Photo By Shawn Davis | The façade of H Mart in Cedar Park, Texas is an underwhelming advertisement of the...... read more read more
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AUSTIN, Texas — It’s Thanksgiving! What a wonderful time. As I reflect over the year of everything I have to be thankful for, I keep thinking of how great of an experience it was to have joined you all in acquiescing to the central Texas area for the first time in my life. For those of you who would never be able to tell by my name, I hail from Korea, close to the Osan Air Force base, so it makes sense for my last Traveling Soldier — for the foreseeable future, to give an ode to the H Mart off Lakeline Boulevard in the Parkline Shopping Center north of Austin, Texas.
Headed towards the suburb of Cedar Park, I take Stillhouse Lake Road from my residence in Harker Heights before it turns into Stillhouse Hollow Road at the bridge over Stillhouse Hollow Lake — because that’s a thing, then connect to U.S. Route 183 for a leisurely drive to my destination. After an hour or so I make it to a commercial district situated between apartments, parks and the usual middle class suburbia delights (there’s a Blaze Pizza here, for goodness sakes — now that’s something I can be thankful for).
So, what’s the big deal? Why am I talking about an Asian grocery store a one-hour drive away when there’s the O Mart in town off South Fort Hood Street? While O Mart has been a great place to get a taste of Asian produce and try a couple — mostly Korean dishes in their in-house cafe, H Mart in Cedar Park is on a completely different scale: the hypermarket. What is a hypermarket? Think of Costco on steroids. It is a food court, a shopping mall, a beauty parlor and window treatment store all in one, while also dishing out the best possible Asian produce and goods you can get in the vicinity. Let me put it this way: it’s Koreatown stuffed into a shopping mall, within a shopping center just only a one-hour drive away. I’m thankful for this and wish I had known of it sooner.
These stores, as odd or offhand as they seem, are an integral part of the Korean American experience. H Mart began in New York City in 1982 as a corner store before becoming the widespread Korean American equivalent of E Mart, the oldest hypermarket chain in Korea, which was founded 11-years later. Yes, I know — lots of letters, lots of marts — it’s a thing. The reason why these stores are so popular and successful is because these are places where Koreans congregate to connect to the homeland.
I have distinct memories of trekking 6-hour drives from South Dakota to Colorado to reach H Mart, like it was a seasonal pilgrimage, as my mother, a Korean national, would refuse to settle for less and would fill our compact SUV full of produce kept cold in coolers and miscellaneous spices and goods. It’s that serious. I’m thankful to have this experience without the cramped 12-hour round-trip.
So don’t take my word for it, try it out! The area has so much room for activities, even without the H Mart. Gather your friends, kick on some of The Beatles and carpool out through the scenic backroads of Central Texas (there’s a ranch here, there and everywhere). Park in between the Home Depot and H Mart, pig out at the connected Honey Pig Korean BBQ (gas grill, cast iron plate — so much better than the electric grills at KPOT), then go ogle at a wide selection of impressive produce, seafood and sheer scale at H Mart, before taking home a couple goodies to share such as the in-house Tous Les Jours French Asian patisserie. Happy Thanksgiving! Until next time.
| Date Taken: | 11.24.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.09.2024 12:07 |
| Story ID: | 486078 |
| Location: | AUSTIN, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 116 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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