nakji

She must have been very spry!

My favourite way to eat this is to leave it in the fridge first, and then hack out chunks and eat them like chocolates. Why is there no :shame: emoticon? My second favourite presentation of Nutella was eaten on Thai pancakes on Phi Phi Island, in Thailand. I used to have one every day one my way to the beach. It was always melty on the warm chewy bread...*sigh.

It was a fruit label that changed my life. One day I had a granny smith apple for lunch. When I went to wash and eat it, I peeled off the label. For whatever reason, I decided to read it. It said "South Africa", and I thought, "This apple has traveled further than I ever have in my entire life." And I got really depressed. Six months later, I quit my job and moved to Asia. Life's funny.

I remember there was a similar controversy over Korean dog-meat restaurants just before they hosted the World Cup in 2002. There was also a campaign by the government to remove toilet paper rolls from tables, which served as napkins at a lot of cheaper restaurants around Seoul!

I watched the Korea episode today, and it made me a little nostalgic. It made my husband crave galbi, but the best we could do was some bun cha out on the street. (Oh well )It was really great to see all those things again, and to see Tony walking the streets of Seoul. My husband and I played a game of, "I know that sign!" "Hey, they're right next to the Krispy Kreme!" Seems like he had a good time, and the feeling of constant exhaustion struck a note with me, as I was always ragged when I lived there. I taught until 10:30 at night and woke up and taught again every morning at 6 am, to businessmen on their way to work. I became completely nocturnal and lived off the soju as well! it was fun for a while, but I've slowed my pace considerably and live much more reasonably now here in Hanoi. I've lost 10 pounds since coming here, just from not keeping such wacky hours and drinking so much. But the "Bballi, Bballi" (hurry, hurry) is a big part of life in Korea...I once saw someone fall asleep at a red light at an intersection - on his bicycle!

I planned to camouflage it with banana palms. I think they're monitoring my downloads, too.... Anyway, I thought that if I got the satellite I wouldn't be screwing Discovery Travel and Living out of their revenue source....but then, it's illegal anyway, so what are the odds that the cable channel is seeing any of that money...? hmmm /...scuttles off to bittorrent/

I can't wait to see this episode! After living in Korea for so long, it'll be great to see it get some attention. The only other shows I can think of that have visited there were the Lonely Planet show, and the Thirsty Traveller. I showed the Thirsty Traveller show about soju to many of my classes, and they were thrilled. It's a shame that there wasn't a more in-depth look at panchan, which as I understood from relentless questioning of my students, made up the majority of their daily eating...rice, soup and side dishes..the holy trinity! Gratuitous panchan shot: If they did an "extreme eating" bit, it's too bad they didn't go for bbeondaeggi. The smell alone would have sent the crew reeling. Gratuitous Bbeondaeggi shot: My typical Saturday night in Seoul was to meet the friends for meat (we always ended up in Sinchon, where all the students went - if anyone's in the neighbourhood, I strongly recommend "Donmania!"), go to a "rock bar" and drink pitchers of Hite or Soju cocktail "rainbows", and end up in a singing room, smuggling in soju and yangpa rings. Off to the jimjilbang for a scrub and a nap until the subway opened and back home to sleep all Sunday. It would have been completely surreal to see Tony do similar. Unfortunately, my options for seeing this episode are both illegal; one, buy a black market satellite receiver; which are technically forbidden by the government here in Vietnam; or download it via on-line torrents. Which is the lesser of two evils? (edited for image link)

I didn't register for china, crystal or silverware. I was 23 when I got married, and it was pretty irrelevant to my lifestyle at that point. My husband and I had a tiny apartment, and I thought those things would spend years crammed into corners and under beds until I had the money, space, and inclination to use them. And I thought by the time THAT time rolled around my tastes would have changed anyway. So I didn't bother, and asked for things that I did need, like sheets, towels, furniture that weren't thrift store finds... Needless to say, the 'ladies' of the family were scandalized. My impulses were good, though, as after three years of marriage, my husband and I moved overseas, leaving all of our things (wedding gifts included) behind. Although I packed the sheets and towels! And it turns out I found lots of dishes to my taste in China anyway, so it all worked out.

I have a large jug of Trung Nguyen icing in my fridge right now. Temperatures in Ha Noi have been upwards of 40 this week, although we had a spectacular lightning storm tonight that broke the heat. For my money, nothing beats Trung Nguyen, -Legendee or Passiona blends if you can find them- they smell like chocolate! I'll have a Highland if I'm near one of their outlets, but I think TN is the best. My Dad has asked me to send him some in Halifax, since he can't find it there - maybe I'll send that link instead! For the record, I use vinamilk 'Ong Tho' as my condensed brand of choice. I find it's better if you leave it in the fridge with the can half open for a day or so...it gets thicker. Anyway, that and the beer hoi are the only things that make the heat here bearable....

