Welcome back to The Strip Club, highlighting Austin’s destination strip malls. Where else can you devour dumplings delivered by a robot cowgirl? Grab a spicy cephalopodic snack after a legendary hot-steamed towel service? Source wild-caught live sea squirt and Hello Kitty toilet paper? You’re past the bouncer and into The Strip Club: It’s Parkline Shopping Center!
You won’t catch me Crying in H Mart. I love it here – and it’s not just the hard-to-find Asian products, seafood, and home wares at this renowned Korean grocery chain. It’s the food court, which features eight restaurants, a bakery, and – since Parkline Shopping Center is just inside Austin city limits – a stage for live music.
Without fail, I head straight for the jjamppong (spicy seafood udon) at Narrow Street 512, which never disappoints with its shrimp, squid, and mussels heaped onto thick noodles in spicy pork broth. But if you really want to get jjigae with it, their kimchi stew and haejangguk (hangover soup) will revive any corpse on a cold day, after too many cold ones, or both.
Paik’s Noodle offers Chinese-Korean dishes including the seminal jjajangmyeon (wheat noodles with black soybean sauce), a dish that comforts as pork belly and onion meld with the chewy, gooey jjajang in an intensely sweet and savory fermented sauce. Seoul food.
Oh-K Dog, a viral favorite for their wacky corn dogs and egg toasts, captivates with their ink-credible Squid Ink Half and Half – a frank on a stick (made to look like an octopus with “tentacles” sticking out of the bottom) alongside a chunk of mozzarella, then deep fried in cephalopod cornmeal. It’s spicy, unique, and it’s better than “Oh-K.”
As if that weren’t enough, there are several more stalls doing Korean, including Chodang (ginseng chicken, beef japchae, kimchi pancake, and hot stone bulgogi bipimbap), Don Chicken (outrageous portions of Korean fried chicken), and Jopok Topokki (ramen, kimbap, topokki sets, onigiri, and musubi).
Not to be outdone, Japanese treats are also available at Umami St. (sushi rolls, gyudon, unagi don, tempura) and Kobako Katsu (try the chicken katsu skewers). And, since you’ll need something to wash it all down, there’s a “No Tip Bar” in the middle of the food court with everything from cold beer to Topo Chico, which inverts my concept for a pay-what-you-want bar called “Just the Tip.”
For those on a tighter budget, consider heading into the market itself for H Mart’s ready-to-gnaw roasted sweet potatoes in a bag (produce section), the poke bowl bar (near the seafood counter), or the prepared kimbap, banchan, and onigiri in the back-left corner, which also houses the most expansive selection of kimchi in town.
The H Mart at Parkline will always be worth the drive.
Once through checkout, consider dessert at Beard Papa’s Fresh Natural Cream Puffs, which come frosted in ube, green tea, crème brulée, or the nostalgic Cap’n Crunch, then filled with your choice of vanilla cream, ice cream, or strawberry cheesecake. Decadent. But if you can’t get enough pâtisserie, there’s also a Tous les Jours, with typical French bakery offerings like pain au chocolat, pain aux raisins, and croissants, alongside savory offerings like the curry croquette, kimchi croquette, and spinach feta Danish.
Duck, you sucker! Next to the 99 Spoons Robotic Soft Serve, there’s a small boxing ring set up with robes and gloves for children “6 years old and under,” a magical place where parents can watch their rug rats beat the daylights out of each other while enjoying their ice cream in peace.
Until Austin’s long-awaited second H Mart opens at 5222 Burnet Rd. (rumored to have three food court tenants and a bakery), Parkline will always be worth the drive, and even though I thought the “H” was for “Heaven,” it actually stands for “han ah reum,” a Korean phrase meaning “one arm full of groceries.”
Upping the maxim to the maximum, I exit with both arms full of Thai basil, live sea squirt, Jolly Pong Cereal Snack, and Hello Kitty toilet paper, then wander across the parking lot to Sport Clips to investigate their “Legendary Hot Steamed Towel” and “Free Neck Trim” services. I’m chatting with Jackie about appropriate hairstyles for pugilistic kindergartners, but she mostly does “Mahomes” cuts and mullets, and women aren’t her bag – this place is strictly for men. Surveying the interior, which is made to look like a locker room with TVs blasting sports at all times, I believe her.
Plopping down in a booth next door at Mala Chili, a Chinese restaurant where the future is now, I’m greeted with a tablet that’s also a menu, and within a nanosecond of pressing the button that submits my order, I hear a loud “ding” resonate from the kitchen. A few minutes later, what sounds like wedding processional Muzak starts blaring from a blue-eyed robot near the kitchen that’s wearing a cowboy hat and a bandanna – and it has my food on its derrière.
As the droid arrives, a waitress swoops in and introduces the dishes as she puts them on the table. I ask her if she’s worried about losing her job in the face of expanding AI, and she replies, “No, her name’s Mala Cowgirl! She makes my job sooo eaaasy.” Then she mashes some buttons on the bot’s touchscreen face, mercifully stopping the music, and they both return to base.
The grub here is standard Szechuan, and I enjoyed the Chongqing Jiangbei boiled fish (flounder with sweet potato noodle in chili broth), stir-fried green beans (with ground pork), and the red oil dumplings (pork with chili), though all are a tad on the oily side. For an antidote, consider their selection of Yomie’s Rice x Yogurt – smoothies and drinks of the fermented milk variety.
A better bang for your buck is Banh Mi Galang, tucked into the north end of the center, which has an excellent grilled pork sandwich that comes correct, with a thin, flaky bun and perfect Vietnamese mayo. They also have rolling monthly specials like bánh xèo, and there’s a cute little Post-it note near the register that welcomes the uninitiated: “If you’re confused, don’t be afraid to ask questions.” Words to live by.
Parkline Shopping Center
11301 Lakeline Blvd.
This article appears in May 23 • 2025.