H Mart Jericho — Attraction in Town of Oyster Bay

As a 60-year-old old whiteboy whose horizon for Asian cuisine was Chinese takeout in Brooklyn (up until I joined the Navy in 1981), shopping here is an almost magical experience.

You can find ingredients here that you can't in many other Asian grocery stores in the Nassau/Suffolk area.

I gave it 4 of 5 because I can get a lot of the seafood for considerably better prices. e.g., clams (Quohogue) should be sold by the doz, never by weight. I purhased a dozen chowder clams for $7, which would have been at least twice that at HMart. In fairness, their seafood department is amazing when it comes to selection. Humongous lobster tank with big healthy lobsters, a live flounder tank with some crazy flounders that were like doormat fluke... ALIVE! I did hmget some nice size, head-on shrimp for a fair price.

Produce (including an amazingly wide variety of mushrooms and sprouts) never fails to have everything I need to make some exotic dish I've eaten overseas and can't find here.

The employees (if not crazy buzy) are very helpful (I keep pictures handy on my cell for any language barrier). I've even had customers help me out by not only finding what I need, but the right type (who knew tripe could be so complicated?)

I"m not qualified to give an Asian perspective, but for a hobbyist, whiteboy, foodie looking to expand his culinary horizon into the exotic and possibly learn a thing or two, this place is a gift.

I only wish those marinated meats didn't have all that msg and sodium benzoate, etc. Note to management: make that available w/o all the processing chemicals. I know it reduces the shelf life, but if I could order the marinated Ribeye special and pay ahead, I would pay extra. It looked amazing!

To close, for those of you who are old enough to remember She Crab Soup/Stew, yo can no longer get the female crabs and especially those with row. The row is a crucial ingredient for this dish, but it is illegal for a good reason, we need to do w/o the row, or we'll do w/o crabs altogether.

I find that flying fish row will do just fine, but their flavor is not strong enough. Adding lobster paste and crab paste helps to bring that around. (There was some other row available that was 3x as expensive, and there was no English label... I'm not pulling that thread. The dish is just fine with the flying fish row, and the pastes worked just fine. They even had Paul Prudhomme's Seafood Magic, which is my spice blend of choice for SheCrab Soup. The last thing you want is for such an elegantly delicious dish to taste...

I want to love Hmart but I had a bad experience at the bakery with customer service. H Mart is clean and the bakery items which I ordered were two special holiday cakes for a birthday and one for Christmas. Both cakes cost me 90$. Which is fine because the cakes were perfect and worth the price and my children loved it. BUT the guy at the bakery was so rude to me and treated me different in a bad way compared to the other customers. This guy has yellow dyed hair and is covered in tattoos. Didn’t seem like he would work in the bakery section. I went on the Monday before Christmas to place my order and I had my young kids with me. It was my first time at Hmart and I needed guidance with the cakes. He was not patient or helpful and rushed me. I said ok it was 8:00 pm maybe it qas late he’s tired. I went back today Christmas Day to pick up the cakes and my luck I got the same guy. He asked me to wait and we waited for 20 minutes to pick up the two pre ordered cakes. He comes out and doesn’t even give me the happy birthday sign and candles that everyone else got. I asked if I could order a coffee and a twist and he said I have to get back on the line again. But I’m already at the counter, so why couldn’t he just take my order and the other customers were being helped but another associate. So I got back on line and he gives me my order and I said merry Christmas and he says nothing back but just before he greeted other customers for Christmas. Then my 6 year old son said merry Christmas twice and he greeted him- I was shocked. I’m curious why he seemed to be disgusted and despised with me? Is it because I’m Indian Asian? Is it because I’m a woman? A mother? Dark skinned? There were two ladies who were very kind and asked if I was being helped while we waited forever for the cakes. I love H Mart and I want to get more cakes and bakery items for future celebrations but I hope I never have to be helped by the mean guy with no manners again. Please HMart train him on customer service and to be kind to all the shoppers who support you not just the ones he...

Hmart is a massive Korean grocery chain that seems like they try to be all things to all people. However, the end result is definitely less than their intention.

So here's the rub: if they were a large scale grocery for average Americans, then they are in serious competition with Whole Foods and the other upscale chains. They are totally incapable of competing without adequate organic selections and too high prices. The produce quality is woefully subpar and inadequate.

As an Asian grocer, they fail on MULTIPLE counts. Their prices are way too high. Their selections are perpetually Korean, with a very slight attempt at any real Chinese selections. I went to the noodle aisle, and the only Chinese choice were bean threads. ALL other noodles were either Korean or Japanese, even Vietnamese. On the plus side, they did stock organic tofu and miso. The Asian greens were sorry looking, and over-priced.

As for meat, it's a great place if you're looking for pretty sliced meat for Korean dishes or Chinese hot pot, but other than that I have a hard time imagining how they will be useful to us as a family with their "out-of-their-mind" per lb pricing. Cutting and packaging something pretty does not make conventional feedlot cattle cost more than organic grass-fed cattle. Get a freaking life. I own a pretty sharp knife.

As for seafood, they have serious competition. You'd have to be really tired and NOT want to make another stop, and be willing to overpay. That's all I have to say about that.

All in all, their only utility in my mind is if you want quick Korean eats at their deli counter, or if you need to buy Korean or Japanese stuff. That is it. Everything else you can get elsewhere better, cheaper, with higher consistency of quality and value. Their only redeeming value is the expensive build-out, vibe, and decor. Well I'll go to the mall for that. Not for groceries....