touaregsand
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Posts posted by touaregsand
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Is Flay an herbalist now? Was he making Korean tea?
I'm not a stickler for 'authenticity' all the time and I'm glad that Korean food is becoming more widely known. Flay or any other chef, should say something more like "Korean inspired" rather than making statements about cuisines (cultures) that are clearly out of their realms of expertise.
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In Seoul almost everybody delivers. The neighborhood geumung gageh (minimarket) will deliver even a pack of cigarettes. You can call someone to have a lightbulb changed. The cleaners will pick up and drop off, usuallly at know extra charge. They even have milk delivery in a country full of mostly lactose intolerant people.
I remember when I was little in Korea, the "yakult" sales girls looked so glamorous. They had uniforms, wore make-up and had the coolers with the company logo. They would walk around selling yakult. Now the yakult ladies are usually middle aged.
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Is there any significance to the number after "Pho"? Is this some kind of ranking (if so, everybody would like to be Pho 99). Or just totally random?
In the case of Pho 24, their website claims it's because they use 24 ingredients and it takes 24 hours to make the broth. http://www.pho24.com.vn/ Umm, maybe.
I think it may have been because they originally planned to be open 24 hours. I have a vague recollection that they may have been when they first opened - anyone remember? But these days they're 7am to midnight, at least at the location I most often frequent.
All of the locations are still open 24 hours, although not consecutively at all locations.
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Why would you go to a "Tuscan" restaurant in the middle of rural Virginia?
That's like eating at a "Mexican" restaurant in France. Laughably bad.
Busboy explained why upthread.
Actually the TexMex I had in France wasn't bad. It was just so so. Why did I have Mexican in France? Third month there, I had to try it. Just to see what it was like. I had Korean in France too. Again, not bad. The ingredients were fresh, the seasoning was pretty good but geared more toward eating with wine. I think there are two Chinese places with one Michelin star each in Paris. Odd thing is at the lower level Chinese food is usually pretty bad or just okay in Paris. You'll find the best North African food outside of the Magrheb in France. I didn't try much of the Vietnamese, but what little I did try was excellent.
Going back on topic to rural America. I was in Simi Valley (not quite rural, but close enough) years and years ago and stumbled upon a place that served crawfish. It looked pretty good, sure enough the owner was a Louisianna native and the food was terrific. Andiesenji might know of the place.
EDIT: cross post with The Bus.
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I'd like to see anyone try to get a Mexican meal that good in France.
In Paris, they don't have Mexican food really, just a cuisine they call "Tex Mex." On our first day in the city, we passed a restaurant called "Indiana" that served Tex Mex, which is a bit like calling a French restaurant "Bulgaria." --When in France, don't eat the fajitas, from the LA Times
I hear the French food in Tijuana is pretty bad. Sushi in Afghanistan, no way. Brazilian in Russia? Bah!
You can get some great North African food in Paris, as well as Vietnamese. Zeitoun can speak about the Lebanese food there.
EDIT: I did try Mexican in France. I couldn't help it, I broke down in the third month. The whole TexMex thing was a bit peculiar.
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People at a lot of these places are just trying to play way over their heads without much idea what a real filet in demi-glace is supposed to taste like or, sometimes, how to open a bottle of wine with a corkscrew.
That's not limited to small towns. I've seen it in some of America's bigger cities and places I was told were tops.
There is a pastry and dessert place that was once owned by a famous D.C. chef. He sold the place and his name with it. I don't know if it's still open,, the last time we went was about 6-7 years ago. The sweets were awful, disgusting chocolate mousse served in a plastic cup, but the place was still getting written up as one of the best in LA.
Would that be this famous chef?
Yes and the place was totally riding on his name and reputation. I suspect that local food writer's were just reading his press kits.
I want to stress that I have not gone back in 6-7 years
(And Charles, you know I don't like to name names
)EDIT: Also Michel Richard had sold the place and had nothing to do with it, except his name on the sign. I've already stated that, but I want to again.
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People at a lot of these places are just trying to play way over their heads without much idea what a real filet in demi-glace is supposed to taste like or, sometimes, how to open a bottle of wine with a corkscrew.
That's not limited to small towns. I've seen it in some of America's bigger cities and places I was told were tops.
I've seen it in LA, even at French owned places. A waitress who had just gotten off the Greyhound to make in Hollywood, patiently albeit ignorantly explained to me what French cuisine is and perhaps I just don't understand it, because there is nothing wrong with the food. My husband was sitting right next to me. The owner was an absentee Frenchman.
There is a pastry and dessert place that was once owned by a famous D.C. chef. He sold the place and his name with it. I don't know if it's still open,, the last time we went was about 6-7 years ago. The sweets were awful, disgusting chocolate mousse served in a plastic cup, but the place was still getting written up as one of the best in LA.
