Pandemic idles paving work at H Mart, apartment construction at old Record site

NO SALE: The new H Mart on Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry is marooned in a sea of paving material behind a wall of concrete blocks, above and below, but work to level and finish the parking lot of the Korean supermarket and the rest of the new shopping center appears to have been suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic.

260 BERGEN TURNPIKE: The 14.6-acre shopping center site is owned by 250 Little Ferry TL LLC of Englewood Cliffs and assessed at $12.5 million. The owner paid $407,500 in property taxes in 2019.

GARDEN APARTMENTS: Garden apartments border the construction site, above and below.

OLD H MART: In front of the old H Mart on Wednesday, the only sign of activity was this excavation power shovel being operated atop a huge pile of paving material, above and below.

CLOSED JULY 31: The old H Mart in Little Ferry closed last July 31, forcing customers to drive to the chain's Korean supermarkets in Ridgefield or Fort Lee until the new store opens.

IDLE BUILDING SITES: Meanwhile, at the old site of The Record in Hackensack, above right and below, I saw no activity on Wednesday, postponing the dreams of the original owners, the Borg family, of further riches. They sold North Jersey Media Group, their newspaper-and-magazine publishing company, to Gannett for nearly $40 million in cash in July 2016, but held onto nearly 20 acres along River Street.

RUSSO DEVELOPMENT: The Borgs have partnered with Russo Development, based in Carlstadt. The company website says Vermella Hackensack at 150 River St. will include 653 luxury apartments (studio to 3 bedrooms) and 17,000 square feet of retail, with the first phase to open by 2021.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

The opening of a new Little Ferry H Mart awaits repaving of flood-prone parking lot

GRAND OPENING SOON! After the old H Mart in Little Ferry closed unexpectedly last July 31, customers of the Korean supermarket have been teased by signs in the new store at 260 Bergen Turnpike, above and below: "GRAND OPENING SOON!" and "BIGGER, BETTER, BRAND NEW!"

OPENING DELAYED UNTIL MAY 2020? Employees at H Mart's Lyndhurst headquarters wouldn't address a rumor that the new 43,000-square-foot supermarket in Little Ferry won't open until May.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The cyclone fence that now surrounds a large shopping center on Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry is a sign that the opening of a new H Mart has been delayed once again.

The old supermarket -- which operated in the other half of a sprawling building -- was one of the biggest H Marts in Bergen County (and also the shabbiest).

But the store drew customers for its low prices on produce, fresh fish, rice and many other items, as well as free Korean food samples on the weekends.

The old store closed unexpectedly last July 31, but company officials haven't announced an opening date for the new, 43,000-square-foot store and food court.   

The new and old H Marts are part of what once was known as the Valley Fair Shopping Center for the discount department store that operated there for many years.

Lawsuit, paving

A Little Ferry official said a lawsuit, which has been settled, delayed the opening of the new Korean supermarket, but she would not provide any details.

Last Thursday, an employee at the Lyndhurst headquarters of the Korean-American supermarket company said H Mart was waiting for a permit needed to make repairs to the parking lot, which is prone to flooding.

About a month ago, I drove past the new but unopened H Mart only to see a large puddle and a dozen or more seagulls where customers would be parking.

Today, I saw that a portion of that same lot has been torn up in preparation for repaving.

H Mart leases the space from the owner of the property, the employee said.

At 43,000-square-feet, the Little Ferry H Mart is bigger than another H Mart planned for American Dream, the megamall in East Rutherford. 

H Mart Smart Members

To buy fresh fish on Sundays ever since the old Little Ferry H Mart closed at the end of July 2019, I have been driving to the Super H Mart in Ridgefield or to 99 Ranch Market, the Chinese supermarket in Hackensack.

H Mart offers a "Smart Member" loyalty card that returns 1% of your purchases, redeemable for a $10 certificate after you spend $1,000 at its supermarkets.

Bad decisions

The long delay in opening a new supermarket in Little Ferry is the second time H Mart officials have acted against the interests of their customers in Bergen County. 

