Day in and day out, food shoppers love to hate the H Mart in Little Ferry

At the H Mart on Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, two of the biggest complaints among shoppers are the potholes and mini lake of water in the parking lot, above, and the dual wheelchair ramps customers must use to reach the entrance, below.

Inside, the shabby entrance way, below, wouldn't be out of place in the third world.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Food shopping can be good exercise, especially if you park your car far from the store entrance.

At the H Mart in Little Ferry, the Korean management doesn't give you much choice. 

On Sunday, the parking lot was flooded from a recent snowfall, and I didn't want to splash through the water in my car, which I had had cleaned the day before.

Employees say H Mart doesn't own the property, and can't force the landlord to repair the parking lot.

Korean specialties

Still, I shop at this H Mart -- the shabbiest major supermarket in North Jersey -- for fresh fish, a wide selection of fresh Asian greens, fruit and California-grown white rice, usually at low prices, and because it is relatively close to my home.

I also love such prepared Korean specialties as stewed pollack, japchae and kimbap, though prices for them have risen dramatically in the past year or so.

The weekends also mean free samples of seafood, noodles and other items, but they tend to come and go at the whim of the managers or you might be scolded for taking more than one piece of a grilled rice-flour pancake.

Many complaints

Shoppers have complained about the Little Ferry H Mart on Yelp:

A woman from Palm Harbor, Fla., said this about her visit in December:

"I'm giving this place three stars because they are smaller than the other HMARTS I have been to. I'm not sure if it was just me, but I couldn't find their prepared foods. I feel like this location definitely needs a renovation as it looks exactly the same as it did fifteen years ago. Their selection is okay but again not the best. I would only recommend coming here if it is the closest Korean market to you, and there is no way you can go to another location. As for me, I don't think I would ever be returning to this location."

A man from Rutherford visited last April and praised only the fruit:

"I think they use The H-Mart parking lot for the filming of 'Battle of Stalingrad', craters, drowning pools with dead sea gulls floating, decaying desolation everywhere to go along with the rundown exterior of the H-Mart building, which itself still contains the closed down hulk of the old Valley Fair department store. Than you need to climb a giant ramp to enter the store, past a dingy liquor store and then, and then, then you find yourself in a oases of colorful fresh fruits. Korean Melons and Pears, Japanese Persimmons, Dragon fruit. Kumquats, Chinese Litchi and Star fruit. Beautiful just beautiful.
This is the best part of the market. After this, it begins to run down again and if you walk to the other end you have the fishy smelling fish market. BLAH.
Who is running this place? Only the produce manager cares; the only reason I come here is for the fruits."

All the other Bergen County supermarkets in the Korean chain (Fort Lee, Ridgefield and Englewood) are newer or have been renovated.

And there have been rumors for the last couple of years that a new store and food court will be built in the vacant half of the sprawling former Valley Fair building at 360 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry.

But so far, H Mart has only announced that a new store will open on Route 17 north in Paramus.

Still, there have been signs of construction on the Little Ferry building.

Work on the enormous former Valley Fair building began last year, above and below, but so far appears to be confined to the foundation, which looks like it was built on stilts to avoid floodwaters.

Shoppers put up with the Little Ferry H Mart in hopes of finding bargains on produce, such as two heads of red-leaf lettuce for 99 cents, above.

A 5-pound box of Spanish Clementines was $3.99 on Dec. 4, but on Sunday, the price was back to $7.99. The day before, Whole Foods Market in Closter also was selling a 5-pound box of clementines for $7.99. A 15-pound bag of California-grown Kokuho Yellow Label Rice was $9.99 at H Mart.

Korean-style Stewed Alaskan Pollack is a long-time favorite, but I was alarmed to see for the first time that monosodium glutamate, a controversial ingredient, is being added to the prepared fish dish I brought home on Sunday from the Little Ferry H Mart. Jinga of Queens, N.Y., also is adding corn syrup to the pollack (see label below), so I'll have to look for the dish from another outside Korean food company.

Same chain, same 15-pound bag of rice, so why is it double the price?

The H Mart in Fort Lee displays bags of rice just beyond the checkout counters, because the staff says there isn't room for them anywhere else in the store. Today, this 15-pound bag of rice was selling for twice what I paid on Saturday at another H Mart.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We shop regularly at stores in the H Mart chain for prepared Korean food, Asian greens, fresh wild-caught fish and free samples on the weekends.

Today, I drove to the Fort Lee store, where I found a box of 16 Ataulfo Mangoes from Ecuador on sale for $9.99 with a store card -- a discount of $5 -- and two heads of Red Leaf Lettuce for only 99 cents.

After I checked out, I saw a sign for a 15-pound bag of Kokuho Yellow Label Rice for $19.99, twice what I paid the day before at the Little Ferry H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike.

In Little Ferry, the California-grown rice was $9.99, a discount of $10, according to the sign there.

This isn't the first time I've noticed different prices for the same item at stores in the H Mart chain, but I haven't seen anything as dramatic as the prices for rice in Little Ferry and Fort Lee. 

