Did A New H Mart Already Open In Ellicott City?

Did a new H Mart already open in Ellicott City? 

I had posted about the H Mart that is replacing the Shopper's Food Warehouse on Rte 40.  A reader today commented that the store is open.  Already serving up samples!!

This is on Rte 40 at Rte 29.  The address is Ridge Road.  It's across Rte 40 from the longtime Lotte supermarket.

I'll be interested to see the new store and how it affects the area.  The new Lotte in Catonsville is beautiful, and I feel like it made the existing H Mart in Catonsville up its game with renovations.  I wonder if the new H Mart in Ellicott City is enough to cause changes at the Lotte.

HowChow needs to go on a holiday hiatus, but I will check out the H Mart right after New Year's.  Also, has anyone heard about a Chinese company taking over the Lotte shopping center and maybe changing the stores there?  There was a comment about that, but I haven't heard any details or seen any other mention.

Is H Mart Replacing Shoppers On Rte 40 In E.C.?

Can anyone confirm that H Mart is replacing the Shoppers Food Warehouse on Rte 40 in Ellicott City?

Marcia left a comment earlier this week saying that her cleaners said the neighboring store would become an Asian market.  Marcia was talking about the Shoppers at Ridge Road, just east of Rte 29.  I just called the store's number from the Shoppers' web site.  No one answered, but I don't know what that means.

I'm a huge fan of both Lotte and H Mart, and the new Lotte in Catonsville is really terrific.  I assume a new H Mart would also open with bells and whistles like a food court and prepared foods.  That Ridge Road location basically looks across Rte 40 at the Ellicott City Lotte.

Let This Be Your Summer Of Twist Peppers

"Twist" or shishito peppers at Lotte

Even cooks who burn their food can make delicious, trendy food by grabbing a bag of magic peppers.

On fancy restaurant menus, these are shishito peppers -- a sweet green pepper that chefs dress up with all kinds of flavors.  They're mostly sweet, although a few shishito on every plate with have a spicy kick, less than a jalapeño but more than the sweet flavor in most of the dish.

For you, they're "twist peppers" for $3 a pound in Asian supermarkets like Lotte and H Mart.

This is super-easy, and the terrific side dish goes with anything from burgers to Asian food.  They're just exotic enough to be worth a drive.  But they're basically sweet peppers, so you shouldn't scare anyone off.

Literally, this is the three-step recipe to cook twist peppers:

1) Heat a film of oil in a non-stick, cast iron pan, or a wok.   

2) Add the peppers.  Cook them over medium until the skin starts to blister.  

3)  When they have a few char marks and have softened slightly, toss them in a bowl.  Add a few pinches of salt -- best with some big-grained salt like sea salt -- until you like the taste.  

The cook time is up to you.  I like the peppers to have a little bite, so I take them off as soon as them soften.  If you want shishito ideas with more flavors or more vegetables, check the Internet for articles like this Denver Post post.

It's Rambutan Season At The H Mart

Rambutan at the H Mart

Rambutan has burst on the scene at the H Mart in Catonsville, and you could hit up the spiny Asian fruit for some adventure and good eating.


Rambutan are sort of like hairy, brightly-painted grapes.  A moist firm fruit inside a stiff red shell covered with bristles.  They're not sharp.  They're actually fun to cut open and pop out the fruit.

This is fun for a foodie dinner.  It's fun to pop a few for kids game to try something new.  They're fragile and expensive to ship, which means that they're available most of the time but really plentiful and fresh in high season.  A few years ago, I paid $7 a pound.  They were about $4 a pound this weekend.


Pick fruit that are relatively heavy and don't have any soft spots.  Just a few make a fun dessert if you pair them with some cookies or candy.

If you go the H Mart, check out all the H Mart posts, especially about the ToreOre fried chicken that you can buy there.  If you go to Catonsville, check out the shopping center -- Mangoberry for yogurt, the Golden Krust for takeout Jamaican, and the houseware store in the basement area down from H Mart -- especially for bento boxes.

