Grand Mart (Super, New, etc)

[nelumbo]

So the H&A market in the old Hechinger building at Riggs & 193 in Langley Park (across 193 from Tick Tock Liquors) is now a "New Grand Mart". The changes include a half-aisle of Indian products, another half-aisle of Jamaican/Caribbean products, and a re-organization of the produce section. The store is still about 50% Asian, maybe 30% Latin, and the rest mixed ethnicity products, organized loosely by region. I think this is a much nicer store than the Grand Mart in Laurel, although it doesn't have the "modern" feel of newer H-marts.

Pretty much everything that used to be in H&A is still there, although some of the refrigerated items have been moved around. The fish counter is the same, although they were now additionally offering some prepackaged seafood, like salmon steaks and fish roe. If my freezer wasn't full of blackberries, I'd have taken home a box of cuttlefish tentacles.  The meat section is still small but I think it may be a bit nicer/cleaner - there was a decent selection of pork and beef, plus a counter where they had a few large cuts of goat available. The produce area now has better labeling, and there were some new things I hadn't seen before, like snake gourds and two kinds of enormous foot-long "okra". Lots of the usual fruits, rambutan, mangosteen, dragonfruit, etc. Another new item was Megachef premium fish sauce (blue label) - I picked up a bottle to compare with my regular standbys of Squid brand and Golden Boy.

I have felt in the past that H&A had a good balance of Asian products - Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Chinese, but not a lot of Japanese items. This balance is about the same as before.   Some of the other Grand Marts that I have been to in northern PG county have very little Asian food - maybe a half aisle of ramen. I hope they keep this mix of a wide range of products, especially the Asian ones, because Lotte and H-Mart are a much further drive and I have been able to find 99% of the items I want here.