In 2018, company officials blindsided loyal Korean-American and non-Korean customers (like me) by closing the H Mart in Englewood -- a move that wasn't announced beforehand -- only days before a new H Mart opened at the traffic-choked Routes 17 and 4 intersection in Paramus.

That Englewood supermarket has been torn down.
  

Read: In 2015, customers thought

 Little Ferry H Mart was closing

Read: How H Mart screwed

 Englewood customers

WALKING THE DOG: On Dec. 21, a couple was seen walking their dog past unopened stores in the H Mart shopping center in Little Ferry.

MORE SHOPPING: The entrance to another store in the H Mart shopping center, this one near the entrance to the old supermarket, below.

MADISON WINE: A liquor store continues to operate just inside the entrance to the old supermarket.

PROPERTY OWNERS: Allied Builders and Management is the contractor for paving of the parking lot, not the owner of the property.

Food shopping: A few good buys at Costco, Whole Foods Market, ShopRite + H Mart

These hothouse-grown Cluster Tomatoes at the Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and the Costco Business Center in Hackensack are from Sunset, and they are sized between the Campari Tomato and the Beefsteak Tomato. A 4-pound box was $5.59 or about $1.40 a pound. I used them in sandwiches and cooking, but for maximum tomato flavor, stick to the pricier Campari Tomato.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Amazon's bid to cut prices and make its Whole Foods Market subsidiary more attractive to budget-conscious food shoppers got off to a slow start.

Last week, though, I was able to pick up organic table grapes, organic carrots, sparkling water and grass-fed leg of lamb from Iceland at great prices.

The butterflied leg of lamb ($7.99 a pound) was from free-range sheep that have been raised on the big North Atlantic island since the year 878.

Whole Foods also is the only supermarket to give you a credit (10 cents) for bringing a reusable bag.

And you can keep up with sales and coupons by downloading the Whole Foods app to your smart phone.

My Whole Foods purchases supplemented others from Costco Wholesale, ShopRite and H Mart in Little Ferry, the three places where we spend most of our food dollars.

Second Nature-brand Naked Medley - GMO-free raisins, whole almonds and cashews with no salt or added oils -- was $7.99 after an instant coupon at the Costco Business Center, 80 S. River St. in Hackensack. That's about 50 cents for each 1.5-ounce bag. The regular price is $9.99.

Organic red or green seedless table grapes were on sale for $1.69 a pound at the Whole Foods Market in Bergen Town Center, Paramus. A-5-pound bag of Organic Carrots was $3.99.

A pack of a dozen 12-ounce cans of 365 Everyday Value Sparkling Water with natural lemon, grapefruit and other flavors was $3 at the Whole Foods in Paramus.

A 2-pound bag of Organic Blue Mussels from Canada was on sale for $4.99 at ShopRite, Forest Avenue and Route 4 in Paramus.

Large Golden Pineapples were on sale at the Paramus ShopRite for $1.99 each last Thursday, and the sale continued today, when I picked up two.

But the Paramus ShopRite was out of 3-pound bags of sweet potatoes last Thursday, so I paid $1.99 a pound for 2 pounds of what were labeled "sweet potatoes" at the Englewood farmers market on Friday. They were twice the price of the ShopRite sweet potatoes and not as sweet after I boiled them with garlic cloves and mashed them with extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings.

Fresh whole, wild-caught Porgy were $2.99 a pound at H Mart, the Korean supermarket at 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry.

Oprah's bacon-is-OK diet, halal chicken, sale on organics, Icelandic fish and more

This photo of Oprah Winfrey ran with a Dec. 22, 2016, story on People.com, reporting she lost more than 40 pounds on a Weight Watchers diet (she also happens to be part-owner of the company).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Have you seen Oprah Winfrey on that Weight Watchers TV commercial claiming "you can have whatever you want," even bacon, and lose weight?

I'm not the only one taking her claims with a grain of salt:

The billionaire media magnate bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers International for $43 million in late 2015 -- netting an immediate $70 million profit from the resulting stock increase, according to one account -- and agreed to serve as a promoter of its services. 