H Mart800 N. Rolling RoadCatonsville, MD 21228443-612-9020


NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving east on Rte 40 from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

ToreOre Fried Chicken At H Mart

Fried chicken from ToreOre 

While we're waiting for Bon Chon to open, it's time to check out the other Korean fried chicken options nearby.

H Mart has a stand in the back corner where they sell ToreOre chicken -- a variation on the Korean friend chicken of made-to-order, double-fried birds with spicy, sweet sauces.  We split a medium box on out way back from the greatest furniture store ever in Catonsville.

The box comes with a red ribbon.  Seriously.  It's the coolest fast food box that we have ever seen.

The box pops open to reveal fried chicken coated in ToreOre's sauce.  We went sweet and spicy (#2), and there was spice there.  Enough that I appreciated that the ToreOre woman shook us away from the really spicy sauce.  They're frying it special, so it takes 20 minutes to cook.

Hot fried chicken is delicious.  We tore through the entire package.  It's moist meat with a crunchy coating.  They pour on a bunch of sauce, so get a pile of napkins.  The bird is chopped into more pieces than just "leg, wing and breast," so you'll get a mix of white and dark.  It's piping hot, and we pulled meat off the bone, laughing and talking about what food we were going to buy.

Honestly, the chicken at Tian Chinese Cuisine still rates best.  The coating there is super thin and crispy, and the sauce has a fresher, less-sugary flavor that makes the unique Korean fried chicken experience.  ToreOre is more like a good casual lunch.  This is thick crust, not the brittle edge at Tian.  That makes this more like Harvest Fried Chicken in Woodbine -- with, of course, the sauce on top.

My suggestion is that you split some chicken and then shop at H Mart.  To order, you go to the ToreOre counter in the back right corner.  Ask there for someone to take your order.  You pay at the main register, pick up at the counter, then eat at the little restaurant next to the produce section.  (To wash the sauce off your hands, go to the bathrooms next to the produce section.)

ToreOre Chicken & Joy

inside H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road

Catonsville, MD 21228

NEAR:  The H Mart is on Rte 40 at Rolling Road in Catonsville.  It's easy to reach from Ellicott City -- just head east on Rte 40.  You turn right into the H Mart shopping center.  There is a Starbucks on the end.  The ToreOre counter is in the back right corner.

Japanese Noodles - Udon, Soba, Somen, So Easy

The easiest place to start in a foreign market is to buy something that looks familiar.

At Asian markets, notice that Japanese noodles look like spaghetti.  But that can deceptive -- they're actually easier to cook, better for you, and often better-tasting as well.

The noodle selection can be intimidating, so start with the Hakubaku brand that sells udon, somen and soba noodles.  They're Japanese staples, and they go with flavors from all around the world from shikate mushrooms and traditional recipes in Kimiko Barber's The Japanese Kitchen to cayenne pepper and modern American cuisine like Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking.  

Japanese noodles are a pantry staple that will adapt to your tastes.  You can add them to soup.  You can make chilled summer salads.  You get noodles that are different enough to be interesting, but you can find recipes in many places so that you eat them with the vegetables and meat that you prefer.

Fresh Ginger Ale At The H Mart

I am king of rationalizing sodas -- coming up with excuses to buy soft drinks.

Next on the list:  Real ginger in the soda in the "Fresh Ginger Ale" at H Mart.  Apparently, there is a celebrity chef angle to the brand, but I bought it because the ingredients were nothing more than water, sugar, ginger and citric acid.  It's actually cloudy.  Ginger settles on the bottle, and you can shake it around.

Fresh Ginger Ale really tastes like ginger.  It's lightly sweet, but the real flavor is the hot, fizzy ginger like you get from Reed's Ginger Candy at David's Natural Market.  It was more than $1 a bottle, so you need to like that ginger taste.  You can buy good beers for a similar price.  But it's refreshing and interesting and certainly better for me than my daily caffeine hit of Coke Zero.

When I saw the Fresh Ginger Ale, it was piled near the checkout at the H Mart in Catonsville.  They sell some flavored versions as well, but I went with the original.  I have also found other fun sodas like Tommy's Naked cream soda at David's Natural Market and the Japanese ramune that you can buy at H Mart and other Asian stores.

