofoam!
Chances are the crab or the fish I'm buying at the Asian market is still flopping around and trying to skewer me through the bag as I'm walking out the door.
Of course you still have to use your eyes and nose and sometimes sense of touch to make sure its something you want to buy that day, but I'm not sure what's up with this irrational notion that Asian markets must be up to something especially skeevy.
fuuchan at 1:48AM on 01/11/09
Asian grandmothers have higher food quality standards than dumb white yuppies.
Doctrine at 1:51PM on 01/11/09
H-mart Portland OR - rocks - great prices - great quality. Love it.
butterscotchsq at 5:03PM on 01/12/09
I'm born in the USA but shop mostly at markets where most of the other customers speak English as a second language. Han Au Reum (the former name of H-Mart, actually a branch of a major Korean chain) has long been a favorite (and its number 11--cham pong, a seafood noodle soup with soothing side of kim chi chases away winter viruses quite nicely). Now, another Asian market's a little nearer, but likewise has great quality (and turnover) of produce and fish especially, if not the watch-your-lunch-cook counter. And there are a couple of small local chains (Magruders and El Grande come to mind) with higher quality and cheaper produce and meats than the biggies.
When I visit my dad in the Chicago suburbs, I shop mostly in the small ethnic chains (mostly run by Greeks but catering to Poles, Russians and similar Slavs--my ethnic background) for the highest quality produce and most interesting pickles and deli meats. H-Mart also has a branch (converted from a closed Dominicks/Safeway). I'll also occasionally stop by a Filipiino market. In Philadelphia, it's the Italian market, natch. Funny thing, that's the highest proportion of native English speakers of all the places I shop, though now Spanish is as commonly heard as Trader Joes or Whole foods bags are seen.
The ethnic markets are so much fun to see and try new foods! Sad that our American foodstuffs are processed to death, and it takes our newest neighbors to lead the way back to real food!
jweaver28 at 8:16AM on 01/24/09