Grazing on free food samples at two large Korean supermakets

At $24.99, boxes of sweet potatoes on sale at H&Y Marketplace in Ridgfield still are more expensive than smaller quantities at ShopRite, Costco Wholesale and Trader Joe's.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Fresh fruit, dumplings, tofu and noodles are among the free samples available on weekends at Korean supermarkets in Ridgefield and Little Ferry.

H&Y Marketplace in Ridgefield is smaller than the Super H Mart down the road, but a lot less crowded and easier to navigate on a Sunday.

True, there are fewer samples at H&Y.

But the shopping center at 1 Remsen Place also boasts a storefront where Arirang Kimchi set up shop after many years of turning out preservative-free cabbage, cucumber and other kimchis in Englewood.

H&Y also sells Jun's Tofu, a GMO-free product made in the store, and a refrigerated gochujang, a spicy red-pepper paste made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

I purchased cooked conch, one of the samples I tried ($7.99 a pound).

In a bid to drum up business, H&Y is now offering buy one and get one free on hundreds of items on the first day of every month.

Free samples of fresh fruit, above and below, are among the choices on weekends at H&Y Marketplace, a Korean supermarket at 1 Remsen Place in Ridgefield.

After enjoying fresh fruit, cooked conch and other samples at H&Y, I went next door to buy two jars of cabbage kimchi at Arirang Kimchi. 

At H Mart in Little Ferry, a refrigerated case holding panchan or side dishes that are served at every Korean meal. The price of this prepared food from Jinga and other outside Korean caterers has spiked in the past year.

Free samples at H Mart

The shabby H Mart in Little Ferry probably offers more free samples on weekends than any other store in the chain outside of Super H Mart, but you don't have to fight crowds, just navigate around potholes and floods in the parking lot.

Usually, H Mart also has bigger discounts than H&Y.

Near H Mart's fresh-fish counter on Sunday, I tried cooked whelk and octopus, and raw farmed-salmon sashimi.

Elsewhere, there were samples of cold noodles topped with a bit of ice and thick udon noodles in hot broth; two kinds of meat-free dumplings, small squares of fried tofu, curry with vegetables over white rice and more fresh fruit.

At H Mart in Little Ferry, 15-pound bags of Kokuho Yellow Label Rice, grown in California, are deeply discounted until Dec. 31, below.

Also on sale at H Mart were 16-portion boxes of dry Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy Noodles for $9.99.

Free samples of cooked whelk and octopus with a small plate of gochujang, a spicy red-pepper paste.

Three of the side dishes I brought home from H Mart in Little Ferry are Stewed Tofu, bottom right, (a dozen pieces for $4.99); Bu-Chu Dumplings filled with noodles and crumbled tofu, left (eight for $5.99), and Japchae, stir-fried translucent noodles made from yam flour ($5.49). I had them for breakfast with a simple egg-white omelet stuffed with reduced-fat Swiss cheese.

Arirang's Mahk or Cabbage Kimchi. Made by hand without MSG or preservatives, a 64-ounce jar is about $11.

Window shopping at pricey Mitsuwa, stocking up at Korean markets

The belly meat of even farmed blue-fin tuna goes for $79.99 a pound at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket and food court in Edgewater. The portion shown here is only 1.6 ounces and costs $8. Meanwhile, store-made sushi rolls contained added sugar and some salad dressings I saw listed high-fructose corn syrup as an ingredient.

Wagyu Beef, named for a Japanese cattle breed, is heavily marbled with flavorful fat, and priced at $44.99 a pound.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On my rare visits to one of North Jersey's most expensive supermarkets, I buy cheap sake for cooking and a couple of over-sized cans of Japanese beer.

But I spend most of my time gawking at the ridiculously high prices Mitsuwa Marketplace shoppers pay for what is billed as premium fish and beef.

Anyone who thinks Whole Foods Market is expensive will get a reality check at Mitsuwa.

Over the years, I've splurged at this Japanese supermarket on ices delicately flavored with fruit and mackerel sushi rolls imported from Japan.

On Friday night, I picked up a 1.5-liter bottle of Yaegaki Sake brewed in California ($6.99), a 25-ounce can of Kirin Ichiban 100% malt beer ($2.99) and a 1-liter can of Asahi Super Dry ($3.49).

I briefly contemplated going to my favorite Japanese restaurant, Hiura on Main Street near Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, with the giant can of Asahi, but then how would I drive home after consuming all that beer?

Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 201-941-9113. America Express credit cards aren't accepted. 

In contrast to Mitsuwa's prices for raw fish and meat, stands in the food court offer complete meals for under $10, above and below, and seating at tables with a view of the Hudson River and upper Manhattan.

Plastic representations of food-court meals look good enough to eat.

Shoppers at Mitsuwa Marketplace have the Hudson, but at H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday, customers found a flooded parking lot entrance full of hidden potholes.

From the Hudson to the Hackensack

At the customer service counter of H Mart in Little Ferry, the young woman apologized for the flooded, potholed parking lot, but said the Korean supermarket chain has no plans to fix it until spring.

I've spoken to other customers who believe the shabby store, which occupies less than half of a large, otherwise empty building near the Hackensack River, will be torn down eventually.

Meanwhile, the store offers some of the best free samples on weekends, making lunch unnecessary.

On Sunday, I tried three or four kinds of fresh and dried fruit, a seafood pancake, cooked octopus slices, green tea noodles and fish cake in hot broth.

I picked up a box of Shin Ramyun, a spicy instant noodle soup, with 16 4.2-ounce portions for $9.99 with a store card, a savings of $7.

Two big heads of leafy baby mustard greens were on sale for 88 cents a pound (regularly $1.69 a pound).

H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry; 201-814-0400.