Frozen Dumplings At The H Mart

Frozen dumplings are a terrific convenience food, but they're not that convenient when you can't find the ones that you like.

The H Mart in Catonsville sells an entire aisle of frozen dumplings -- pork and vegetable, Korean and Japanese, a half-dozen different shapes.  They're one of my staples because I can pop a dozen in a pan and make a meal with a vegetable on the side.  Right from the freezer.  Browned in oil and dipped in a mix of two parts rice vinegar, one part soy sauce and some grated ginger.

The problem is that I can't remember which dumplings I want.  I finish a bag.  I throw the bag away, and then I go to H Mart where I stand at the freezer and try to remember my brand.  What was the shape of the dumpling?  What was the name?  Almost all the writing is in Korean.  Or Chinese.  Or at least it is in writing that I don't recognize.

I know my recent favorites have disappeared.  They were thin triangles and came in a couple different fillings.  But I can't find them anymore.  Keith and I were emailing about that last week.  He and his wife used to love the pork pot stickers with cartoon pigs on the front.  Now, the pigs are gone.  Inspired by Keith, we stopped by the H Mart again this weekend, and I picked up two bags.  Those triangles are still missing.  I bought a bag of Han Reum brand vegetable dumplings.  They're old staples folded into a round shape.  I also bought Pulmuone brand rectacular dumplings stuffed with leek and noodles.  They're new to me -- being sampled in the H Mart aisle as we went past.

They're both pretty good.  Let's be honest: These aren't health food.  They're all pretty salty, and I brown them in a little oil.  I buy vegetarian in some delusion that they're healthier, but I admit that it's not really different from reheating pigs in a blanket.  Any suggestions for really delicious dumplings?  Any meat suggestions?  Any ways to distinguish between the shapes, the different countries?

(Update: Check out the comments below for some suggestions at Costco.  And check out Shari's blog for a review of a Maggi dipping sauce.)

Two years ago, I wrote up "10 Easy Pickups" for people who want to shop at the H Mart but want convenience food, not the basics for cooking.  The frozen dumplings are are top ten item.  But even better than the frozen dumplings are the ones that you could cook your own from Andrea Nguyen's book Asian Dumplings.

Grilling Week At The Asian Supermarket: Whole Fish and Bacon-Wrapped Enotake Mushrooms

In celebration of Grilling Week at HowChow, I am reviewing Planet Barbecue by Steven Raichlen and suggesting some ways to introduce yourself to local ethnic shopping.

Planet Barbecue offers truly interesting ways to cook everything from meat to vegetables, and it is the perfect book for someone who wants to explore the local Asian grocery stores but doesn't know what to buy.

Any of Raichlen's Asian recipes are a fine starting point because he proposes authentic ingredients that you can find easily -- chicken flavored with lemongrass or fish sauce, pork belly cooked with Korean chili paste, rice vinegar and an Asian pear.  But I started with fish.  Whole fish are still a challenge for me, and Raichlen proposed a Loatian recipe that called for small snappers, oyster sauce, garlic and lime.

Shaoxing Rice Wine - Finally Found At H Mart

I finally sniffed out the Shaoxing rice wine at the H Mart.

I'd wanted Shaoxing because I'm cooking a storm out of Andrea Nguyen's spectacular Asian Dumplings cookbook.  Nguyen assured me that dry sherry substituted for the Chinese rice wine, but I became infatuated when I was able to find agar agar, ground pork and all the ingredients -- except for the Shaoxing.

Basically, I turned around.  I had gone bottle by bottle through the vinegars and sauces on one side of the H Mart's sauces aisle.  That's the left if you're walking from the fish section towards the front of the store.  No Shaoxing.  No Shaoxing.  No Shaoxing.

Last weekend, I turned around.  The Shaoxing was at eye level in the first section of shelf.  That took 30 seconds.

(Update:  I didn't find the right product.  A few hours after this post, Andrea Nguyen posted about Shaoxing and her favorite brand Pagoda.  I bought "cooking wine" -- which is salted and tasted terrible!  Please help me find Pagoda brand.)

