Fighting the crowds for bargains at Super H Mart in Ridgefield

I say Kabocha, you say Kabucha. This Asian winter squash was on sale for 49 cents a pound with a store card on Sunday at the Super H Mart in Ridgefield, the Korean chain's biggest supermarket in  Bergen County.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The biggest Korean supermarket in Bergen County also is the busiest food store outside of Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, especially on Sundays.

If you drive less than a mile from the much smaller H&Y Marketplace to the Super H Mart, the contrast is dramatic in the number of cars in the huge parking lot and the number of customers pushing carts through the store.

I fought the Super H Mart crowds on Sunday, picked up a few bargains and tried free samples of tasty Korean food, but I'm not sure it is worth the hassle.

Samples of prepared seafood, including crab and dried squid, are offered free at a table near the store's large fish counter.

Big seafood counter

Super H Mart probably has the largest selection of fresh fish and other seafood in Bergen County, all at fairly low prices.

But my wife had already picked up whole sea bass for our Sunday dinner from the Englewood H Mart ($4.99 a pound).

At the Super H Mart, I sampled several kinds of seafood at a table set up opposite the cases that were packed with fresh fish on ice.

I bought three items that were on sale with a store card, Kabocha Squash for 49 cents a pound, Koimo Sweet Potatoes for 99 cents a pound and unusually large heads of red-leaf lettuce at two for 99 cents.

I saw 5-pound boxes of clementines for $7.99, but that was $3 more than during the Can Can Sale at ShopRite.


Super H Mart, 321 Broad Ave., Ridgefield; 201-943-9600. Open 7 days. Small food court, and a large selection fresh fish and prepared Korean food.

A guilt-free, turkey-free Thanksgiving

Leftover Thanksgiving vegetables and mashed sweet potatoes at breakfast today.

I smiled when I weighed myself today -- 181.6 pounds, exactly what I weighed on Thursday before our big Thanksgiving meal.

I helped roast turkey parts and heat up a fully cooked Niman Ranch ham for the meat-eaters in the family. 

They also had store-bought corn-and-crab chowder and homemade brown rice and peas.

But I was happy with a meatless meal of salad, vegetables (carrots and green beans), and Black Tiger shrimp.

Another side dish was mashed, skin-on sweet potatoes and garlic cloves with extra-virgin olive oil, butter substitute, maple syrup and cinnamon.

I drank sparkling 100% Apple Cider from Spain mixed with lemon-lime seltzer to cut the sweetness, and a glass or two of Bordeaux.

This red wine tasted great with Black Tiger shrimp.

 


Later, with my teenage son, I watched a football game on TV. I also watched a Robert De Niro movie, "Being Flynn."

For dessert, I had Spanish clementines and a ripe Bartlett pear with a couple of slices of reduced-fat cheese.

For breakfast this morning, I fried two organic eggs sunny side up with sun-dried tomatoes and Aleppo red pepper, and slid them over leftover vegetables and sweet potatoes, which I reheated in the microwave.

Delicious, especially the yolks broken over and eaten with the mashed sweet potatoes.

 

All-you-can-eat sushi and BBQ for $9.95

Image by ombrelle via Flickr

All the sushi, barbecued meat and salad you can eat are only $9.95 for lunch at Green Grill Rodizio, a Korean-owned Brazilian barbecue restaurant in Hackensack.

Lunch is served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday to Friday, an employee said Tuesday. The price includes sushi, hot food, salad bar and barbecue, he said, but he was unable to give the total number of items.

The dinner price is $20.95. Green Grill is the largest restaurant in Hackensack.

Green Grill Rodizio, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack, in the Home Depot Shopping Center; 201-488-2885.

Great noodle dish

The noodle dish I had for lunch Tuesday at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack was $9.95, but I wouldn't trade it for all the sushi I could eat at Green Grill, which is opposite the Chinese restaurant.

Noodles in Abalone Sauce is made with soft, house-made egg noodles sauteed with spinach, black mushrooms and leeks -- simple but delicious. The portion is enough for two.

