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Lotte Plaza Market - Large, Jessup-Based, Korean-Asian, Grocery Chain, Hoping to Open 50 Stores by 2020


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Went and answered the question myself this weekend.

The place is big, clean and pretty nice. Has sort of a warehouse feel to it. Large selection of everything and clearly they are not yet finished building it out. I do like the wide isles and the large selection of stuff beyond asian foods (e.g., indian selection is really good and spanish stuff is good as well). Everything is compariable to super H in fairfax but the seafood selection althrough great (is not as big as great wall).

The veggies and fruits were excellent.

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Went and answered the question myself this weekend.

The place is big, clean and pretty nice. Has sort of a warehouse feel to it. Large selection of everything and clearly they are not yet finished building it out. I do like the wide isles and the large selection of stuff beyond asian foods (e.g., indian selection is really good and spanish stuff is good as well). Everything is compariable to super H in fairfax but the seafood selection althrough great (is not as big as great wall).

The veggies and fruits were excellent.

We went in looking for canned coffee and ended up eating lunch there and dropping $50 on groceries. The food court offers Vietnamese, Korean, Korean-Japanese, and Korean-Chinese, with space for one more store. There are also, in other parts of the store, a bakery, a second Korean food counter, and a sushi counter. We had a haemul dosol bibim bap (mixed seafood over hot rice in a blazing hot stoneware pot) and a kimchi chigae (kim chi, tofu, and pepper stew) from the Korean counter in the food court, both of which were decent, but not outstanding. We also had a kim chi pajon and a haemul pajon (kim chi pancake and mixed seafood pancake, respectively) from the Japanese-Korean counter, both of which were subpar. Our 9 year-old opted for a fairly good pho from the Vietnamese counter. The broth was unusually sweet with a ton of star anise, and she ranked it below pho hot in Annandale, her favorite.

As Soup mentioned, it is big and clean. It has a more open, airy feeling than Super H in Fairfax. It is a LOT cleaner than Great Wall. The offerings of prepared banchan are very extensive. The refrigerated cases are scattered in several sections in the store, and it can be hard to figure out where to find what you are seeking. The spouse ended up near the banchan, where there were some kim chis made in-store, in his search for the "big jar of kim chi" he was sure we needed. (He was right, we can go through a 32 ounce jar in 2 days if it is on the table at meal times.) Meanwhile, I was on the opposite side of the store, standing in front of the 12 food wide refrigerator trying to decide which of about 9 different types of jarred kim chi to purchase.

Lobster was on sale at $6.99/lb. People were crowded around the seafood cases. I didn't have a chance to look too closely at the meat selections. The produce section was extensive and if you've ever wanted a 20 lb jackfruit, it's available at $1.99/lb. These were easily twice the size of the one we bought in Hawaii over the summer. I didn't see any produce that looked past its peak other than a moldy strawberry or two.

There's also an in-store barber shop, advertising eyebrow threading, not exactly what I had ever thought of combining with a shopping trip.

On the whole, we felt as if we barely scratched the surface of the store. We will probably avoid eating there again in the future, though with a nine year-old in tow, I won't rule it out.

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I thought that this deserves a thread because it may turn out that there are some culinary finds here. Aside from being a huge supermarket in the old (back in the day) Lowe's space, the Chantilly Lotte has a food court as well. Seeing as I work nearby and can't always go to Sichuan Village I need to branch out. Has anyone else tried it and are there any hidden gems?

I've only been to the Japanese stand and have had some decent carry-out.. I've had the katsu udon combination which is a fried pork cutlet and a bowl of udon soup. The soup is actually pretty good and worth having by itself. I've also had their fried rice omelet which was also good. Nothing worth making a special trip for, but worth having if you are there and you are hungry.

The Evergreen Sweets stand was supposed to sell some traditional Indian savories (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042001238.html) but the last time I was by I only saw them selling sweets.

Anyone else try getting lunch from here?

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I thought that this deserves a thread because it may turn out that there are some culinary finds here. Aside from being a huge supermarket in the old (back in the day) Lowe's space, the Chantilly Lotte has a food court as well. Seeing as I work nearby and can't always go to Sichuan Village I need to branch out. Has anyone else tried it and are there any hidden gems?

I've only been to the Japanese stand and have had some decent carry-out.. I've had the katsu udon combination which is a fried pork cutlet and a bowl of udon soup. The soup is actually pretty good and worth having by itself. I've also had their fried rice omelet which was also good. Nothing worth making a special trip for, but worth having if you are there and you are hungry.

The Evergreen Sweets stand was supposed to sell some traditional Indian savories (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042001238.html) but the last time I was by I only saw them selling sweets.