Thanks to Lisa who emailed and everyone who left comments on the prior post with recommendations about where to find Shaoxing.  That confirmed for me that I had to just be overlooking it.

Mushrooms Of All Shapes At H Mart

Mushrooms have sprouted everywhere at the H Mart in Catonsville, and you could add an exotic look to your table.

Yesterday, it seemed like H Mart had mushrooms everywhere -- fancy shapes for a few dollars.  I have no idea whether this is mushroom season, whether it's a special buy for the Lunar New Year, or whether I just noticed something that happens all the time.

But I bought mushrooms.  A package of regular buttons for 99 cents.  Then packages of enoki ($0.99) and beech ($1.99.)  It was hard choosing because there were actually multiple packages (and prices) of enoki and then a half dozen other varieties including oyster, king oyster, and shiitake.  The enoki and the button varieties are in the first produce aisle, and others -- like the shiitake -- are in the refrigerated case that runs perpendicular to the fruit.

My Valentine's menu abruptly converted to mushroom risotto.  I added some dried shittake, which I had in the pantry but you could also buy for a few dollars at the H Mart.  I thought the shittakes added the most flavor, and they have a toothy texture that contrasts well with fresh mushrooms.  With one great sausage, this became one of the best risottos that I have ever made.

What else do I do with mushrooms?  I bought three packages, and that was at least double what I needed for risotto.  Any other recipe ideas?


Click here for all my posts about H Mart.  If you go to Catonsville, definitely stick your head in the Hanoori Town next door -- for the home store downstairs or for Mango Berry frozen yogurt.  And consider stopping for lunch at Hunan Taste, the authentic Chinese restaurant in the same shopping center.

Mushroom and Sausage Risotto
This recipe is best with sausage.  You saute some good sausage, which adds some fat to the pot and a lot of flavor to the risotto.  I suggest you buy the sausage at one of Howard County's great butchers or at Whole Foods.  Handmade sausage is worth the drive.  I recommend a mix of mushrooms.  Button and beech were terrific.  The enoki shrank to the size of threads.  Cool, but I recommend you try something else.

Five or six dried shiitake mushrooms (less than a full one ounce package)
About 3/4 c. hot water
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 link of mild pork sausage (about a quarter pound) or 2 TBL olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
2-3 cups of fresh mushrooms, with large ones chopped
1-2 TBL butter (optional)
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
Salt and pepper

1) Soak the dried mushrooms in the hot water.  Heat the stock to simmering, then reduce the heat to just keep the stock warm.

2) Once the mushrooms are soft, slice them and save the hot water.

3) Break up the sausage.  Handmade sausage should be inside a casing, and the raw sausage will break up if you slice the casing open and pull out the filling.  Heat a heavy pot over medium heat, then add the sausage and saute it until fat starts to appear in the pan and the meat just starts to brown.  It doesn't need to be cooked through.  (If you want vegetarian, skip the sausage and add the olive oil.  Add a 1/2 tsp salt with the onion and mushrooms.)

4) Add the onion and about 2/3 of the mushrooms.  Saute them until the vegetables are tender -- about 10 minutes.  Add the butter.  Once it melts, add the rice and stir until the rice is coated with butter.  The rice will lighten on the edges so that you see a dark spot inside.

5) Add the hot water that you used to soak the mushrooms.  Let the liquid bubble.  Begin adding the stock about 1/2 cup at a time.  Stir every minute or so.  Add more stock when the liquid is almost absorbed.  Look for the time when your spoon creates a line on the bottom of the pan that takes a moment for the liquid to fill.

6) After you have added about two cups of stock, add the remaining mushrooms.  After about 15 minutes, start tasting the rice.  You want tender rice with a firm spot in the middle, but it's a matter of personal taste.   Once the rice reaches the level that you like, add salt and pepper to your taste.  (You may have some leftover stock.  Save it.)

