H Mart coupons prove to be no big deal

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Beef, pork and chicken look good, but how were they raised?

I've been getting H Mart coupons in the mail for months now, but don't think I've saved a great deal of money at the Korean supermarket chain.


I signed up for an H Mart "Smart Savings Card" in February, which gives customers a $10 gift certificate on every $1,000 spent -- a rebate of 1%. I'm still not there yet.


I drove to the H Mart in Englewood today to return black plums that were spoiled, got a $1.37 store credit and then took out my coupon book. 


Flipping through it, I couldn't find anything I needed. There were coupons for Korean radish, green squash, red peppers, Korean grapes and red delicious apples, as well as small appliances.


The discount on red seedless grapes was 10% with a coupon. The red delicious apples were $1.49 a pound, and the coupon would give me 15% off. 


Three coupons for meat were of no use to me, and $1 off on Chilean sea bass exploits an endangered species that is high in mercury. Sea urchin roe or uni is $5.99 with a coupon.


Some coupons are good through Oct. 14, others until Oct. 30. You might be able to get a coupon book in the store. The regular price of discounted items isn't given.


Two things I wanted today were fish sauce and California-grown rice, which I have been buying at H Mart in 20-pound bags. I couldn't find the fish sauce, and no rice was on sale.


The four H Marts in Bergen County seem to run sales at different times, and discounts vary at stores in Ridgefield, Fort Lee, Little Ferry and Englewood.


I did buy a prepared seaweed-and-rice roll, called kimbap, and pan-friend crab pancakes or pajun for dinner ($4.99 each); yellow nectarines, 79 cents a pound; white peaches, $1.79 a pound; and empress plums, $1.49 a pound.


On my last visit to the Englewood store, I replaced the Korean-made, 12-inch, three-tiered, stainless-steel steamer that I had returned for credit after it rusted. The steamer was on sale for $22.99 (regularly $29.99), and no coupon was needed.


Today, the renovated store's new food court was closed. In September, I saw two women having lunch there, but a cashier said it hadn't been inspected by the city.


Before H Mart, I stopped nearby at Gaboh Inc., 191 W. Englewood Ave., Englewood, to pick up a 64-ounce jar of Arirang-brand cabbage or mahk kimchi ($9.99). This kimchi is made by hand and contains no MSG or preservatives (201-503-1314).


After H Mart, I picked up two large dinners with escoveitch of whiting, rice and peas, and cabbage ($10 each) from Ashanti International, a reliable source of  Jamaican takeout at 227 W. Englewood Ave., Englewood (201-227-0061).


Web site: H Mart


Costco membership


The annual fee for shopping at Costco Wholesale is going up 10% on Nov. 1 -- to $55 or $110 a year. 


Regular customers get the membership fee and more back in cash rebates when they use a credit card from Costco and American Express. 


The rebate checks must be used at Costco, but you don't have to spend the full amount there. You get the difference back in cash.


And you get low prices year-round, such as two dozen Eggland's Best large white eggs (vegetarian feed) for $3.99; three half-gallons of Kirkland Signature organic, low-fat milk for $9.49; and three pounds of bananas for $1.39.


There are hundred of items in sizes suitable for couples or small families, contrary to the impression of recent media reports that you have to buy large quantities to take advantage of Costco's low prices.


High-quality meat


Long after I stopped eating meat, I continue to receive catalogs from Brooklyn-based Heritage Foods USA.


The company was founded 10 years ago "as a response to the dwindling options in the marketplace for high-quality, humanely raised meat products grown by small and medium-sized independent farmers."


There are too many kinds of poultry and meat cuts to mention here, but everything is raised without antibiotics, hormones and animal by-products. In many cases, the animals spend a lot of time outdoors.


Piedmontese beef is described as "one of the tenderest beef varieties ever bred by man -- great marbling [fat]."


Four 14-ounce ribeye steaks are $75, four 18-ounce ribeyes are $93. Piedmontese briskets are 5 pounds for $60 and 10 pounds for $110.


This is a great catalog if you live far from the butcher counter of a Whole Foods Market, such as the one in Paramus.


Here's the Web site: Heritage Foods USA



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Related articles

• Diner's Journal Blog: Heritage Meat Comes to the Essex Street Market, With Brooklyn Taco (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)

The perfect loaf of bread?

Image by Shopping Diva via Flickr

My wife called today and said, "I'm in Englewood. Do you need anything?" She meant food.


Let's see. Should I ask her to pick up a few of Jerry's restaurant-quality dinners to go? How about cabbage kimchi from Gaboh Inc. or Korean dumplings from the place across the street from the firehouse? Or did I feel like having a few Colombian empanadas and hot sauce from the little bakery off Palisade Avenue?


Instead, I asked her to stop at Balthazar Bakery for its signature baguette -- still $2 nearly eight years after the place opened on South Dean Street.


Here is the short ingredients list: unbleached wheat flour, water, rye flour, sea salt, yeast and barley malt. That's it. The weight is 8 ounces and the taste is incomparable.

Balthazar Bakery,  214 S. Dean St., 
Englewood; 201-503-9717. Closed Sunday.

(Photo: Original Balthazar Bakery in Manhattan)

Costco is catering to Korean customers

Image by The Toad via Flickr

Costco has always been popular with the growing population of Korean-Americans in North Jersey (the discount merchant has warehouses in their native country). But now, the store in Hackensack is starting to stock kimchi and ramyun -- two staples of the Korean diet.