Still, telling overweight viewers they can eat bacon is awful, given how much pigs suffer on industrial farms and how the vast majority of fatty bacon contains harmful antibiotics and preservatives.

Plus, the saturated fat in bacon has the potential to clog your arteries.

A page from The Costco Connection magazine, which is promoting a cookbook from Oprah Winfrey.

Maui and truffles

Another side of Oprah is shown in a cover story for The Costco Connection, a lifestyle magazine for members of the discount warehouse club.

"Oprah Winfrey dishes on food, health and life," one of the headlines says.

The article in the January 2017 issue reports her new book, "Food, Health and Happiness," contains 115 recipes.

Her favorite dish in the book, she confesses, is pasta with truffles, which only the wealthy can afford.

In photos, Oprah is shown on her ranch in Maui, one of the Hawaiian Islands, shelling peas and serving lunch to guests in her vegetable garden.

Bacon isn't mentioned.

Just because a chicken is halal or kosher doesn't mean it was raised naturally. This halal chicken is labeled "all natural" and "hand raised on family farms," but nowhere does the label state it was raised without harmful human antibiotics.

At the ShopRite in Paramus, the whole halal chicken was displayed next to a Coleman Organic Chicken, right, and the first thing listed on the Coleman label is "no antibiotics ... ever."

Also at the Paramus ShopRite, I couldn't find a creole seasoning that is made without lots of salt, above and below.

Salt is the first ingredient in Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, and just a quarter-teaspoon contains 15 percent of the daily recommended intake of sodium.

Costco Wholesale in Teterboro is having a sale on packaged and bottled organics through Feb. 19. A 59-ounce bottle of Suja, an organic fruit-and-vegetable drink, was $6.69 after an instant $2.30 coupon.

The ingredients in Suja, a refreshing juice with a pronounced taste of ginger. The label says, "It's like a farmer's market in a bottle!"

Above, two 25-ounce bottles of Paesana Premium Organic Roasted Garlic Pasta Sauce were reduced to $4.99. They contain no added sugar, unlike another item at Costco, Bertolli Organic Pasta Sauce, below.

A 64-ounce bottle of Organic Acai Juice is on sale for $5.99.

The ingredients in Sambazon-brand Organic Acai Juice.

Costco stocks two of Italy's great hard cheeses, Parmigiano Reggiano, made from cow's milk, above; and Pecorino Romano, from sheep's milk, below. Slices of both aged cheeses are perfect with dried or fresh fruit for dessert.

Although the Kirkland Signature cheeses aren't on sale, Costco's price per pound is lower than at any other store I know. The Pecorino Romano label suggest coarsely grating the cheese over grilled vegetables, pasta dishes "and more."

On a snowy Tuesday morning, shopping at the Teterboro warehouse was a pleasure. Aisles were uncrowded, I didn't have to wait at a checkout counter and only one member was in front of me at the food court.

The Teterboro Costco also is a reliable source of fresh fish from Iceland, such as the skinless-and-boneless haddock fillets I picked up on Tuesday for $8.99 a pound, and prepared at home for dinner. Ingredients included Asian Indian spices, kale, enoki mushrooms, organic diced tomatoes, pitted olives, fresh lemon juice and grated Parmesan Cheese.

I started with a large rectangular pan lined with parchment paper and filled with triple-washed Organic Kale (a 1.5-pound bag from Costco was $4.79).

I drizzled the kale with Greek extra-virgin olive oil, above, and added a little salt, then followed with the spice-coated fish fillets and the other ingredients, squeezing fresh lemon juice over everything.

I put the pan into a preheated 400-degree oven and the Fish & Vegetable Medley was ready in 15 minutes.

A little over a week ago, I made another Fish & Vegetable Medley with fresh Atlantic cod fillets from Iceland ($7.99 a pound at Costco), and fresh spinach, below. You can buy a Fish & Vegetable Medley ready to pop into your oven at home at The Fish Dock, a shop that sells fresh Icelandic fish and other seafood on Closter Dock Road in Closter.