Variation: Buy two one-ounce dried shiitake packages.  You could use those to replace all the fresh mushrooms.  That converts this recipe into a "pantry staples" idea.  If you keep a few sausages in the freezer, you could make risotto when you're trapped in a snow storm.  Like in June.

Drink The Soda, Don't Swallow The Marble

The Japanese soda is sweet, sweet, sweet, but I barely noticed because I was making sure not to swallow the marble.

This is Shirakiku's ramune drink -- a soda imported from Japan that Mrs. HowChow first found at Ginza of Tokyo.

Ramune is a cool little experience. The soda is soda -- sweet and interesting enough in flavors like lychee, pineapple, and melon. But it's a cool experience because there is no bottle cap. The bottle is topped with a marble and a plastic lid. You punch down the marble with a plunger that is packaged inside. The marble rattles around a bit. As you drink, it rolls around a small chamber and get covered in carbonation bubbles. (You won't really swallow the marble because it can't fit out the top.)

Fun little diversion. Cute for a party. Great for a Japanese theme -- or if you know anyone who loves Japanese comics. I may stock some for the next visit from my nephews, although I don't know if they drink fruit sodas.

You can buy the ramune sodas -- along with sushi and Japanese steakhouse cuisine -- at Ginza of Tokyo on Johns Hopkins Road near La Palapa Too. I also found them in a half-dozen flavors in the H Mart in Catonsville. Ask for them, or look in the displays between the two lines of frozen food.

(Update: Dzoey says below that Sushi King and other Japanese restaurants sell ramune.)

For more information about ramune, check out Asian Aisle, a blog that Sheri turned me onto over the summer. Great photos of the bottles and the marble, and Asian Aisle profiles lots of items that you could find at Asian grocery stores. If you want to see the bottle, you can check out YouTube. If you're a juvenile delinquent, go back to YouTube to see how to melt the bottle cap to free the marble.

Rambutan at The H Mart

The H Mart has rambutan -- the spiny Asian fruit that make for terrific conversation, even if they're just a few degrees from exotic grapes.

Rambutan are sort of like hairy, brightly-painted lychees. A moist firm fruit inside a stiff red shell covered with bristles. They're not sharp. They're actually fun to

The fruit come from the tropics, and they're fragile and expensive to ship, which means that they're available most of the time but really plentiful and fresh in high season. Still $7 a pound, but worth the money when the H Mart workers are pouring entire flats into the display on a weekday morning. The rambutan were delicious at the end of last week. Pick fruit that are relatively heavy and don't have any soft spots. I served them for dessert with a few pieces of chocolate from Sweet Cascades.

If you go the H Mart, check out my post about my favorite place for food or all the H Mart posts. Also check out the other joints in that shopping center -- like the Korean restaurant in Hanoori, the Mangoberry for yogurt, the Golden Krust for takeout Jamaican, and the Hanoori Home Plaza for bento boxes.

H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road

Catonsville, MD 21228

443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving east on Rte 40 from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

Korean Recipes at the H Mart

If you shop at the H Mart in Catonsville, check out the Korean recipes that they offer on little cards in the produce section.

I grabbed cards with photos and recipes for stuffed tofu, stuffed tomato kimchi and summer squash pancakes. They look delicious, and the recipes look really straight-forward. They're in English, and they read like they're aimed at a non-Korean (or maybe second generation) cook. They're a great opening if you want to experiment with Korean ingredients like sweet rice flour, Asian pear, red pepper powder, salted shrimp or Korean radish.

Look for the rack of recipes next to the refrigerated section at the back of the produce department. If you look at the sushi takeout display, the recipe rack is on the opposite of that wall.

The H Mart is my favorite place for food. I have never done a comprehensive post on the H Mart, but you can click here to read all my posts.

Edamame at the H Mart

Edamame is the perfect example of the fun that you can have in the freezers at the H Mart in Catonsville.

Bags costs as little as $1.  They stay in your freezer for months.  You just steam them up when you want a snack, a cool starter for a fancy dinner, or a little green to create a full meal from soup or takeout sushi.

