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| New Lotte in Catonsville |
Lotte is a new Asian market on Rte 40. Great produce. Great seafood. Wide aisle after wide aisle of food from America, Korea, South Asia, Latin America and around the world. I just loaded up the fridge with fun, and I'll post more next week.
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| Wang mandu from Honey Pig |
The Honey Pig dumpling stand is a new extension of the barbecue chain. Steamed dumplings -- wang mandu in Korean -- stuffed with chicken, bulgogi, pork or other fillings. They're $2. They're the size of a softball. And they're delicious.
We got a chicken mandu just as Honey Pig sold out tonight. Shredded chicken cooked with . . . . Oh, dear. We ate with plastic spoons so quickly that I didn't take notes. It was a bright, rich flavor, and we will be going back for more.
Thanks for Kevin, who tipped us to the Honey Pig mandu.
(Update: Honey Pig Dumpking closed later in 2013. The Lotte remains open and wonderful. They installed a casual Korean restaurant where Honey Pig had sold dumplings and then fried chicken.)
Lotte Catonsville
6600 Baltimore National Pike
Catonsville, MD 21228
410 - 750 - 3951
NEAR: Lotte Catonsville is on Rte 40 just over the bridge into Baltimore County. It's on the left, and they renamed the shopping center as Lotte Plaza so it's easy to spot.
9 comments:
Is it cleaner and less-cramped at Catonsville? My only issue with the Ellicott City location was all of the aisles being so packed together.
Did they just open up this weekend? I saw a grand opening banner last Friday but didn't get to visit.
Just opened Friday. And it's way bigger than Ellicott City. This is a brand new store replacing a Toys r' Us. Wide aisles.
Can I just say that we love you so much? We're Atlanta transplants who've been living in Columbia for two years and we've been trying to figure out what's good to eat around here!
We just had the Honey Pig dumplings last night - we had the kimchi, pork, and bulgogi and they were all excellent! The kimchi is pretty spicy.
We also went to the Alehouse for the ribbon-cutting this past Friday and we had the house burger (it was SO good), the fried egg burger (yums!), the sriracha honey wings (yums!), and the mussels (also good!). We love it already, but we're worried that it'll be as packed as it was that day all the time. Parking was insane!
I lived just around the corner in the Westerlee apartment complex about 10 years ago. I wish they had this then.
It's definitely a lot more spacious than H Mart. I haven't shopped at the new Lotte enough yet to form an opinion on if it's overall better than H Mart. Time will tell. E.g., right now all the packaged products are fresh since turnover (staleness) is not an issue. I went today looking for soy sauce because H Mart has drastically reduced their selection, but Lotte's selection was even worse. However, Lotte did have an amazingly diverse fish sauce selection, including a Vietnamese fish sauce without sugar (been looking for that forever.)
Visited today. It's nice. I remember the old Toys R' Us being kind of dingy and iffy looking. But they really cleaned up the location nicely. Very spacious and clean, especially compared to the Ellicott City Lotte and the nearby H Mart. Parking isn't as bad although the parking lot was packed today (holiday shopping?).
Tried out the Honey Pig dumplings. For $2, they are quite excellent. They ran out of bulgogi, so I tried the chicken, pork, and curry. They're quite tasty, although I'm still a fan of fried dumplings (which of course you can buy frozen at Lotte!).
Had a chance to try it today. It's significantly bigger than the Lotte in Triangle. It is a food store primarily, and there's not a conjoined food court next to this one like there is in Lotte. This one does have Honey Dumplings, but it's carry out only - no seats.
The prices were very good. I picked up a California roll from their sushi station for $3.75 and the $2 dumplings, really double-fist sized meat pies using rice flour "pastry" instead of wheat flour, are a bargain. I tried the bulgogi and the kimchi ones. For $2, the bulgogi had a lot of meat, though of a quality corresponding to the price. The kimchi was quite good and not spicy at all, just tangy. I had wanted to try the curry one as well, but they were out.
Their competition will be H-Mart and I think the new Lotte is a better grocery store, but H-Mart is better as a food destination because of the seating for the in-house prepared food, the many sample stations, and better supporting stores around it. Lotte is next to a Halal butcher, but I didn't have a chance to look in and see what they offered.
Next time.
Went to the new Lotte's on Saturday. It was FABULOUS!!! Definitely my new favorite food store!! It doesn't yet come up on Google maps, so used this blog entry to find it. Thanks so much! :)
Went to Lotte's today. The Honey Pig steamed dumplings concession is closed. Major remodeling of the dumplings area plus the short-lived chicken concession is underway. According to the pictures on a sign there, the future store will offer an assortment of Korean food, perhaps more
like that in the nearby H-Mart.
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