For a couple of years now, I've watched Korean customers load their carts with enormous packages of beef and farmed salmon (they don't seem to appreciate the benefits of wild fish and naturally raised beef and pork). 

But several weeks ago, there were samples of a new item -- cabbage kimchi -- being given out. I looked at the label and MSG was among the ingredients, so I continue to get my kimchi at Gaboh Inc. in Englewood, where the Arirang kimchi is made without that artificial flavor enhancer. And last week, I saw a woman with a big package of  instant ramyun bowls. I asked her if she thought the noodle soup was cheaper at Costco than at H Mart, the chain of Korean supermarkets in Bergen County, and she said yes.


This afternoon, my wife returned from Costco with 20 packages of Nong Shim-brand spicy instant ramyun that my son has been eating for a couple of years, because of the relatively low sodium content (photo). At $12.99, it works out to about 65 cents per serving, compared with $1 at H Mart for a package of five.

So much food, so little time

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

 

I only had a hour after I dropped off my son for his piano lesson in Englewood yesterday to pick up some of the terrific food the city has to offer.

My first stop was the kimchi factory on West Englewood Avenue, where I bought a half-gallon jar of Arirang-brand mahk kimchi ($9.99) from the always helpful Mrs. Oh. She combines crunchy nappa cabbage with red pepper, salted shrimp, anchovy sauce, garlic, scallion and other ingredients. It's a healthy and delicious side dish with a sandwich or a complete meal. (Photo shows woman in South Korea offering kimchi.)

Not far away is Balthazar Bakery on South Dean Street, where for the first time I found a dozen ficelles or miniature baguettes ($6). I also picked up a quarter of the bakery's signature rye, sliced ($3.75), and successfully avoided buying another scrumptious pear-hazelnut galette we tried for Christmas.

I drove down South Dean to Jerry's Gourmet & More, not so much to shop as to graze among the cheese, bread and salami samples. I did pick up two aseptic packages of Pomi marinara sauce and chopped tomatoes from Italy, each about 26.5 ounces for $1.69.

I headed back toward the kimchi factory and made my final stop at H Mart, the Korean supermarket near the Palisade Avenue monument. There, I concentrated on prepared food -- a pound of stewed tofu with red pepper sauce ($2.50), cucumber kimchi ($2.50) and honey rice cakes studded with beans ($3.49).

Arirang Kimchi (Gaboh Inc.), 191 W. Englewood Ave;
Englewood, 201-503-1314. 

H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave., Englewood; 
201-871-8822.


Balthazar Bakery, 214 S. Dean St., Englewood;
(201) 503-9717.
 ‎
Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood; 
201-871-7108.



 

On the take-out trail in Englewood

Englewood is known for its restaurants, but it's also a great place for take-out -- Korean dumplings, French pastry, Jamaican jerk chicken and more.

Yesterday, I started a the farmer's market near the old train station, picking up Jersey tomatoes, bi-color corn and peaches at the Alstede Farms stand. My next stop was Balthazar Bakery on South Dean Street, where I bought a dozen assorted dinner rolls, a baguette and a crispy pissladiere.

About a half a mile south of the bakery is Jerry's Gourmet, where the free lunch lives. I sampled a half-dozen different full-fat cheeses (which I rarely eat), luxurious prosciutto di Parma, bread and toast before I purchased one of Jerry's incredible $6.99 dinners (shrimp, rosemary roast chicken and three vegetable sides), a Neapolitan pizza with vegetables and prosciutto-mozzarella bread (the last two for the freezer). With my wife and son away, there was no need to visit Ashanti's for jerk chicken, Gaboh Inc. for kimchi, Mandoo Inc. for dumplings or the Broadway Coffee Shop for Colombian empanadas.

For dinner, I started with the pissladiere, a pizza with a thin, crackling crust, caramelized sweet onions and four white anchovies radiating out from a black olive in the center. Then I heated the side dishes from the Jerry's dinner: sauteed escarole with beans, green beans with pine nuts and dried cranberries, and a stuffed artichoke, and ate them with some baguette. I also steamed the two small ears of corn (which weren't sweet). I finished with a small sandwich of the rosemary roast chicken.

Homemade kimchi is a little harder to find

I stopped by my favorite Korean catering store this afternoon to buy a jar of kimchi and found myself staring at unfamiliar labels of commercial kimchi in place of the homemade stuff I have enjoyed for years.

The cashier couldn't tell me why Poong Yeon Korea on Broad Avenue in Palisades Park stopped making its own kimchi, which is spicy, fermented cabbage, cucumber, radish and other vegetables, the centerpiece of every Korean meal. The store had been one of my two main sources for homemade kimchi, the other being Gaboh Inc., a small factory in Englewood that makes and sells the Arirang brand.

The one-half gallon jar of Goshen kimchi I bought today at Poong Yeon costs $12 v. $10 at Gaboh. Fortunately, the Goshen kimchi isn't made with MSG and Poong Yeon still turns out hundreds of packages of homemade food daily, including japchae or translucent Korean sweet-potato noodles. For my dinner Monday, I'm planning to steam Korean mandoo (beef, shrimp or kimchi dumplings) from my freezer, heat up the japchae and fill a small bowl with kimchi.