I am planning on making beef noodle soup tomorrow so I wanted to go to Hmart to pick up some frozen thinly sliced rib eye meat. Little did I know, there was a huge event taking place at Hmart. It took us about 20 minutes from the exit off 95 to get to Hmart, and its only a half a mile away. Those who have been there before are familiar with the parking dilemma on the weekends, imagine this weekend being 3 times worse.
We finally got to Hmart and found an illegal parking spot on a street curb right in front of the store. There was a stage set up where Yale and MIT students were performing Korean productions. There was also a food tent that offered samples of Bimbim-bap, Jap Chae (Koean Glass Noodles), Beef Bulgogi (Korean Beef BBQ) and a variety of pickled food. They closed the first row of the parking lot and had an outdoor market with lots of specials featuring aloe drinks, gyozas, candy, noodles and enticed customers with samples. I have to admit, the Mo and I are suckers and we bought a bunch of stuff that we sampled.
The store itself was its usual Hmart craze with people trying to maneuver through abandoned carts because the owners are all waiting on the next batch of scallion pancake or Chinese sausage samples. The line at the fresh seafood department was quite lengthy as the tiger shrimp seemed to be a very popular choice today.
We finally stopped sampling all the food and brought ourselves to the register to checkout. I was definitely surprised by our total. We came in for just a pack of rib eye and we walked out with a cart full of groceries. They threw in a bag of roasted water chestnuts as a bonus!