Last Tuesday night I went to
H-Mart, the long awaited Korean supermarket in Burlington. If you took all the inventory in every single Chinatown grocery market, turned 90% of the inventory into Korean items, then filled a Super Stop & Shop with it, and had the people from Target do the merchandising you'd have H-Mart.
I got there at 8, so I only had an hour before the store closed. The food court was still busy so I skipped that. Even though there weren't lines at most places, all the seats were taken. The rest of the store was still busy, too. It wasn't packed, and I didn't have to wait long to checkout an hour later, but there was a good number of people there for that time of night. I'd say the parking was 90% full. Because this is the only H-Mart in New England it's hard to tell if it's this busy because it just opened, or if it will continue to be this busy because it's now the go-to place for Korean food, as well as East Asian food staples in general.
H-Mart has an entire kimchi section - I had no idea there was such a thing as chive kimchi. They had jars of cucumber kimchi, but the eat by date was 10/18, and I doubt I could eat that much cucumber kimchi by then, but it seems weird that kimchi would go bad... Isn't that the point of kimchi? Anyway, next to the kimchi were packages of fresh made
panchan (Korean side dishes). I bought a package of tasty julienned dried squid - it doesn't look like squid so I'm be able to eat it. I think they also had sprouts and black beans and other stuff, but I didn't see the soy fish cake stuff I like a lot, or the stir fried soy beans. I'll have to ask someone what the Korean names are for those, and how to make them in case H-Mart doesn't carry them pre-made.
In the noodle section I saw bags of what seemed to be all different brands of
chapchae noodles, as well as buckwheat noodles, and Vietnamese vermicelli. In a refrigerated case across from the meat area there were refrigerated noodles, fish cakes, and bean curd. I bought a bag of the noodles - it's like fresh pasta with sauce. You cook the noodles for a short time, and then mix with the sauce. I haven't tried it yet.
The produce section looked really gorgeous, but I didn't see anything exotic. I'm sure there were Asian pears around, and probably some Asian fruit, I just didn't see them, but I also didn't spend a lot of time there. They also had regular American food like apples and zucchini.
The meat and fish section was really impressive, I think mostly because I saw cuts of meat that you don't normally see in Stop & Shop. I saw tongue, but sliced up so it doesn't look like tongue - it looks like regular meat. They also had thin sliced rib eye and other types of meat for stir frying or hot pot. I was excited to see marinated chicken, pork, and rib eye for making
bulgogi without making the marinade yourself. I bought nearly 2 pounds of marinated rib eye strips and tried some last night. It was good, but not all the pieces were cut into strips, so it seemed a little tough. That or I cooked it too long. If you want to save money you can just by rib eye cut into strips and make your own marinade. I don't know what the price difference is, but the marinated rib eye was around $2-3/pound. If, on the other hand, you want to be ridiculously extravagant, you can also spend $15-17/pound and buy strips of short rib meat that's been cut from the bone and rolled into neat little pinwheels... Kalbi, but without the problem of holding slippery bones with chopsticks! Although then it wouldn't be cooked on the bone, so it might not be as tasty...
And they had lots of fish. It looked beautiful. Clams, mussels, whole fish, etc. I didn't look at it, but I may have seen sushi grade tuna! Speaking of fish, I did see somewhere in the store, maybe near the kimchi, jars of cooked octopus.
As you might expect, they had tons of different soy sauces and sesame oils. I had no idea there was such a thing as dark/black sesame oil... And I think I saw rice syrup, too.
One downside, and this really isn't H-Mart's fault, is that a lot of the processed foods I looked at - ramen soup, fish cake tubes - has MSG in it.
There's also regular, American food there, too. I didn't look too closely, but I did see Welch's grape jelly, regular cereal, etc. So you can do your regular grocery shopping along with getting Asian stuff, which is a nice time and gas saver.
The store, like a Super Stop & Shop, has a house wares section. Unlike Stop & Shop, H-Mart has more rice cookers than I've ever seen before, at least in the US, as well as serving bowls and lots of other cookware.
In addition to groceries and a food court, H-Mart has smaller stores within, such as a Hello Kitty shop, a small jewelry area and a home furnishings area where you can buy Asian chests and kimchi refrigerators (in-count half fridges - like European style refrigerators; in Korea they're marketed for storing your kimchi away from your regular food) and a flat panel TV (I only saw one model).
It's on the Middlesex Turnpike near the Burlington Mall. H-Mart is in the same shopping center as Jo-Ann Fabrics and Market Basket. Fortunately, there's a traffic light so you're not stuck in the chicken lane waiting to turn left. The store itself is behind the main part of the shopping area, but they have signs pointing you to it. Be careful, though, but the mini-access roads are a little weird and people unfamiliar with the parking lot might cut you off. I nearly got sideswiped when I was leaving - I think the other driver didn't realize they were supposed to yield. The store is in an old La-Z-Boy building, and it feels really huge - bigger than a Super Stop & Shop, but I can't be certain if it really is bigger or just feels bigger.