When my husband first came to LA he worked at a place that is still considered one of LA's best French restaurants. The chef was on the old Iron Chef series. The guy couldn't really cook. He had a good investor and the money to hire trained staff. His
bouilliabaisse was so so, but his wealthy clientele bought it hook line and sinker because they had never tasted a really good version.
I have a little list of such places in LA.
EDIT: I have to add just one more. There is an upscale North African/French place. When it first opened the place attracted celebrities like flies on shit. The whole concept and menu has little to do with North African or French. It was about capitalizing on 'exoticism'. There's little respect for food or the culinary history. It's not that hard to do a little research. Alot fo the food is common fare, unimaginative Californian fusion with every thing but the kitchen sink thrown in, but costs like 10 times more. But the North African/French exoticism is played up so much that almost everyone I've met who's eaten there thinks it's totally upscale, exotic and authentic.
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I think traditionally in Europe the corn on the cob is probably a starchier and tougher older variety, more suitable for grinding into flours and such. The newer supersweet corns aren't as readily available, except in cans. This seems to be case in other parts of the world. The typical corn in Korea sold by street vendors is boiled or steamed to death. The kernals are big and toothsome. Canned corn is popular there as well. It's only been in the past 6-10 years that supermarkets over there started carrying supersweet corn, husked in cellophane packages. There is a thread on the Japanese love of corn, I haven't read the fascinating thread from beginning to end, but most of it corn I've seen in Japanese dishes is canned.
So it's not a French thing, a North African thing, a Korean thing, or a Japanese thing to resist corn or corn on the cob in particular. Corn is eaten in countries where it's been introduced, sometimes with great gusto, but not in the same ways it's eaten in America. Not surprising since these countries aren't, well, American and very far away to boot with different culinary traditions and eating habits. For instance corn off the cob is difficult to pick up with chopsticks, so it shows up in 'fusiony' salads and snacks in Korea and Japan.
A little history of corn in America.
Corn - From Sweet to SweeterThere are three types of sweet corn. They are normal sugary (su), sugary enhanced (se) and supersweet (sh2). These types refer to the sugar content and sweet flavor in the kernels when mature. The normal sugary (su) sweet corn will convert kernel sugar to starch immediately after harvest. This means the sweet flavor is rapidly lost. The supersweet or "shrunken two" (sh2) type was discovered in 1950 by Dr. J. R. Laugham, University of Illinois using traditional breeding techniques.
Btw, don't Americans make grits with tougher, starchier corn? Is it fancier to call it a type of polenta? The Portuguese and North Africans were probably making cornbread before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock.
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Me too!
But I know what Korean food looks like, even at a factory.
Others would know better, but I've never had a banh mi in LA served with laughing cow cheese it in. I know in France some banh mis sometimes have the cheese.
I'm intrigued by the merguez pizza with blue cheese.
Traditional Algerian pizzas are called cocas and can be topped with merguez, if there is cheese it would be gruyere. Never occured to me to try blue cheese. Interesting flavor combo.Great report, I laughed out loud at the pedantic f*ckhead comment.
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You can make a bulgogi burger with ground beef seasoned with bulgogi marinade, form it into patties, chill, onto the grill or into the frying pan.
Some burgers or sandwiches are made with regular bulogogi.
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You've got to have the nose for it.
My mother had a nose for good food. She and I did a lot of driving in the rural South when I was around college age, various pilgrammages to visit family here and there and then once we took our time driving to Houston. I was an uncomfortable teenager (also raised a Yankee) and we arrived in Crowley Louisianna at sunset. There was a long strip of abandoned shop fronts and it seemed to me there was absolutely nothing there. In fact I think I remember tumbleweed and clouds of sand and remember the clunk clunk of us driving over the rairoad tracks, taking a U turn, because mama saw something, and the clunk clunk back over. She'd seen a sign. Hand painted "Crawfish Tonight" was all it said. The room was completely white and flourescently lit with one flickering bulb. I don't remember people speaking much. And we paid out 5 dollars and got the big plate. Steaming, heaping piles of crawfish fresh from a spicy boil and cups of melted butter. We ate a whole platter and then another, and then we ordered one more and took it back to the hotel room. It was the first time I ever took a photo of food.
I think most of us on this thread are in agreement that it is possible to find good to fantastic food pretty much anywere. The question is the degree of difficulty.
I had fantastic Mexican food in North Carolina of all places. The place was in a mall and everything was fresh. It was an hour away from my hotel. It was a tip from another business traveler.
EDIT: My dining companions were from smaller cities and they thought it was really upscale Mexican dining. In a mall.
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I've been to some pretty small towns in America. Won't name which ones. My experience has been that the locals usually are not reliable, neither are desk clerks, hardly what I would describe as concierges. I've had better luck asking out of towners who've visited before.
