H-Mart Food Court - Vancouver, BC

We wondered into this H-Mart about six months ago when we were exploring Robson during Canada Day.  The ground floor has a small seating area for people to enjoy pastries and drinks that are sold by the bakery there. Go up with the escalator to second floor and go pass those electronic appliances on the left hand side until you turn the corner. Then you start to see cooked food appearing on the right hand side stalls. First one sells ready made package of sushi roll. Then a stall that sells Korean snack like kim mari (fried seaweed roll) and then another three more stalls that offer Korean dishes, Chinese influenced Korean food and the last one sells Japanese food.

Today we decided to go back there to check out what they have to offer. I ordered a pork bone soup dish from the Korean dishes stall. Hubby was interested in pork katsudon from the last stall. The seating are isn't very big so I was glad that there were not too many people around. But also concerned of the future outlook for these businesses.

My pork bone soup took about ten minutes to be ready for pick up. It cost $10 and it came in a big metal bowl with a bowl of rice on the side and a to go container with kimchi in it. Two huge chunk of bones were visible in the bowl. When I stirred it up there were two pieces of potato in it and a few strands of napa cabbage. The bones were meaty enough. But I think they were a bit stingy on the cabbage. I could use some more cabbage. But I wasn't sure if pork bone soup should have more cabbage. The broth was a bit too salty for me but it went well with the rice provided. And there's a hint of herb in the broth. Overall I think it tasted similar to that one mom and pop restaurant in Santa Clara that we like to go for pork bone so

up (gamja tang). But this one had a lighter feel to it.

Hubby's katsudon came in a take out bowl which looked smaller than my metal bowl but it packed a lot of rice in it. The topping was the katsudon which in fact is a deep fried pork cutlet (tonkatsu) and covered up with egg and finished off with some mirin soy sauce. If you like the pork cutlet crispy then this is not for you. As the egg and the sauce sort of made the cutlet a bit soggy. The taste of the sauce made the pork cutlet stronger though and the rice less dry as well.

H-Mart Robson
590 Robson St #200, Vancouver, BC V6B 2B7
(604) 609-4567