One corner of the food court at H Mart Credit: Matt Keller Lehman
Lost in a Korean wilderness again; and all the children are insane. With apologies to the Doors fans out there, this textually modified lyric came to me while biting into a genetically modified Pinkglow® pineapple I procured for $7.99 after being hip-checked by a rotund sexagenarian reaching for the same neatly displayed fruit box in one of H Mart’s many, many produce aisles.
Yes, the madding crowds at H Mart can get maddening, and weekends here make a Black Friday sale at Walmart seem like a slow walk through a library. In fact, dodging cars and trains of grocery carts is but a minor inconvenience, an initiation even, to shopping at one of the largest Asian grocery stores on the continent. Admittedly, some fellow food hooligans and I contributed to the chaos — wielding a cleaver in the middle of the parking lot to live-hack a fresh and pungent durian will inevitably create a bit of a stink.
On a recent Sunday morning, I got to H Mart early enough to load and lock a trunkful of groceries into my car by 10 a.m., including a couple of live lobsters for only $22 (honestly, H Mart’s seafood section with deliveries made daily from the Fulton Fish Market is worth the trip alone), four pounds of rambutan ($11), a yellow watermelon ($5) and a box of Tokyo Banana sponge cake ($12.99). BTW: I was denied purchase of a yuzu highball cocktail in a can. “Sorry, we can’t sell alcohol before noon on Sundays,” the checkout girl said to me. Um, I think someone needs to tell the H Mart brass that Orlando’s Sunday blue laws were lifted during the Obama administration.
On the way back in from the parking lot, I planned on a little culinary chaos in the food court with my pal, but we came to learn that most vendors open at 11 a.m. Some, like Paris Baguette and Kung Fu Tea, in the corridor leading to the food court, open at 10 a.m. So does Eggcellent, where we procured a spicy shrimp sandwich ($9.99) with American cheese, parsley, onion and an oddly sweet chili sauce in between thick-cut brioche bread served in a wax-paper pouch. Turned out to be pretty gratifying.
Alas, the tepid flat white ($5.45) from Coffee & Co. and a too-sweet “Sunrise” fruit tea sparkler ($7.95) from Da Bang weren’t. Da Bang is also home to the Korean 10-won crepe coin, a mozzarella-filled round known for its cheese pull. But cheese pulls excite me and the pal about as much as a mayo tasting flight, so we secured a roomy table in the main food court and surveyed the other options.
First stop: Jaws Topokki for a thick, ruddy soup ($14.99/$8.49 half) filled with chewy rolls of tteokbokki, or rice cakes. “Do you want it spicy or regular?” asked the girl behind the counter. “Just know that regular is also spicy.” I can confirm that it most certainly is. Lolling in that pool of gochujang fire were fish cakes, cabbage, green onions, fried fish cakes and a quail egg. Gimbap seaweed rolls, like the bibimbap gimbap ($10.49) filled with beef and rice, were heartily devoured. Of note were the intricate fillings of carrot, cucumber, burdock root, radish and mushroom inside those rolls.
Then it was onto Chidon Katsu Place for, what else, katsu. If you’re going to indulge in a non-Korean staple at H Mart’s food court, make it Chidon’s panko-fried Japanese cutlets. We got the chicken katsu with the veggie fried rice upgrade ($21.99) and couldn’t stop raving about the light, delicate fry. It’s served with miso soup, katsu dipping sauce, pickled radishes and shredded cabbage.
Japanese chicken cutlets from Chidon Katsu Place at H Mart Credit: Matt Keller Lehman
Perhaps our favorite order on this day was a recommendation by Lily, the woman at U Chun. She touted the udon noodle dishes, and Clarice Lam, Kaya’s new executive pastry chef, vouched for them after I saw her slurping those squigglers down. But Lily’s fave dish was the mul nengmyun ($16) — cold, chewy buckwheat noodles buried beneath an icy slush of vinegary beef broth and, WOW, were they ever refreshing. “This is great hangover food,” said the pal. “I wish I got drunk last night.” Julienned cucumbers, sliced radishes and a sesame-specked soft-boiled egg added body to every stellar slurp. Get. This. Soup.
At this point, we were as stuffed as a mandu on Lunar New Year, but the crowds in front of Myung Ga Korean BBQ & Tofu Soup drew us in. Mandu dumplings are offered here, but as a lover of Korean hot stone rice bowls, I couldn’t help but froth over a gurgling dolsot piled high with fried rice, spicy squid, shrimp, beef bulgogi and a mess of scallions and sesame ($24). The best part: It’s all set atop a steamed, custardy egg. Somehow even more comforting — well, to me, anyway — was a simple kimchi pancake ($15) with a crispy bottom. In a sea of meat-filled plates, add this veggie-forward option to the mix.
On a subsequent visit, following our parking lot shenanigans with the king of all fruits, we headed back in to give Paik’s Noodle and its Korean-Chinese fare a try. It’s a concept by chef and Netflix personality Jong Won Paik, who’s been the subject of a firestorm of controversies of late. The chili jajangmyeon noodles ($13.95) with little bits of pork in a black bean sauce were a firestorm as well. After the sensorial wallop of the durian, eating these noodz was like a gut punch on top of a gut punch.
Mochi donuts ($3.25 each) procured from Oh K-Dog, a joint known for their boffo mozzarella-stuffed Korean fried hot dogs on a stick, helped quell the intestinal rage. Oh, and if you haven’t experienced the glory of a K-Dog, do. Just be wary of social media shills ordering the dogs solely to film performative cheese pulls in front of the food court masses.
I mean, really! What the H!
(H Mart, 7501 W. Colonial Drive, 407-853-8010, hmart.com)
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This article appears in Dec. 3-9, 2025.
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