Squeeze play

At the Little Ferry store, I also picked up a 5-pound box of Bagu Clementines from Spain for $4.99, a discount of $3; and a package of Stewed Alaskan Pollack for $7.99.

The clementines rang up at $7.99, but I told the cashier the sign said they were on sale for $4.99. 

She went to get the sign, scanned the bar code on it to give me the lower price, but didn't return the sign to the display of clementines.

In Fort Lee today, a 5-pound box of clementines was $6.99.

Whole sea bass, which my wife seasoned and fried in olive oil, were $6.99 a pound on Saturday at the Englewood H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave.

A Korean Finger Roll or Kimbap is even tastier when you add a couple of pieces of kimchi to it and wrap them in a lettuce leaf. A package of rolls with Korean pickles was $4.79 today at the Fort Lee H Mart in the Linwood Plaza shopping center.

Before I went food shopping today, I joined two friends for breakfast at the Rochelle Park Diner & Grill, 222 Rochelle Ave., Rochelle Park (201-843-0068), below. My tasty three-egg Florentine Omelet, with spinach and feta cheese, was $7.25, including potatoes and toast.

At the Rochelle Park Diner, the umbrella stand and clock are eye-catching, above and below.

At H Mart in Little Ferry, are some of the savings exaggerated?

At H Mart in Little Ferry, is one 15-pound bag of white rice for $12.88, above, a better deal than two bags for $19.99 with a store card, below? I pay a few dollars more for Kokuho Yellow Label Rice because it is grown in California.

The label of the cheaper rice doesn't specify where it is grown in the United States.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After a trip to H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday, I looked over my receipt to see how much I had saved on clementines and a 16-pack box of spicy noodle soup.

A 5-pound box of Bagu Clementines from Spain were $5.99, and the receipt said I saved $4 over the "regular price" of $9.99.

But other stores list the retail price of clementines as $7.99.

A box of 16 4.2-ounce servings of Shin Ramyun, a spicy instant noodle soup that is MSG free, was $9.99, compared to the regular price of $16.99, a savings of $7.

You have to present an H Mart Smart Savings Card to get many discounts, and I get the feeling the Korean supermarket chain sometimes exaggerates savings.

In 2011, the box of Shin Ramyun contained 20 portions, not the 16 you find today, and the retail price was $15.99.

A year ago, the 16-portion box was on sale at the same time for $12.99 at the H Mart in Fort Lee and for $9.99 at H&Y Marketplace in Ridgefield.

The label of Kokuho Yellow Label rice says it is "100% California grown."

The Hukukome Rice makes no such claim.

At the Little Ferry H Mart, I also purchased a 1.6-pound package of prepared Stewed Tofu from Pinocchio Catering for $5.99 (the label listed the weight incorrectly as 4 ounces). This was a better buy than a smaller package from Jinga, another caterer, for $4.29.

Mirrors, signs, floors and more

The French bakery in Englewood has a small retail store filled with delights.

Stopping for baguettes at Balthazar Bakery in Englewood doesn't sound like it would be risky, but on Wednesday I found a broken telephone-pole-mounted mirror at the exit that didn't show approaching buses, trucks or cars.

I had to inch my car out of the small parking lot as I tried to peer around parked cars for traffic bearing down on me on narrow, one-way South Dean Street, which is something of a raceway.

For many years after the wholesale bakery's retail store opened in late 2002, customers took their lives into their hands driving out of the lot.

The round, convex mirror was installed two or three years ago.

I called the bakery today and was assured someone would be sent outside to fix the mirror (214 S. Dean St., Englewood; 201-513-9717).

At Bergen Town Center in Paramus, personal improvement, home improvement; and smoking, drinking and eating fried food are all available at one exit off Route 4 east.

The new sign at Giant Farmers Market in Hackensack is too small for the full name. I prefer to drive out of my way to shop for fresh fish and produce at H Mart in Little Ferry.

 

The floor at Han Yang, a supermarket in Bergenfield, is clean in spots and badly worn in others, above and below. Prices seem higher and produce and prepared food don't look as good as they do at H Mart, the Korean supermarket at the Little Ferry Circle.

Mandu as a lure

Han Yang in Bergenfield is trying to attract new customers with the grand opening of a Mandu Factory inside the Korean supermarket.

Mandu, also spelled "mandoo," are Korean dumplings filled with kimchi, noodles, meat or vegetables.

I spent 30 minutes in the store on Thursday while my son was across the street taking a piano lesson.

The mandu weren't the small dumplings I've eaten in the past, but what one woman referred to as "king mandu" or large, steamed buns. 

I told the woman behind the counter I don't eat meat and she said I could buy the mandu with kimchi, but after she took the money, I asked again, and she said they contained a little pork.

No sale.

The king mandu were $2 each or three for $5.

One intriguing non-food item I saw at the checkout counter was Bamboo Salt Toothpaste from LG, the same Korean company that makes cellphones, TVs and home appliances.

On two visits to Han Yang, I've bought a 5-pound box of Spanish clementines for $5.99 and a large canteloupe for $1.49. Both items were on sale.

On Thursday, the box of Bagu Clementines was $7.99 (433 S. Washington Ave.; 201-384-8288).