Edamame are just soybeans.  I prefer the bags of beans still in their pods.  Drain them from the boiling water and dust the damp pods with salt.  The sea salt from William Sonoma is a delicious extravagance.  You squeeze the pods with your teeth so that the soybeans go in your mouth and just a taste of the salt gets to your tongue.

Edamame were part of my "10 easy pick-ups at H Mart," and they're available as appetizers at Japanese places like Sushi King.  If you're inspired by edamame, you should look all around the H Mart -- my favorite place for food.

H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road
Catonsville, MD 21228
443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

Delicious: The Easiest Quick Pickles

Pickles intimidate me, but I stumbled on the easiest way to turn vegetables into quick treats -- thanks again to the H Mart.

Yoricho cooking vinegar turns cucumbers, red pepper and carrot into pickles in just 20 minutes. Mix the Yoricho with an equal amount of water, then dunk in any vegetables that you want. They have a light vinegar flavor, although complex enough to be a real pickle with no labor at all. Great with Korean food, but they'd also pair with burgers or any other rich main course. I even soaked carrots overnight, then packed them for lunch.

Seriously, that's all I know because the only English on the bottle is a sticker with the ingredients and the name "Cooking Vinegar - Yoricho." I don't know if "yoricho" is a brand or a type of vinegar. The ingredients list vingar, corn syrup, sugar and then a list of flavorings like lemon juice, bonito extract, sea tangle extract, etc. I only bought the bottle because one of the H Mart's taste-testers convinced me to sample last weekend.

No waiting. No canning. I sliced vegetables into a bowl with the yoricho, and I served them as soon as the other food was ready. An hour gave a stronger taste, but 20 minutes really did work. Great with red pepper, carrots and cucumber. Probably great with whatever you try.

For all posts about the H Mart, check out here. If you go there, definitely check out the Jamaican patties at Golden Krust Bakery in the same shopping center. If you love pickles, remember the homemade pickles at Family Affair produce stand.

H Mart
800 N. Rolling Road
Catonsville, MD 21228
443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

Updates: Changes at the H Mart

After too many weeks of work travel, I returned to the H Mart in Catonsville this weekend and discovered two changes -- along with some new items for future posts.

First -- The H Mart has improved its takeout food.  Korean food makes for terrific takeout dinners because you can pick up soup or marinated meat as a main course and then a few side dishes from the panchan bar.  Maybe my choices -- marinated radish or seaweed salad.  Maybe something more adventurous like salted squid.  On the weekend at least, there is a table with samples and toothpicks so that you can try anything that looks interesting.

H Mart has created a refrigerated section in the far right-hand corner of the store. There are pre-packaged items, which always seem too large for me.  The innovation is a dozen panchan in "select-your-own-amount" containers so that you can buy just a serving or two.

There are plastic quarts of spicy beef soup across from the panchan.  On the weekend, there was sliced, marinated meat in a refrigerated cooler.  Heat the soup, or saute up the meat to make lettuce wraps.  That is a dinner that you can put on the table in 10 minutes with leftovers to take for lunch.  The H Mart still doesn't have the full array of panchan offered by Lotte in Ellicott City, but the panchan and the "select-your-own-amount" of meat are a vast improvement over the old selection.

Second, things are changing at the restaurants / shopping area that used to be called Besoto.  There are new signs for the "Hanoori Market" that emphasize new management.  I thought the Besoto restaurant was a fine cafeteria-style Korean place, and it appears to remain open (along with an all-you-can-eat sushi place that I passed on) under the sign for Hanoori.  But then there is also a smaller Besoto sign farther down the shopping center.

Honestly, I didn't have time this weekend to figure it all out.  But it's certainly worth keeping an eye on if you go to the H Mart.

H Mart remains my favorite place for food.  Even if you don't cook, it is worth the drive to Catonsville to check out everything from fruits to frozen food to ice cream.  That shopping center is actually pretty interesting with a Starbucks on the end and a new Jamaican takeout place that offers delicious patties.

H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road
Catonsville, MD 21228
443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

Delicious: Popped Rice Bowls at H Mart

Try the popped rice bowls at the H Mart for an interesting snack that you can pair with almost anything.

