The transition took a long time but it’s finally complete, per Mai Pham in the Press.
I’d been a couple of times a few months back - the old place was not very impressive. Here’s hoping there’s a Toreore in the food court! I don’t know what the diff is between a Super H Mart, like in Spring Branch, and this one, but I guess I won’t be having to go up there all that often anymore.
On an obliquely related note, the Korean Festival is this weekend at Discovery Green downtown.
Here’s a link: Korean Festival
Rats. I can’t do both that and Coltivare in the same day.
Unfortunately, I can’t do either one.
I am sorely disappointed that I will miss the first ever, (as far as I know), BruceSW sighting in the wild. Charcuterie will come in a pale second to THAT event! 
I actually met the fabled Bruce several years back - at El Real, right? And really looking forward to seeing him again!
First visit - disappointing. The article oversells the place. A definite improvement but it is readily apparent this is a much smaller place than the one in Spring Branch. They have crammed a lot of merchandise in making for narrow aisles, especially in the produce department where it is impossible to make a turn with a cart without going to the ends of the aisles and there’s no room for two people to pass. I did a lot of backing up.
However there are very wide aisles in the freezer section. You could drive a car through.
Selection in the produce department is much smaller. The wall of greens at Super H is reduced to only about 12-15 varieties.
As someone who shops for one, I wish they would offer the smaller carts, too. I never have a need for the full sized ones.
The food court is still in a corner at the rear, behind a wall. As I had before I did a second take upon entering, thinking I might have accidentally wandered into the employee lounge it’s so spartan. No Toreore.
Hong Kong Market and Viet Hoa remain better options in Chinatown, and good places to get a lot of exercise walking all over them. I’ll go here for some things but still hit the one on Blalock when I’m up that way.
One good find though - Thai bananas. If they’ve had these before I must’ve taken them to be manzanos from a distance and passed them by. They’re bigger than manzanos, like the burros from Mexico you see at Fiesta, not as big as a Cavendish. They have a similar flavor profile to the burros, citrusy, with a crispy center, but they lack the angular shape. Excellent texture and flavor. 89c/lb, in big bunches. They seem to hold up well over several days.
I went back here this weekend for the first time since the last post and I’m glad to report the place has shaped up very nicely. It’s not so glaringly obvious it’s not a Super H-Mart. The produce department is at least better stocked if still very cramped and the seafood department is quite impressive, too. I found lots of good things, chief among them the greens and the noodles. And I found, for the first time, the Sun Noodle Ramen kits I had read about. I picked up the Tonkotsu and Miso varieties. It’s been a long time since I read the SE review but did remember they were mostly raving about the noodles. I’ve tried the tonkotsu and the broth, while better than the powdered ones, is not very impressive. But $4.89 for two very generous servings, and definitely better quality noodles than the dried ones, too.
They may have had just the noodles but I missed them. As in just about everything else at H-Mart, the selection is overwhelming and my eyes tend to glaze over.
