Just when you thought Bergen County had too many Asian markets

Hong Kong-style whole Roast Duck, Roast Pork and Honey Barbecued Spare Ribs at 99 Ranch Market in Hackensack.

A wide variety of Dim Sum are available at another stand in the busy food court.

Editor's note: On visits in December 2019, a cashier at 99 Ranch Market charged me twice for the same item, necessitating a return trip to get a credit; and one of the employees behind the fish counter cleaned, but didn't scale, whole yellowtail snappers I purchased. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The Korean supermarket chain with the folksy name of "One Arm Full of Groceries" has defined Asian food for decades.

With 6 H Marts in Bergen County alone, Han Ah Reum has had a loyal following among Korean-Americans and non-Koreans alike, despite competition from H&Y and other smaller chains.

But all that changed last week with the opening of 99 Ranch Market in Hackensack's Home Depot Shopping Center (June 2018).

The Chinese supermarket may not have as many good deals as H Mart, but the Hackensack store is simply a better Asian-food experience.

See more photos at The Sasson Report and on Instagram @victoresasson.

One of the stands in the food court of 99 Ranch Market in Hackensack.

Today's special at H Mart: $2.99 each or two for $6

Seen on Saturday morning at the H Mart in Englewood, part of a chain of Korean supermarkets celebrating its 30th anniversary in the United States.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Price signs continue to be a problem for food shoppers, whether they patronize a ShopRite or an H Mart.

On lower shelves, the signs are unreadable unless you get down on your hands and knees.

Often, products are misplaced on the shelf over the wrong sign, and instead of a deal, you get sticker shock at the register.

H Mart, formerly Han Ah Reum, is a chain of Korean supermarkets in New Jersey that is celebrating its 30th anniversary in America.

But the five H Marts I patronize in Englewood, Little Ferry, Fort Lee (2) and Ridgefield act as independent stores -- with different retail and sales prices, coupons, late-day discounts and sales.

Sign, label confusion

On Saturday at the Englewood H Mart, I saw Rico Garlic Paste for $2.99 each, according to the shelf sign, or a "special" of two for $6, according to a sticker on the jar.

The Englewood store also offers prepared food, and one of my favorites is spicy stewed Alaskan pollock, a cousin of the cod.

Jinga, one of the caterers that supplies H Mart, recently hiked the price for a 1-pound package of stewed pollock to $8.49 from $6.99.

Next to it on the shelf was a similar package of stewed pollock from Pinocchio, another outside company, for $7.49, but I couldn't compare the two, because the Pinocchio label listed the weight as "0 lb. 2 oz."

Shin Ramyun, a spicy instant noodles soup, is available in individual 2.6-ounce cups, above, and "Family Packs" of 4.2-ounce servings, below. The cups were on sale Saturday at the Englewood H Mart, but each serving contains 66% of the daily recommended sodium intake, compared to 43% for the larger portions.

The label on Pinocchio Catering's Stewed Alaskan Pollock has shoppers guessing at the correct weight.

At the H Mart in Englewood, I bought a 56-ounce tin of Kadoya Pure Sesame Oil from Japan on sale, but had to return to the store for a lesson on how to close it. The can has a three pictographs instructing you on how to open the can, but none on how to close it. The sale ends today.

New Korean supermarket comes to town

Image via Wikipedia

Fort Lee, which is filled with Asian restaurants, now boasts two Korean supermarkets.

Han Nam Mart employees in red jackets were still putting price tags on grocery items and shelves Thursday, but this new Korean supermarket in Fort Lee is open for business.

This first Han Nam Mart in North Jersey is not to be confused with H Mart -- formerly Han Ah Reum -- the dominant Korean chain with four stores in Bergen County. 

The new supermarket, which has scheduled a grand opening for Jan. 27, is in the Plaza West Shopping Center just off Route 46.

This is a big space, formerly a Pathmark, but there are smaller selections of fish, produce and prepared Korean food than at H Mart, and far more American grocery items. I looked at some, such as canned red salmon and mixed berry jam made with sugar, and prices are higher than at ShopRite.

For example, Barilla pasta was two for $3, compared with three for $4 or nine for $10 during the Can Can Sale at ShopRite. Stem tomatoes from Texas were $1.49 a pound at Han Nam Mart. The new store carries a good selection of Arirang-brand kimchi from Englewood.

I bought a three-pound jar of peeled ginger in water for $1.99, the first time I've seen this convenience item. Organic jumbo brown, cage-free eggs were $2.29 a dozen. Lactaid organic 2% milk was $3.99 for a half-gallon -- cheaper than the same milk from Organic Valley.

Enoki mushrooms were 40 cents for an estimated four-ounce package. I bought five, and for a dinner side dish, I sauteed the spaghetti-like mushrooms in olive oil with a little salt until they were hot.

Whole fresh whiting was $3.99 a pound, and I bought two one-pounders for dinner Friday night.

I saw several shelves without price tags, and I couldn't find much prepared food, including the stewed tofu with red-pepper paste and stewed Alaskan pollock with hot peppers I usually get at H Mart.


At checkout, I used two reusable grocery bags, but received no credit for them, as I do at H Mart.

When I am in Fort Lee, I find the newest H Mart near Route 4 more convenient than this new supermarket if I want greens, fresh fish and prepared Korean food. 

I live in Hackensack, and a bigger H Mart in Little Ferry, one of my favorite stores, isn't far from the Hackensack ShopRite and Costco.

Han Nam Mart, 1475 Bergen Boulevard, Fort Lee; 201-224-0036.