Across from the fish counter is a green industrial machine that clunks every few second and knocks out crunchy rice cakes. They're infinitely lighter than the diet-fad rice cakes. These crunch in your mouth, but then almost melt there.

I love them with peanut butter. But they're a neutral flavor that could go with almost anything -- sweet like jam or savory like salsa or kimchi. Based on the H Mart, kids seem to love them. Parents hand the rice bowls to kids sitting in shopping carts, and they chomp, chomp, chomp. For $1.99 for a bag of about a dozen, it's a fun snack to try.

You don't even have to cook! Check here to see that the H Mart offers prepared foods and delicious items that you can just eat off the shelf.

H Mart
800 N. Rolling Road
Catonsville, MD 21228
443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

H Mart: Ten Easy Pick-ups

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the H Mart, my favorite place for food.

You can enjoy the H Mart even if you don't cook. There are prepared foods and foods that you can just eat off the shelf. Start there. Maybe you'll see other items that you want to try or see something that sparks your fancy. To keep this short, I'll just list th

em here.

1) Lunch: Against the right wall is a Korean takeout place

and a sushi counter. Have lunch. Try the beef soup.

2) Korean melon (right): Slice and eat one of these yellow melons or any other exotic fruit. In produce.

3) Kimchi: Take a refrigerated jar of pickled cabbage or other vegetables from the display in the back near produce.

4) Seaweed wrappers (right): Super-cool item to make dinner right out of the pantry with rice and tuna fish. It's like a sushi wrapper. Just make rice and pour on a little seasoned rice vinegar (also available at H Mart).

Moisten a can of tuna with the vinegar as well. Then, make little rolls with the seasoned rice and a dollop of tuna. Aisle Four near the front.

5) Edamame: Frozen soybeans, steam or microwave for a snack or appetizer.

6) Hai Reum brand dumplings: Delicious dumplings -- veg or meat -- to steam or pan fry. Generally in the open freezer in the middle of the frozen aisle.

7) Azuki ice cream: Red bean ice cream, eat it right from the container. In frozen.

8) Nong Shim potato-flavored snack: It's like an airy potato chip in the shape of a cheeto. Across from the dairy.

9) Choripdong soybean curd (right): Triangle pockets the size of a matchbook that come with a sauce. Season some rice with the enclosed sauce, then stuff in the pockets. In the refrigerated/dairy section.

10) Donut: On the way out, MoMo Bakery is in front. Take a snack for the road. Red bean donuts are spectacular. The "potato salad" donut is a lightly sweet treat -- no mayonnaise or anything gross.

Bonus Item: Check the vinegar aisle for Yoricho cooking vinegar, which turns vegetables into the easiest quick pickles.

If you want to try "ready-to-eat" items at other markets, check out Caezar's for Middle Eastern, Lily's for Mexican, Desi Bazaar for Indian or any of the other markets in Howard County.

H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road

Catonsville, MD 21228

443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.

H Mart: My Favorite Place For Food

If you wanted five reasons to visit the H Mart, Asian food wouldn't make the list.

You can buy any Asian ingredients that I have ever wanted from Thailand to Korea -- wonton wrappers, coconut milk, long beans, three kinds of bok choy, 10 kinds of tofu, 10 kinds of rice, an entire aisle of sauces from soy to fish to chili. I found pickled plums. I discovered Asian pears. I bought bulgogi meat ready to cook.

But H Mart if my favorite place in the world for food because the opportunities are endless even if you don't cook Asian food. To keep this a blog post (and not my novel about supermarkets), these are five, truncated reasons why you have to drive Rte 40 east almost to I-695.

5) The Fruit

Eve wouldn't be able to decide what fruit to pick from the H Mart display. Year-round, I get a selection -- and a price -- that no one else beats. Watermelon, pineapples, berries, baby

bananas. The fruit lasts longer than anywhere else, and the in-season fruit comes in breath-taking arrays -- five kinds of pears, eight apples, six oranges, four plums. It is such a luxury to scoop up bags of fruit, knowing that the bill won't be high and that I can stockpile it even if I won't go grocery shopping again for two weeks. Have an apple taste-off between types. Make pies. Explore the seasonal exotics like rambutan, lychee and Korean melon. Just one transforms a fruit salad into something special. A small plate transports your table to another country.

