H-Mart used to feel like a store that had everything. Now the shelves still look full, but the quality is disappointing, especially for the prices they charge.
Produce is one of the biggest problems. Cucumbers look green, crisp, firm, and juicy, but sometimes taste bitter with an unpleasant, moldy smell. Peaches, apples, and pears can look beautiful outside, yet turn out mushy, rotten, or spoiled inside. At $1-$2+ per fruit, I expect much better.
Tofu is another disappointment. It looks like tofu but has almost no soybean taste or aroma, and sometimes even firm tofu has a texture similar to soft tofu. I've tried different brands, organic and non-organic, with similar results. Perilla leaves are the same--little fragrance or flavor.
Mushrooms, ginger, garlic, and tomatoes are also disappointing. Tomatoes can look perfect but have almost zero flavor--not sweet, not sour, just thick skin.
Bitter melon, eggplant, and nagaimo are often mushy inside vacuum packages, and sometimes you flip the package over and find spoilage.
The meat department is inconsistent too. Pork belly can be almost all fat or all lean, and sometimes smells bad after opening. I've spent around $30 on pork ribs that looked very desirable in the package, only to discover an unpleasant, rotten smell at home.
The lack of quality control extends to their grains as well. My worst experience was an unexpired bag of barley. The top layer looked completely normal, but after pouring the entire bag into a jar, I discovered extensive brown, mold-like growth underneath. I had already been eating from the bag for weeks because there was no visible problem at the top. Finding that much apparent mold hidden inside an unexpired product seriously damaged my confidence in H Mart's food quality and safety control.
Service is also hit or miss, especially at the fish counter. Employees can seem impatient when you ask for particular sizes or buy several different types of fish. Sometimes you get a friendly employee, but it feels like hitting the jackpot.
I also made three visits over two months trying to fix a points-transfer problem. A manager told me the points would appear after a few days. Two months later, I still don't see them on either card. Three visits for something this simple, with no resolution, is frustrating.
Snack products where I couldn't find clear expiration/best-by dates.
The packaging is also ridiculously large. Many vegetables come in family-sized packs, making it hard to buy a variety. One pack of bok choy can last all week and still not be finished. Buy a few different vegetables and there's no room to store them--and they often spoil before you can finish them.
For a store charging premium prices, I expect better quality control and service. Full shelves don't mean much when I repeatedly encounter spoiled produce, bland ingredients, questionable meat, moldy grain, and customer-service problems.
Things may look fresh on the shelf, but looking fresh and actually being fresh are two very different things. read more