Regular eatWashingtonians will know I love H Mart down in Merrifield. The Wheaton branch caters more to a Latino clientele than does the Asian-oriented store on Route 7. So you'll find a lesser range of noodles, for instance, and a wider selection of dried beans. But the fish counter is what I go for.

It may not have a broader range of fish than the VA store, but it's much more attractively presented with far more helpful and friendly fishmongers. The whole or filleted fish on ice include really fresh branzino, striped bass, millefish, smelt, red snapper, grouper, whiting, and albacore tuna at $2.99 a pound. The rainbow trout is $5.99, the rockfish $3.99, though wild-caught salmon at $9.99 makes me wonder how wild or where they were caught, if you compare that price to other suppliers'.

The bakery at the entrance is run by Momo and filled with the kind of sweet, soft doughy loaves beloved of Asians. In the produce aisles I saw fingerling and purple potatoes, as well as white yams which, when baked, have that elusive flavor of really good floral honey and an egg-yolk yellow flesh.

It's worth coming here, and to the other branch, for the produce alone: the selection is eye-opening and generally at the peak of freshness and you'll walk out with a trolley-full at a quarter-to-half the price you'd pay at Whole Foods. Whose fish, in my view, isn't nearly as reliable and certainly not as varied.

H Mart, 12015 Georgia Ave, Wheaton, 301 942 5071