Le Market/El Mercado - one of my favorite markets
I may just be about to betray my favorite market - H Mart in Merrifield. Just up from it where Gallows Road meets Route 50 is Le Market/El Mercado, a clean and shiny recent arrival stocked with treasures from South East Asia and Latin America.
In the fruit section are oriental exotics like fresh Rambutans and Longans. There are baby finger bananas, and, in season, persimmons, and quinces whose scent suggests they've been picked after a frost essential to letting them develop flavor. (Time for a Membrillo cook-up?)
In the fresh produce section unusual treasures include cactus leaves, radish sprouts, long beans and Thai okra.
The wide ranging fish department sells whole and filleted fish. Mackerel from Norway was unexpected. In the butcher display is chunk pork belly for rillettes, oxtail, beef blood (not sure I know what to do with that) and other curious bits (this is true nose-to-tail butchery...), black chicken and whole duck. By 'whole', I mean whole: beak to feet - though no feathers.
In the take-out section are Korean dishes and sushi.
Le Market/El Mercado is located on Gallows Rd, Merrifield at the intersection with Route 50.
Related Ingredients...
Asian noodles & curdBanana flowers
Banana leaves
Blood, fresh
Fish - fresh
Mangoes
Mangosteen
Offal
Oriental fruit supplies
Oriental fruits
Passion fruit
Persimmon
Quince
Shrimp
Vietnamese coffee
5 Comments
Anne
If I think I have my bearings correct, this is the remodeled Korean grocery store formerly Han Ah Rheun. El Grande Supermarket (Spanish name but Korean owned) around the corner from this new place is also nice to shop.
Julia
It's Han Ah Rheum that's turned into H Mart. This market I believe is a new one, outside the H Mart fold.
Anne
Thanks Julia, I'll take a trip out to the Rt. 50 and Lee Highway area this weekend to check things out.
Julia
I'm on tenterhooks (whatever they are) to know if this market is your El Grande Supermarket...Hope you had a profitable shopping spree!
Anne
Julia, I did go to the El Grande today and know it well. I've been going there since spring. When your header was le market and I know it as El Grande I had a senior moment. It's great having three Asian style markets on the same "block". I enjoy your website - keep up the great work.
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