 

$4.99 clementines

We found 5 pounds of clementines for $4.99 at ShopRite in Rochelle Park with a store card, but these are from Morocco. They are bigger than the Spanish ones I bought for $5.99 at Costco in Hackensack, easy to peel and, so far, all but one of them has been sweet.

Smoked wild salmon

Now, Costco is offering its Kirkland-brand of smoked, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon in two 8-ounce packages for the same price as the pound package -- $14.99. This smoked salmon has no preservatives, and it's available year-round.

Shopping and cooking notes

Besides the free-range, grass-fed Australian beef I went for, I had hoped to pick up a few other things on my trip to the ShopRite in Rochelle Park yesterday, but prices were all over the place.

As I walked into the store, I saw a stack of boxes with clementines, not from Spain but from Morocco, for a low $4.99 with a store card. But not far away, a 2-pound package of the elusive herbicide-free Campari tomatoes were priced at  $7.99 -- $4 a pound. I just stared at the price sign in disbelief. I did pick up two pointy cantaloupes from Guatemala for $3.

The Australian whole tenderloin for filet mignon was on sale for $4.99 a pound with a store card, but I couldn't find any that weighed more than 4.6 pounds, even though the sales circular said average weight was 6 pounds to 8 pounds. It's sold under the Nature's Reserve label. Next to it, the same cut of beef marked USDA Select -- the lowest of three U.S. government grades -- was on sale for $6.99 a pound. Why is free-range, grass-fed beef selling for $2 a pound less than conventionally raised beef? The sale ends Saturday.

When I got home, I trimmed as much fat as possible from the tenderloin, sliced it thin and divided it among three freezer bags, pouring on Korean bulgogi marinade (it looked similar to what is shown in photo above). They went into the freezer, enough for three meals of Korean barbecue at home with rice, red-leaf lettuce for wrapping and store-bought side dishes.

Then I prepared dinner -- spaghetti with sardines. This is not the classic Italian recipe of  pasta con sarde, which uses a tomato-less sauce . This is a thrown together recipe that takes only the time needed to boil the pasta.

I used three cans of Moroccan sardines in tomato sauce I bought at Fattal's Bakery in Paterson for 89 cents a can (Fattal's has the best sardine prices around). The sardines have no oil, so I poured three or four ounces of extra-virgin oilive oil over the fish in the pan, then added about a cup and a half of  leftover marinara sauce, dried Italian seasoning, basil and oregano, and red pepper flakes. Meanwhile, I boiled a half-pound of thick spaghetti.

With a big salad of organic salad greens, bread and Italian red wine, it was a satisfying, meatless meal, but I should have made more spaghetti, my 12-year-old son said.

ShopRite of Rochelle Park, 220 W. Passaic St.;

(201) 843-1424; open 24 hours.

Fattal's Bakery, 975 Main St.; (973) 742-7125;

Paterson; open seven days.

Self -checkout can be a nightmare

Anyone know of a self-checkout system that goes smoothly every time you use it? My last experience, at the Super Stop & Shop in Hackensack yesterday, was frustrating and confusing, and I needed the assistance of an employee as well as the woman behind me to complete my purchase.

I went there to buy drug-free Australian shoulder lamb chops (on sale through Thursday for $3.69 a pound) and picked up antibiotic-free chicken legs sold under the Nature's Promise label, four packages in all. There was no price sign near the clementines from Spain -- the first I've seen this year -- and no wonder. A produce worker said they were $9.99 for a five-pound box, about twice what I'm used to paying.

The self-checkout systerm  -- called "EZ Shopper" -- turned out to be a broken promise. Three of my four packages scanned with a beep, but the fourth didn't and the belt ran backward. The employee came over to help. Then, after I swiped my credit card, I couldn't find the box in which to sign my name (it wasn't on the pad where I swiped the card). The woman behind me showed me it was located elesewhere.

In all the confusion, I didn't get credit for my reusable bag.