Arirang Kimchi 

From H Mart in Little Ferry, I drove to Arirang Kimchi in Ridgefield, and purchased a 64-ounce bottle of Mahk or Cabbage Kimchi ($10).

Arirang is in the small H&Y Marketplace shopping center, where I picked up Marinated Tofu ($4.99) and Jun's Wild Sesame Tofu ($5), both made in that Korean supermarket.

Red bell peppers were on sale for 79 cents a pound.

H&Y Marketplace (Han Yang Mart), 1 Remsen Place, Ridgefield; 201-943-7100. Free food samples on weekends.

So Gong Dong, a popular soft-tofu restaurant where a complete meal costs $10, is on the second floor of this Broad Avenue building in Palisades Park. My final stop on Sunday afternoon was to pick up takeout for dinner.

Fruits of my Korean food odyssey at my front door on Sunday.

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.

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.

No bread, no pizza, no meat, no problem

A frittata made with three reduced-fat cheeses, tomatoes and pesto, above and below, oozing like the deep-dish pizza I deny myself to maintain my weight loss.

Most of the ingredients are available at Costco Wholesale. To prepare a 10-inch frittata, see Do you know how to do 'The Frittata'?

Do I miss bread and pizza, which I gave up a couple of years ago to lose weight, at the suggestion of my trainer at the gym? Absolutely.

I no longer have a trainer, but I'm still on a no-bread, no-pizza diet.

What I don't miss is the 48 pounds I've lost, giving me -- someone who has been overweight for most of his adult life -- a feeling of being relatively light on my feet.

My weight recently hit a plateau in the 179-181 pound range, compared to a high of 228 pounds in 2010.

A wedge of the deep-dish frittata with Della-brand organic brown rice from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and stewed tofu from H Mart in Englewood.

Go brown

I've substituted brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and mashed sweet potatoes for white rice, conventional pasta and white potatoes.

I've added organic quinoa to my diet, making 2 cups at a time to provide a side dish for 4 or 5 breakfasts and dinners. 

I finished the quinoa on Wednesday morning. So I made 2 cups of organic brown rice with diced organic tomatoes in an electric cooker for the next set of meals.

Fluffy organic quinoa has fewer carbohydrates than rice or pasta. Here, I ate the whole grain with Chinese cabbage and spicy tofu from a restaurant that didn't have brown rice.

Instead of having bread with these organic eggs accented with pesto, I filled my breakfast plate with squash, sweet potato and sauteed cabbage with sweet peppers.

Two fish are better than one, as in this dinner of fresh wild salmon from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and pan-fried whole whiting, which were $3.49 a pound at H Mart in Englewood.

I also gave up meat and poultry more than 3 years ago out of concern over all the antibiotics and growth hormones used to raise animals on factory farms, and the lack of information on most restaurant menus.

I've switched to seafood, especially wild-caught whole fish and fillets.

I also favor anchovies, sardines, whiting and other small fish that contain very low levels of mercury.

Homemade Black Tiger garlic shrimp and whole-wheat spirals with sardines.

Food discounts

Jerry's Gourmet & More and H Mart, both in Englewood, discount prepared food after 4 p.m.

Jerry's knocks $2 off its restaurant-quality Meals To Go, cutting the price for a complete dinner of fish, chicken or pork with pasta and other sides to $5.99.

Jerry's added a sign to the refrigerated case to make its Meals To Go easier to find. The small yellow stickers on the cover indicate a price cut to $5.99 from the regular price of $7.99 after 4 p.m.

H Mart, the Korean supermarket, cuts the price of Jinga-brand prepared rolls (kimbap) and other food  by 50% after 4 p.m.

On Wednesday, I picked up a seaweed-wrapped roll with fish sausage and egg for $2.50 instead of $4.99.

I also found a box of 20 small, yellow, intensely sweet Ataulfo Mangoes for $9.99, a discount of $6.

But my wife said the Englewood H Mart was selling the 20-package Shin Ramyun box of spicy noodle soup at full price, forcing me to drive to the Little Ferry H Mart on Wednesday to buy it on sale for $14.99, a discount of $3.

Kimbap and Korean pickles from H Mart in Englewood.

Guess how much salt is in your ramen?

Tonkotsu ramen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I stopped at the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater on Saturday to sample several kinds of ramen, but was shocked to see how much sodium was listed on the ingredients labels.


Three Japanese companies -- Myojo, Sun Noodle and Yamachan -- set up stands near Mitsuwa's food court and handed out small cups of the ramen they make in the United States.


There were nine varieties of fresh noodles and condensed soup available for purchase at small discounts, but one of the servings contained close to 100% of the daily recommended sodium intake and two others ranged from about 120% to more than 140%.


I have never seen that much salt in a processed food product.


I bought two 2-serving packages of the refrigerated ramen, one from Myojo with 48% sodium and another from Sun Noodle with 65% ($3.69 each).


Those packages had the lowest sodium of the nine varieties of ramen for sale.


My son's favorite spicy Korean soup -- Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy Noodle Soup -- contains dried noodles, but only 43% sodium.


He usually asks for it at breakfast, eats all the noodles and dumps most of the red broth -- and the salt -- down the drain.


In related news, a second new Japanese restaurant will be opening soon in Fort Lee, according to a sign I saw in a Main Street storefront.


Ramen Setagaya, a branch of a Manhattan restaurant of the same name, will open around the corner from Batten Ramen, an inexpensive, cash-only BYO on Center Avenue that has served ramen and other Japanese dishes for many years.


The new restaurant will join Yamagata, a high-end Japanese sushi spot in a strip mall on Palisade Avenue.


In recent years, restaurants opening in Fort Lee have been almost exclusively Korean.


Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 
201-941-9133. American Express cards not accepted.