4) The Frozen Food

You don't even need to cook. Walk down the central aisle and pick from two walls of freezers and the display case between. Dumplings. Shu mai. Ice cream. Bags of edamame

Fillipino pork marinated in 7-Up and skewered for easy grilling. Everything has a US label, so everything lists its ingredients in English. So try a few and come back for what you like.

3) The Mexican Food

No joke. Half the H Mart employees are Hispanic, and the store clearly caters to a Latin market with a mix of American and imported goods. Start in produce with plantains, jicama,

and the standard vegetables that people use across the continent. In Aisle 2, check out the Latin

wall with a full Goya collection of beans, sauces and rice, Coco Rico coconut soda, hominy, etc. In the freezer near the rear, look for fried plantains and blackberry pulp. In the dairy section, round out any Mexican shopping list with queso fresco, crema salvadorena, chorizos, and La Fe brand arepas. (Pass on the refrigerated tamales. The frozen ones at Lily's Mexican Market are better.)

2) The Vegetables

The vegetables just last longer. I don't know why. I have green beans that I bought 10 days ago, and I have been cooking them up in little batches still crisp and fresh. They're also cheap. I shop with a few items that I need, plus roving hands that just grab whatever looks good. Carrots, cukes, eggplant, cauliflower, perfect every time. Cilantro that lasts for weeks. A herb display up front with rosemary, Thai basil, etc. Bring Vegetables Everyday by Jack Bishop, and you can flip to the section for whatever looks good and find five simple recipes. Or bring an Asian cookbook and explore the new world of choy sum, bitter melon, fuzzy squash and banana flower.

1) The Fish
But the fish market is the spot that can't be replicated. They bring the world to you in an endless variation. Start with the absolutely familiar -- precut fillets and steaks of cod, tilapia, salmon and the species that swim on many menus. You order by the fillet or by the pound. Next time, check out the rest. Sushi-grade salmon and tuna for home-made sashimi. Packaged-up fish heads for stock.

The central offering is whole fish, which I have worked through slowly. The sign over the fish mongers shows you the ways that they'll prepare. They weigh the whole fish, then cut out whatever you don't want. Number Four is no head, no guts, no scales. That is the way that most recipes suggest. Whole fish steamed or roasted makes a delicious meal, and the H Mart offers a changing list of fish beyond the basics. Ask for help. People speak English, and they have answered dozens of questions as I watched.

Like every other department, the beauty of the H Mart is that everything is fresh and everything is reasonably price or even cheap. So I experiment. I tried kingfish. I tried a whole snapper. I bought one squid -- cleaning it from diagrams in How To Cook Everything -- to add to soup and to see if I could stomach cooking invertebrates. My friend's new husband loves clam chowder, so I splurged on bags of clams to cook New England chowder for a celebrating table of 10. The chowder was amazing, and I couldn't have even started if I were buying old clams at 50 cents each from the Giant.

There is still a world a fish that I haven't tried. Frozen squids. Live tilapia. Snails. Head-on shrimp. I figure that I have time.

You don't even have to cook! Check here to see that the H Mart offers prepared foods and delicious items that you can just eat off the shelf. Although, I do think that Lotte in Ellicott City has an even-better selection of prepared food because Lotte has a panchan bar that you can sample by the ounce.

If you're interested in exploring the H Mart, check out my review of Kimiko Barber's cookbooks The Japanese Kitchen and The Chopstick Diet. They're great guides to the Japanese aisle of our local Asian grocery stores.

For a full listing of ethnic and organic markets in Howard County, check here.

H Mart

800 N. Rolling Road

Catonsville, MD 21228

443-612-9020

NEAR: Rte 40 just west of I-695. If you are driving from HoCo, you'll see a Starbucks and a FedEx at the end of the shopping center. Turn right immediately after the Starbucks. If you miss it, just turn right at the next intersection.