H Mart (Gaithersburg, MD)

No trip to Cat and Rob's place is complete without a visit to H Mart, a Korean American grocery store and marketplace chain. H Mart carries tons of imported East Asian goods and food, including live eels, crabs, turtles, and fish (for consumption), and also has a nice selection of Latin American items. Here's some of the things you can find there.


Some of the ladies hawking chocolates in the store had me sample these, explaining "Japanese chocolate sweeter than American chocolate, but no sugar!" It definitely tastes less sugary. If you like pocky, you will love these - biscuit sticks dipped in huge blobs of chocolate to look like mushrooms.

This stuffed Flying Goomba caught my eye in the imported goods shop at H Mart. Now he angrily waits for us to get back to Super Mario, already!

These are packages of veggie and sweet red bean buns, respectively. You keep them in the freezer, microwave them for about 50 seconds, and you have a delicious, steaming hot mini-meal. The buns are larger than they appear, and you get three per package.

Cafe Bustelo espresso is unbelievably yummy, and it will wake your sleepy behind right up. I like mixing mine with soy milk and a little bit of sugar. Eric's family drank this when he was growing up. Unlike most of the other items shown here, you can probably also find this one in your local supermarket. (We buy our cans at Giant, in the ethnic foods section.)

Another drink from Eric's childhood that we enjoy is called Malta Goya, which is probably best described as a super-malty, dark soda. (I've found most people do not enjoy the taste of it.) We typically purchase it from the local grocer as well, but at H Mart we found this six pack of "Pony Malta" which is supposed to be the super energizing version. Eric doesn't like the taste nearly as much, and I think it's just okay.

I love tea! I picked up a big box of oolong, a "Special Relaxing" herbal infusion with valerian, scullcap, catnip, and chamomile, and a brown rice green tea.

Meltyblend chocolate cubes, which literally melt away in your mouth and are ridiculously yummy. Mmmmmmmmm.

I've always loved wasabi peas! This particular brand is very crunchy, but not quite as spicy as I prefer.

Nestle Milo is a chocolate drink mix powder with added vitamins that was originally Australian and is very popular in some Caribbean countries, and probably others. I saw it standing next to some of my favorite European Ovaltine and couldn't resist giving it a try. It's more chocolately than European Ovaltine, but not as sweet as American Ovaltine. It is very hard to mix with cold soy milk, but like Ovaltine, there are many different ways to drink it. Maybe I'll make some hot Milo in a minute. :)

This is a cat.