H Mart Gadgets

For my birthday this year I planned a big shopping trip to H Mart, the Korean American chain that specializes in authentic Asian groceries. You should know that I watch a lot of YouTube content about Japanese and Korean grocery shopping and cooking, so I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted at H Mart. You can get stuff there that is impossible to find where I live. Of course, you have to go pretty close to a big city to find an H Mart, so that is what we did. Two family members and I made the trip on a cloudy Saturday at the dawn of 2022.

H Mart in Burlington, Massachusetts. Sorry this is not a good shot

The closest H Marts in our part of New England are in the Boston area--there are two, and we spontaneously decided to go to both of them. Above is a picture of the second one, which is in Burlington, Massachusetts and is a gigantic, stand-alone store the size of, say, a Whole Foods. It was incredible.

But first, we went to the H Mart in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is in Central Square. We used to live near Central Square and this H Mart location has taken over the space that used to be the Harvest Co-op, a natural foods store right on Mass Ave. There is a very small food court there (a ramen counter, a curry counter, and a bakery). Ramen counter seen above.

I tried a Calpico soda for lunch. It was a little like a slightly creamy, non-fizzy Sprite. Not bad!

 

Here's the ramen bowl that one family member ordered.
 

 

While at the two H Marts, I managed to get a LOT of Asian groceries. I was so excited! I found some rambutan (or lychees, which are the prickly-looking fruits that I'd had when visiting Costa Rica).

Rambutan (lychee)

 

I also got fermented mustard greens, shakers of perilla seeds and rice seasonings, prepared kimchi, pickled mustard greens, lotus root, crushed garlic, spicy condiments, Jasmine tea, fish cakes (eomuk), rice cakes (tteok), Japanese Okonomiyaki pancake mix and sauce, soft tofu, beef stew and kimchi soup kits, packets of ramyun and other noodles, laver flakes (seaweed), tempura mix, and bao mix (the fluffy steamed pork buns).

Sichuan pepper noodles (5 pack)

Pickled cabbage soup kit (after using--it was delicious)

We also picked up some interesting gadgets and I'd love to show them to you! All four of these items have become important parts of our kitchen tools.

Kimchi container

First up is my kimchi container, by Easy Film. It's constructed with a nice folding handle for carrying or moving around in the fridge. Then there's an inner gasket-type lid that also has a handle and a venting spot so you can really seal it in, or open it to let the juices or bubbles out. I made my first batch of non-easy kimchi following Maangchi's recipe. (Her recipe calls for 6 pounds of napa cabbages; I halved it and used 3 napa cabbages.) (If you enjoyed the book Crying in H Mart, which I loved last year, I think this is the same recipe Michelle Zauner used.)

 

 

My kimchi is percolating nicely!

Before we peeled off the stickers we used Google Translate on them, but something got lost in translation as it says "Reproduce the taste of kimchi poison." NOT accurate.

Rice Roll Frame

It is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE to make nice triangular rice rolls just using your hands. But I love a gadget sometimes, so I grabbed this plastic rice roll frame to try out. It's pretty satisfying.

Rice roll frame just has two parts

Step 1: Fill with rice

Step 2: Put on lid and squeeze

Step 3: Press on the back of lid and pop out rice roll

Here's how you can serve the rice rolls. I put on some sesame seeds and Nori seaweed wrapper on one to make it kind of Onigiri style. I've also made them with tuna salad inside and fake crab inside, and they're good with furikake (rice seasoning) sprinkled on top.

Are you wondering where that beautiful rectangular plate came from? ALSO H MART.

Noodle Pot

One of our party got excited about this noodle pot by Hello!. It is super cool. He bought it for himself as he likes to make ramen packets for an easy lunch or snack. This noodle pot can do it all!

The pot has a handle and lid (and metal straining/steaming rack, see lower right). Just put your water in and set to boil to start.

Once boiling, add noodles.

There is a "Noodle" setting that is a bit below a full rolling boil, so adjust as needed.

This is the plug-in base that the pot goes on.

Depending on your recipe you can add your mixes and packets to the soup in the pot and pour out, or drain your noodles and THEN add the mixes. That's what I did here (this is the same Kiki sichuan noodle soup shown above as a 5-pack).

 

Omelette Pan

I learned about rolled omelettes from my Asian youtube watching. We were on the lookout for a rectangular or square pan to try this out, and we found this one. My fellow shopper bought this for himself to make satisfying rolled egg dishes.

Here's the rather wide non-stick omelette pan we got, along with a special wide spatula we thought would help with effective rolling.

The idea is that you put in only enough egg to coat the bottom of the pan, let it cook, put in a filling if you want (I added cheese here), then roll it up.

Then scoot that first roll to the end of the pan and pour another batch of egg. Repeat as often as you like.

Here's my rolled omelette, seasoned with some Nanami Togarashi (a spicy Japanese condiment I picked up at, you guessed it, H Mart)

Rolling in action

 

So we went to H Mart in January and have been gradually working through everything we bought. The soup kits, the noodles, the condiments, the pancake and tempura and bao mixes. I've been enjoying our cool gadgets and our new-to-me ingredients (lotus root stuffed with shrimp and fried is yummy!). I'm hoping to go back to H Mart in the spring. I'll keep you posted!