The lure of H Mart

15 May 2021, 06:11 PM

ShiroKuro

quote:
Angelo Caputo's chain with four or five stores

Ahh, I'm pretty sure those are the ones I'm thinking of, there's one in Bloomingdale. And then there are tons of independent Italian bakeries all over the place. My Dad used to have a specific shop for different kinds of cookies. When we were living in Japan and we'd fly into O'Hare (and later when I was in grad school and we'd take the airport shuttle to O'Hare), he'd pick us up at the international terminal and then we'd have to stop at three or four bakeries so he could get just the right this or that. These were all the cookies from my childhood, I hardly know the names of any of them, but they're what my grandmother always made. My Dad figured out which bakeries made which ones the way she did. And the bakery at the Caputo's in Bloomingdale was on the list as well. We'd make the rounds of the small bakeries, then Caputos to the bakery and the deli.

I had no idea at the time that those trips would become such a sweet memory for me.

quote:
but none near me.

My sense of where things are in greater Chicagoland is very, very unreliable!

15 May 2021, 06:37 PM

CHAS

Would like to find a cookbook entitled Asian Food for Kitchen Klutzs.

15 May 2021, 07:02 PM

RealPlayer

We had a big pan-Asian store here that closed pre-pandemic but is supposed to reopen in a different shopping plaza. I do miss it.

Of course, there’s always the option of going to the Japanese, Chinese or Korean stores in Manhattan or Brooklyn.

15 May 2021, 08:01 PM

BeeLady

I have tried several times to get to our local H Mart and failed...the traffic and trying to get into the parking lot is impossible!

I now live in a Cambodian prevalent community so there are wonderful small markets near to home that feel like a neighborhood place.They have the most amazing fresh ingredients...one an amazing fresh fish market.

16 May 2021, 11:27 AM

AdagioM

quote:
Originally posted by pianojuggler:
There is an H Mart about a mile from Chez pj and an Uwajimaya another mile or so farther. I have hit H Mart a couple of times. Their vegetables and meat are always good.

The vegetables and meat at Uwajimaya are outstanding. If I'm lucky, I can score a few things in the meat clearance bin; they are usually better quality than the full-price items at the regular grocery store. I guess Japanese and other Asians don't put up with poor quality meat. Of course, the seafood section is amazing, but I don't buy much seafood. And this is at one of the suburban stores. The main store downtown is amazing.

DD wanted a bottle of hot chili oil. Mrs pj and I were at Uwajimaya and walked up and down the spice aisle and didn't see any. It was disappointing and strange. We continued shopping... and discovered that the next aisle over was the hot chili oil aisle. Pretty much an entire aisle of hot chili oil and curry paste.

And you should see the ramen aisle.

And the tea aisle.

We used to shop at Uwajimaya when I was a kid. There was the main store downtown -- a block or two from the current location -- and a satellite store at a mall out in the 'burbs. The one at the mall only sold books and gifts (and a huge selection of origami paper!), but they also had a glass steam case at the cash register with hum bow.

It's an experience.

And the downtown Uwajimaya now has a separate store-within-the-store called Kinokunya that has the books and magazines and stationery. I think that's a separate chain... I saw a Kinokunya in Sydney.

We also have Ranch 99 and several other Asian grocery stores, as well as the tiny stores and shops in the International District.

There is also the quirky DK Market which I think is mostly Indian items. It's like a cross between a souk and Costco. Mostly pallets and piles of boxes and bags of things with little or no English on them. Dimly lit. Low prices. Always busy. And the parking lot is a zoo. It always smells fascinating.

I love Kinokuniya; there’s one inside the Beaverton Uwajimaya, too. Lots of fun pens, notebooks, stationery, and books. I used to find Japanese knitting stitch dictionaries there. Now some of my treasured stitch dictionaries have been translated into English, which makes them much more useful, although I was pretty good at decoding charts.

16 May 2021, 03:27 PM

Qaanaaq-Liaaq

quote:
Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

BTW I have been meaning to watch that film for forever... one of these days.

Two other really good Japanese films are “The Scythian Lamb” and “Harmonium”. Both films are drama and contain violence. I saw them both at an International Film Festival. Some of the best movies in my opinion come from France, Iceland, and Japan in no particular order of course. Hopefully, the Chicago IFF will be back to normal this October so I can see some more.

Back to the topic: Does the vice versa situation exist in Japan and South Korea? Surely by now there must be many corporate and individually owned supermarket stores catering to Westerners living in these two countries. I can’t remember seeing any when I lived in Frankfurt, West Germany though. There were only commissaries located on or near U.S. military bases. AAFEES, the Army and Air Force European Exchange Service, operates the food commissaries for the Defense Department for Americans working in Germany.