A delicious Titan Roll from Maguro Sushi House in Rochelle Park is made with shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, cooked egg, avocado, cucumber and spicy sauce ($8.63). Maguro's sushi rolls, seaweed salad and other items are available in the cafeteria at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, both customers and employees shivered inside H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry, where it felt as cold in the store as it did outside. Workers wore coats, scarves or gloves to stay warm. I called the marketing department at the chain's Lyndhurst headquarters, were a woman named Sofia said the heat is turned down to keep produce on display as fresh as possible.

  

For past coverage of food shopping, restaurants and related topics, see: 

Do You Really Know 

What You're Eating?

ShopRite's antibiotic-free chicken gets new name, wine-cork recycling and more

ShopRite supermarkets have introduced a new name and label for the fresh antibiotic-free chicken that was sold for many years under the Readington Farms label. Wholesome Pantry Organic Chicken also is being introduced. The label says, "Hatched, raised and harvested in USA."

Wholesome Pantry is part of an initiative to remove artificial ingredients from products sold at ShopRite, the supermarket cooperative says. Click here to see those ingredients.

Although Perdue has introduced its own line of antibiotic-free chicken, the ShopRite at Route 4 and Forest Avenue in Paramus carries only the company's original low-quality poultry, above.

One of the great pleasures of the table is a glass of red wine with dinner. You can recycle corks at Whole Foods Market in the Bergen Town Center, Paramus.

If there is no shortage of corks, why recycle? "It's good for the environment," an employee in Whole Foods' wine and beer department said.

At Whole Foods, pricey wine from the wealthy Monmouth County town of Colts Neck, N.J., above and below.

At the Paramus Whole Foods, I gravitate to the many bottles of red wine for under $10, including Three Wishes Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot ($2.99 each), above and below.

Costco Wholesale in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center continues to add organic produce and other organic food. Organic Gala Apples were about $1.64 a pound last Monday.

But Organic Honeycrisp Apples were a pricey $3.36 a pound.

Conventionally grown Honeycrisp Apples were about $2.73 a pound. Unfortunately, Honeycrisp are my favorite apple.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite ($1.50 for a 1-pound package) dressed in a homemade sauce of organic diced tomatoes, anchovies, mushrooms, garlic, chopped black olives, red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, seasonings and dried Italian herbs.

Organic Sweet Potatoes from ShopRite ($3.99 for a 3-pound bag), mashed with extra-virgin olive oil.

In a covered pot, I boiled the sweet potato sections and peeled garlic cloves for about an hour, then drained them and returned them to the pot.

I added Kirkland Signature Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, plus seasonings I had on hand, many from Costco, including curry powder, cinnamon, black pepper, red-pepper flakes, coriander and granulated garlic, then mashed the potatoes in the pot.

I made a frittata with whole eggs, liquid whites, grated cheese -- 3 cups to 4 cups of liquid in all poured into a preheated 10-inch non-stick pan with olive oil. As the crust set, I added slices of a large organic tomato.

After I removed the frittata from the oven, where it finished cooking under the broiler, I added Costco's Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and leftover Victoria Vodka Sauce, which is made without cream.

At the H Mart in  Little Ferry, above, workers are renovating the vacant half of the former Valley Fair building at 260 Bergen Turnpike, photos below, even though the Korean supermarket chain hasn't formally announced whether a new store and food court will occupy the space.

Seaweed rolls stuffed with rice, vegetables and a crab substitute, made from pollack, are a great appetizer.

I found five fat Finger Maki from Pinocchio, an outside caterer, in the refrigerated case with other Korean side dishes, opposite the fresh fish department at the Little Ferry H Mart.

Organic Carrots at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro are only about 70 cents a pound, if you buy a 10-pound bag, so to use that many carrots, we've started oven roasting them. We trim the fat end, cut the carrots in half, brush them with olive oil, add a little salt and organic no-salt seasoning, and roast them at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes to an hour. 

-- VICTOR E. SASSON