Anyone else try getting lunch from here?

I go fairly regularly. once a week or so for grocery. I've never eaten at the food court. However, I have gotten the steam mandoo at the mandoo stand right behind the sushi place near the veggies. Great steamed mandoo. The spicy one is excellent. The sweet whole wheat with pumkin and sunflower seeds were suprisingly good. I would recommend it but the steam mandoo is also not everyone's cup of tea. different from chinese steam buns.

BTW, I think this store is the best place to get indian stuff in NOVA.

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I go fairly regularly. once a week or so for grocery. I've never eaten at the food court. However, I have gotten the steam mandoo at the mandoo stand right behind the sushi place near the veggies. Great steamed mandoo. The spicy one is excellent. The sweet whole wheat with pumkin and sunflower seeds were suprisingly good. I would recommend it but the steam mandoo is also not everyone's cup of tea. different from chinese steam buns.

Maybe I was thrown because the dumplings we received, though still warm, were plastic-wrapped in a styrofoam tray, but they tasted only so-so.

We've also tried both the Korean and Japanese counter in the food court. Solid overall, nothing remarkable. A decent value.

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In case this is of interest to anyone besides me, I just received a flyer in the mail from H Mart announcing that the new H Mart in Burke will open next Wednesday, Nov 9th.  I'm hoping they have a good produce section - I would really like to have a reliable source of Thai basil nearby, among many other things! 

Speaking of new Korean markets, Lotte recently opened in the former Safeway in the Twinbrook Shopping Center in Rockville.  It seems to have a wider variety of foodstuffs than the Lotte in Aspen Hill.  For example, there is maybe 10 feet of aisle space of African food products and a similar amount of Indian food (5 lb. tub of "desi" yogurt anyone?). 

Produce so far has looked very fresh and they have a wide selection of seafood.  They also have some live tanks with fish.  They don't have a restaurant but do have a quite a few prepared (Korean) food items available.  When it first opened, the prices were low but I've noticed the prices are creeping up.

The arrival of Lotte may have been the cause of the closing of the little Asian market in that shopping center.  I'll miss it.  It was small, cluttered, and pungent but they had a wide selection of Thai and Vietnamese products (I think the owners were Cambodian). 

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On 11/7/2016 at 11:34 AM, SilverBullitt said:

Speaking of new Korean markets, Lotte recently opened in the former Safeway in the Twinbrook Shopping Center in Rockville.  It seems to have a wider variety of foodstuffs than the Lotte in Aspen Hill.  For example, there is maybe 10 feet of aisle space of African food products and a similar amount of Indian food (5 lb. tub of "desi" yogurt anyone?). 

Produce so far has looked very fresh and they have a wide selection of seafood.  They also have some live tanks with fish.  They don't have a restaurant but do have a quite a few prepared (Korean) food items available.  When it first opened, the prices were low but I've noticed the prices are creeping up.

The arrival of Lotte may have been the cause of the closing of the little Asian market in that shopping center.  I'll miss it.  It was small, cluttered, and pungent but they had a wide selection of Thai and Vietnamese products (I think the owners were Cambodian). 

Lotte's corporate headquarters is in Jessup, and they plan on expanding from 10 stores in the DMV to 50 by the year 2020. Note also that they're soon opening a location in Orlando, FL.

"About Us" on lotteplaza.com

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Stopped at the Lotte at Ravensworth Plaza this morning to pick up some fresh fish for dinner tonight.  While I was there, I noticed they had a good price on lobster at $10/lb.  I walked over to the lobster tanks and they only had 4 lobsters, but each one must have weighed 10-15 pounds.  I've never before seen IRL a lobster that size and they are way more scary and prehistoric looking than their 1.5 lb. cousins.  I'm guessing they got the monsters in for Chinese New Year.  I don't even *own* a pot big enough to steam one of those bad boys!  

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17 minutes ago, weezy said:

Stopped at the Lotte at Ravensworth Plaza this morning to pick up some fresh fish for dinner tonight.  While I was there, I noticed they had a good price on lobster at $10/lb.  I walked over to the lobster tanks and they only had 4 lobsters, but each one must have weighed 10-15 pounds.  I've never before seen IRL a lobster that size and they are way more scary and prehistoric looking than their 1.5 lb. cousins.  I'm guessing they got the monsters in for Chinese New Year.  I don't even *own* a pot big enough to steam one of those bad boys!  

Ten-pound lobsters are often about $300!

The largest one I've ever eaten was a 5-pounder (the left claw was slightly larger than my hand), which was the largest one I could find at a Maine lobster pound. It was actually pretty tough, and I regretted not getting two smaller ones. This was about 25 years ago, and I was positively *stuffed* afterwards.

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