Lines outside food stores, rationing give us frightening glimpse of coronavirus' impact

SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2020: At the Super H Mart Shopping Center in Ridgefield, N.J., an employee of the Korean supermarket wiped down the handles of shopping carts as customers applied hand sanitizer or put on gloves. Free weekend food samples were suspended indefinitely.

Gas falls below $2 a gallon,

 but many people stay home

TODAY, MARCH 24, 2020: At the ALDI in Hackensack, N.J., customers lined up before the supermarket opened at 9 a.m., as an employee wiped down the handles of shopping carts in an enclosure, below.

NO DELIVERY: But customers who were told on Monday the store gets a shipment of toilet paper at 6 a.m. every day were disappointed to find the delivery wasn't made and no toilet paper was available.

WAWA ON ESSEX: Many stations along Essex Street in Hackensack, near Route 80, were selling regular gas for about $1.95 a gallon, but there were no customers at those stations or at the Wawa, above, where the price was about $2.05 a gallon.

COSTCO WHOLESALE IN TETERBORO: This afternoon, the parking lot of the Costco Wholesale warehouse in Teterboro, N.J., had plenty of room for members' cars.

POLICE ON HAND: Although police were on duty outside the entrance, the number of shoppers entering the warehouse wasn't being controlled. Employees were wiping down the handles of shopping carts and there were other measures inside to maintain social distancing.

TOILET PAPER: There was a limited supply of toilet paper for sale, and plenty of bottled water, below. I don't know whether Costco had more toilet paper than what was on display.

PLENTY OF FAVORITES: I filled my cart with organic brown eggs, bottom right; Chobani Less Sugar Greek Yogurt, frozen Wild Gulf Shrimp, the Ultimate Fish Stick, made from wild-caught Pollock; Maine Lobster Ravioli, organic agave syrup and Organic No-Salt Seasoning. Other items included Jarlsberg Lite Swiss Cheese, a 3-pound bag of raw California almonds; and 2 hand-crafted soups. A package of toilet paper was below the basket.

SOCIAL DISTANCING: A clear plexiglass barrier has been erected between employees at the register and Costco members, above and below.

CHECKING YOUR RECEIPT: At the exit, the Costco employee didn't take and mark my receipt, as is usually done, but just glanced at my cart and then at the receipt I held out, and nodded for me to leave.

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.

Eating Out + Eating In: Bangkok Garden, plus shopping for fish at the Super H Mart

At Bangkok Garden Thai Restaurant in Hackensack, a celebratory dinner for three included a whole fish, top left; wide rice noodles with shrimp and egg, bottom left; and a soft-shell crab special.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Sad to say, but fans of Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles in Hackensack will have to console themselves by visiting its longtime competitor, Bangkok Garden, only a block away.

First, Wondee's founders, Chef Wandee Suwangbutra and husband Tom, retired and handed over the kitchen to Air-Arisa Katengamkam, a young woman who trained by the chef's side.

The transition in 2015 was unannounced, but the quality of the food remained high, and customers noticed the dining room was spruced up with fresh paint and a new wooden floor to replace the worn, torn-in-places dark-blue carpet.

I had always been loyal to Wondee's, a BYO at 296 Main St. in Hackensack that had tastier food and lower prices than its rival on the next block.

Still, by last summer, Wondee's was on the ropes, a year or so shy of its 20th anniversary. 

In March, I visited Chef Arisa after lunch at Bangkok Garden, which was busy, and found her and a woman server alone in a restaurant without any customers.

Then, Wondee's closed for the chef's maternity leave, and now has reopened.

Yet, the dining room can only be described as shabby, at least judging from what I saw when I looked into the restaurant's plate-glass window on Main Street recently.

Hits and misses at Costco and other stores

Bangkok Garden Thai Restaurant's dining room is decorated elaborately. The restaurant, which says it was the first Thai place to open in Bergen County, also has a liquor license.

Bangkok Garden

We had a big dinner at Bangkok Garden to celebrate a birthday and Mother's Day, but made sure to do so the night before that big holiday.

Both my wife and son loved the food:

Two Won Ton Soups ($4.50 each), Green Papaya Salad ($8.95), a shrimp appetizer called Tod Mun Goong ($8.95); a Jumbo Soft-Shell Crab, deep fried and served over Bok Choy with a homemade Chili Sauce ($18.95); Siam Noodles with Shrimp ($11.95), and a deep-fried whole Striped Bass with Chili Pepper and Garlic Sauce ($26.95).

I also enjoyed the meal, but recall sauces were a little too sweet for me.

Tod Mun Goong, an appetizer special, was described as shrimp kneaded with egg, white ground pepper and light soy sauce, then breaded and deep-fried. The "light plum sauce" was a little too sweet.

When I ordered the Green Papaya Salad, the waitress asked how spicy we wanted it. Be cautious. "Medium" was about as spicy as I can take. Other choices are "mild" and "hot."

Bangkok Garden's Won Ton Soup is served with chicken, not the sliced pork my son and wife remember from Wondee's.

Bangkok Garden's dishes appear in vivid color on this dining-room screen, and we ordered one of them, Pad Sea-Eyew Beef, for a fourth family member who stayed home.

   

Details

Bangkok Garden Thai Restaurant, 261 Main St., Hackensack; 1-201-487-2620. Liquor license. Open 7 days. See website  for hours. Metered parking on street and behind restaurant in municipal lot off State Street.

Closed

Penang Malaysian & Thai Cuisine in Lodi has closed. We enjoyed the food on two visits.

Spicy Malaysian Fish

An enormous fish head was on display last Sunday in the seafood department of the Super H Mart in Ridgefield.

Live Crawfish were offered at $4.99 a pound. 

I've never heard of Mud Fish, which were a pricey $19.99 a pound.

The Super H Mart rolls out carts filled with ice to accommodate all of the fresh fish the Korean market offers.

Last Sunday in Ridgefield, fresh wild Red Snapper were only $3.99 a pound. The week before, red snapper were going for $5.99 a pound at the H Mart in Englewood (25 Lafayette Ave). 

At home we seasoned the cleaned red snapper, stuffed minced garlic into the cavity and added fresh lemon juice. We wrapped up three fish and vegetables individually in aluminum foil, and roasted three of them for about an hour at 400 degrees.

Don't miss the tender "cheek" just below the eye.

In addition to fresh and frozen fish, the Super H Mart offers a wide selection of prepared seafood and sliced raw fish or sashimi, above and below.

Meat eaters also are well served with shelves of marinated beef, pork and chicken, above and below.

On weekends, you can find more free samples of Korean food in Ridgefield than at other, smaller H Marts in Bergen County, above and below.

Outside the store, I picked up a large seedless watermelon from Texas that turned out to be perfectly sweet ($8.99).

Details

Super H Mart, 321 Broad Ave., Ridgefield; 1-201-943-9600. Open 7 days. H Mart is short for "Han Ah Reum" or "One Arm Full of Groceries."

Website: One Arm Full of Groceries