Some of you may know that there is a new Korean Market in town. It's called H Mart and is located on Hwy 99 in Tigard, where the Haggen used to be.
If you have not ventured into H Mart yet, I advise that you do this on a weekday during the lunch hour or perhaps into the late evening when it is near closing time.
When you go there, you will be overwhelmed with Korean food (and other asian food, although it is primarily Korean). You will find items that range from yummy sweet cakes to frozen dried squid, your pick. You will also find that they have a hot food/deli section.
This hot food/deli section is open for lunch and dinner. They have a variety of traditional Korean meals, but I must say, not for very cheap. I thought the menu was a tad bit overpriced. You can find the traditional bibim pap (rice in a bowl with spicy red paste, vegetables, meat, and an egg), spicy squid with rice (cooked squid with vegetables in a spicy red sauce), kalbi-tang soup (beef stock soup), jja jang myun (noodles with brown bean paste, meat, and vegetables), to the more common fried rice, sweet and sour, hot wings, to the Japanese influenced sushi.
I went with a group of coworkers and I'm proud to say that we all got something different. Most liked what they got and some weren't that impressed. Myself being one. I got the jja jang myun and thought that it was bland. the noodles were too clumped together and the sauce didn't have that much flavor to it and was kind of liquidy, rather than thick, like I am used to. The sauce only had onions and meat as well. I'm used to sauce with potatoes, meat, onions, cucumbers, cabbage, etc..something a little more hearty.
My coworkers got mabo tofu (spicy tofu - she didn't get it that spicy and it ended up being pretty bland), chicken fried rice, sashimi salad, and spicy squid.
I may venture to H Mart again for lunch, but it will probably be a while. I think that I will stick to grocery shopping there and purchase some frozen dried squid instead.