As for small town dining in France. We've done the drive between Lyon and Paris several times, back and forth. What's between those two cities doesn't even compare to type of food available between LA and SF, a route I've driven a dozen or so times. Given that California is probably still the richest State, doesn't give me much hope for the rest, parts of which I have also visited many times.
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My mother made seafood rice with a perilla leaf relish the other night. This is a photo of reheated leftovers. My mother of course would serve it on traditional dishes which I do not have.
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We made briks yesterday using springroll wrappers. I found them to be a bit easier to work with than the warka leaves.
The eggs were much too big for briks, but the bowl trick kept everything intact. When I folded the wrapper in half the edges didn't adhere together very well, even with an egg wash. I simply placed them in the hot oil and very quickly pressed the edges down with a fork.
Brik are very easy to make, the challenge is to work very quickly. Once the wrappers are filled they have to go into the frying pan within seconds, otherwise they will beging to disintegrate. Also basting the top with hot oil is sometimes necessary to avoid seepage.
(as a side note my husband prepared them for a Korean cooking demo with the addition of sauteed Kimchi. Huge crowd pleaser with Non-Koreans as well.)
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Chili.
Tejas.
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4. Fish tacos/burritos -- there are whole segments of the Southern California population for which this represents an entire food group of its own. I'm one of those weirdos who prefers my fish in burritos to tacos ... I just like burritos better than tacos anyway
San Diego kicks ass in this category of Mexican. It's not as well represented in LA. Senor Fish is pretty good, they do a deep fried scallop burrito that carried me through my first pregnancy.
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In Japan, 'daikon ashi' (daikon legs). Describing women whose legs are shaped like, well, daikon.
And all too often given maximum and unflattering exposure in a mini-skirt.
Same thing in Korean. 'mu dali' daikon legs It's usually in reference to thick calves.
'ojingo dali' octopus legs refers to skinny, gangly legs.
'oli guleum' means duck walk, the opposite of pigeon toes.
These descriptions are usually reserved for women.
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Le Maison de la Casa House?
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I've only heard this once. I'm not even sure if this qualifies as an insult.
"I'm gonna git on you like white on rice."
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So getting back to the topic, I'm a little curious as to banchan -- is this common only during dinner, or does it appear at other times, as in for instance lunch or brunch?
And is it banchan or panchan? I've seen both but more recently banchan.
Are there other measures of respect that have been codified, you know, like in Chinese cuisine (when fish is served, the head or cheeks are usually given to the elders or head of household)?
Soba
Banchan appears at all meals. The most common one is napa cabbage kimchi.
Measures of respect in Korean society are extremely codified. As for table manners, I could rattle off a whole list of things. I'll have think about how to discuss it without opening a can of worms.
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t must have been very long time ago.
It was when Korea town in LA was basically a couple of Chinese-Korean restaurants serving hand pulled noodles and there was a supermarket called Cal's or Kal's (I think) that later became the first full fledged Korean supermarket.
There were a few Korean restaurants here and there.
I don't think the restaurant scene in Seoul and in Los Angeles really took off untill the Olympics.
EDIT: The stuffing mixture for soon dae is not that hard to make. The hard part is stuffing the casings without rupturing them. That's the time consuming part. Really if you have a good soon dae place nearby there's really no need to make it at home. It's not like people do it in Korea. My parents were always a bit extreme about making things at home.
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heheh well we all eat our own country's produce, right? wink.gif
but having said i wonder which country exports the most amount of tofu?
Don't know. I think in California it's locally made by Korean, Chinese and Japanese companies. I recall seeing some Vietnamese brands as well.
Hinochi used to be the most common general supermarket brand, but Pulmuone (a Korean company) shot out of nowhere a few years and grew like a bonfire.
I've seen the Chinese brands in mostly Chinese grocery stores, but not in general supermarkets.
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In Seoul there are areas that specialize in specific dishes. My parents took me all over the city on eating excursions. Of course I never bothered to take notes on addresses and such.
There is a fantastic soon dae place in LA on Western, near 8th I think. They make it the old fashioned way It's a small place, run by a hard working couple.
Because my family immigrated before there were great Korean restaurants in LA, my parents made alot of stuff at home, including soon dae. If anyone wants to try it at home, I'll ask my mom for her recipe.
EDIT: I shouldn't post before my morning coffee
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Yeah its gonna be the chinese that invented tofu but its usually the japanese that refine it.
Take paper as an example, no arguement that the chinese invented it
but it was the japanese that turned it into the art form origami
And the Koreans just eat it.
cool post
Korean food and Bobby Flay
in Elsewhere in Asia/Pacific: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Didn't watch the show. If Flay used kaenip, Soup probably would have recognized it.
As for traditional Korean fish sauce it's used in more than kimchi.