Shopping, dining and cooking notes

Image by myovencanbeabitch via Flickr

I expected the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry to be busier than it was when I visited Sunday afternoon in search of tofu, soy protein and other meat substitutes. There were a half-dozen stations set up to provide free samples of fat udon noodles in broth (photo), Chilean sea bass, cold green tea with ginseng, dumplings, rice-and-pork sausage and mochi ice cream.

I found three kinds of soft or firm fried tofu ideal for stir fries ($1.29 to $1.49), two heads of fresh spinach (79 cents each), 20 pounds of California-grown rice ($17.99), and prepared Alaskan pollack with hot and sweet peppers ($4.99).


For dinner last night, I blanched a head of the spinach from H Mart and cooked it briefly in extra-virgin olive oil with garlic powder, black pepper, and salt. Our main dish was pasta -- big shells from Italy I get at ShopRite with spaghetti sauce from Fairway and added soy meatballs and Tofurky-brand Italian sausage, both from Whole Foods Market. I liked the meatballs better than the sausage, but guests were fooled altogether -- two thought they were eating meat.


On Saturday night, I took my wife and son to La Ziza, the new Lebanese restaurant on Crooks Avenue in Clifton (Crooks divides that city from South Paterson). I had eaten there alone a few weeks ago, and liked the food, despite the presence of hookah smokers in the dining room.

We ordered appetizers and one entree, fried whole whiting with rice. On March 28, my first visit, I received four whole fish for $12.95. The price has stayed the same, but this time, there were only three fish on the platter

We enjoyed the warm grape leaves stuffed with rice, fatoush salad, warm whole and mashed fava beans (ful), arayes (melted cheese in pocket bread)  and curlicue La Ziza french fries. But the muhammara was coarse and bland, missing the essential, zingy Aleppo red pepper. The fruity smoke from water pipes was noticeable but not a problem. The restaurant allows the use of hookahs in an upstairs dining room as well.


I just got off the phone with Tony, an inspector at the Clifton Health Department. He explained La Ziza has a license that allows hookah smoking, because the same owner operated the restaurant  before 2004 (as Al Assayad) -- when a smoking ban went into effect. Tony also noted smoking is allowed if it brings in 15% or more of a restaurant's revenue, as the water pipes evidently do.


This morning, I warned the leftover fava beans, prepared an egg-white omelet with Aleppo pepper and ate them with warm Lebanese pocket bread and hummus. Delicious.

Fourth H Mart opens in Bergen County

 I visited the new H Mart in Fort Lee yesterday, the fourth supermarket opened by the Lyndhurst-based Korean chain in Bergen County. The company, which used to be known as Han Ah Reum, has stores in more than a dozen states.

The Fort Lee store appears to be bigger than the one in Englewood, where I shopped for years, but smaller than the Little Ferry supermarket, which is closer to my Hackensack home.

Fort Lee has the usual, great selection of fresh fish at relatively low prices. It's also the first H Mart I've seen that carries Coleman organic chicken and a second brand that says the birds are raised on a vegetarian diet without antibiotics. But I didn't see any beef  that was raised naturally, despite the importance of meat to the Korean diet.

There is also a terrific selection of greens, including Chinese broccoli, choy sum, regular and baby bok choy, and collard, plus others I'm not familiar with. I took home some leafy Chinese broccoli, but overcooked it. There is no food counter, as in other stores, but a French-Asian bakery called Tous Les Jours has a few tables for coffee and pastry.

The store, which has been open about three weeks in the old Kings Super Market space, didn't seem to have any real bargains, though it's possible it hasn't staged a grand opening yet. I also bought two prepared items: soft, sweet rice cakes with pumpkin and japchae, the translucent noodle dish made from sweet potatoes.

The company motto is: Better Food Better Living (no punctuation) and there is a cute video on its Web site showing a pregnant Korean woman sitting at home, reading and sipping tea, while her husband approaches on foot with two bulging plastic bags of H Mart food. When she opens the door and sees the food, she is "happy."

But what I've seen in more than a decade of shopping in H Mart is an army of Korean and other Asian women -- but few men -- filing their carts with enormous quantities of  beef and other food and then loading up their minivans or SUVs to rush home and start preparing dinner.
 

H Mart, 112-130 Linwood Plaza, Fort Lee; 201-947-7800


http://www.hmart.com/

Great fish section

H Mart in Little Ferry had more than 20 different kinds of whole fish on ice when I visited last night, casting my net for a wholesome dinner.

I picked a two and a half pound fluke ($4.99 a pound) covered in ice and asked the fish monger to clean it and cut it into steaks. Fluke is delicious raw as well as cooked. I've enjoyed fluke shashimi many times as an alternative to tuna, which can have a lot of mercury in it.

I poached my fluke steaks, head and tail in sake, fish sauce, sesame oil, mirin, soy sauce and garlic for 15 to 20 minutes, and served it with steamed rice and okra with diced tomatoes, onion and garlic.

H Mart in Little Ferry also offers fillets from six or seven kinds of fish and although I have usually found them to be fresh, ocean perch fillets I bought last week had seen better days. They cooked up OK, but I will be sticking with whole fish from now on, and if I want fillets, ask the fish monger to cut them from a whole fish.

Oddities in the produce aisle

I never know what I will find at the big Korean supermarket in Little Ferry known as H Mart.

I went shopping for fish and okra for last night's dinner and saw three items I've never heard of in the produce section: banana flowers, Chinese okra and nagaimo.

The first two were from Mexico, and the Chinese okra was more than two feet long. Nagaimo, which appears to be a large root, comes from Japan packed in sawdust. I have no idea what you do with them.

There are two other H Marts nearby, in Englewood and Ridgefield. They formerly were called Han Ah Reum.