I thought you could buy the broth...I'm sure I did at least once, but I couldn't get the noodles right. Check in the refrigerated section near the other broths....you know, near where they keep the yellow radish and the bags of shelled mussels...have a poke around there. It may be seasonal. I miss naengmyeon. I noticed before I left that some places started adding a scoop of red chillis to it (not gochujang...not sure what it was, exactly - it wasn't bibimnaengmyeon, because it was still in the soup form), which I liked, but I found vaguely disappointing, because it was one dish I could reliably recommend to friends who didn't like spicy food. Have you seen this anywhere? I especially saw it outside of Seoul. Is naengmyeon a native Korean dish, or is it a re-interpretation of the Japanese dish (or vice versa) with the cold noodles swished around in the wasabi broth? I've always thought they were a little similar, and naengmyeon seems so different from the rest of Korean food, which is heavily seasoned with red chilis.

In Korea I used to enjoy... Chic Choc Butter Waffle Cocque d'Asse I am absolutely not joking about the last one. It came in "regular" and "green tea". I miss President Choice "The Decadent" from home in Canada. We weren't allowed Oreos when I was young (I think they were too expensive?) but when I got older my parents loosened the purse strings a little and started buying packaged cookies. But I never developed a taste for Oreos. I also like Viva Puffs, which are the Canadian version of Mallomars, I think. But with jam in the middle - and they're available year-round. When I was a Girl Guide growing up, we only sold one kind of cookies - I don't know if they had an official name, but the box came half and half with vanilla cream and chocolate cream sandwiches. I didn't see a thin mint until I'd grown up...and to this day I don't think more than two varieties are available. Anyone in Canada who can back me up? Also; Fudgee-os and Dare Maple Sandwiches. I've never turned my nose up at a chocolate digestive or a penguin either. But, In my humble opinion, the greatest packaged cookie available for purchase is......(drum roll please) The Tim Tam Double Coat If you haven't visited Australia yet, this is a good reason to go.

This is true. I never met him in person, but I remember his book, Island of Fantasy, about Geoje Island, and his blog, including how he liked to feed stray cats. RIP Shawn.

Can I ask what the name of it was? Korean chilis are hot, but not incredibly so - I've always thought the Thais chilis were much hotter. I find they have a nice smoky flavour. In Korea, I saw most home cooks use gochu garu (dried red pepper flakes - not like the kind at pizza places, but a finer grind) or gochujang, which was red pepper paste. There's a slightly runnier sauce, made with gochu and vinegar, but it's thick, bright red, and almost mistakable for ketchup - mainly used for bibimnaengmyeon; seafood dipping; sometimes bibimbap...does it look like this? If so, it's really yummy mixed up with thinly sliced fresh veggies and cold noodles (such as soba). If you like spicy things, I don't think you'll find it over-the-top spicy.

Those look like the chewy bits usually served on top of patbingsu - ice and fruit and chewy bits served with red beans during the summer. McDonalds always did a nice one with vanilla soft serve, as I recall. Does anyone know their official name? Zenkimchi? Are you out there? They were always multi-coloured when I got them, though.

I think this question of Canadian regionalism in cooking is very interesting. For me, growing up in Nova Scotia, I had no idea what "pea meal" bacon was (actually, I'm still not sure...is it ham?). Butter tarts were sold at Tim Horton's, but I can't recall anyone's mom making them. To me these were stereotypical "Upper Canadian" things read about in Canadian Living, but never actually seen. In Nova Scotia, seasonal ingredients made up a big part of home cooking...blueberry grunt or cobbler in august, my mom making strawberry jam the first week in July (the same time as my birthday - I always associate strawberries with my birthday); Rhubarb cobbler in May and June, actually, anything made with rhubarb. Tomatoes grown in the garden ripening on our window sill if the august weather was too foggy. Lobster dinners in the summer. Mussels with lemon butter whenever. Arctic Char from Labrador when my Nanny came down for a visit. (Okay, that might have just been my family). Not a lot of Maple syrup, as there aren't any big producers in Nova Scotia, so it was always terribly expensive. I remember a British woman asking me here in Vietnam, "What is it with you Canadians? Why do you always bring Maple syrup when you visit another country? What am I supposed to do with it?" I will not print my tart reply. Donairs from the Greek and Lebanese restaurants. Who could end a night on the town without one of these? Scallop rolls, eaten in Digby, fresh out of the fryer, from the place on the highway...what was it called? Ethereal, lightly battered sweet scallops, in a fried bun (top split, like a lobster roll), dressed appropriately with mayo and relish. *sigh* Tim Horton's coffee. A cult in the Maritimes. Has Starbucks opened a freestanding store in Halifax yet? I remember having to go to the Chapters to get one. You couldn't get people off their timmies. Then there's Newfoundland cuisine...fish n' brewis. Somebody mentioned Seal flipper pie upthread. Those little balls of fried bread dough...what are they called? I loved those. Canadian food is definitely regional. Although I do put vinegar on my fries! I used to love when Harvey's put the vinegar and ketchup bottles on the table...I'd double soak the fries so the cardboard container went soggy on the bottom. Good times!

At some of the nicer galbi joints in Seoul, they serve wine. I remember having a rioja that went nicely with simply grilled galbi-sal. But your friend is probably serving something other than grilled meat, or he wouldn't have said "Korean Food", he would have said steak! If you can get your hands on some soju, like lambretta said, I think it would make a nice touch to the dinner. Jin-ro soju (or other brands), is considered best-matched in Korea with samgyeobsal - grilled fatty pork belly (my mouth is watering just thinking about it...mmmm, cook the kimchi on the grill in the pork fat..mmmm) but is also drunk with pretty much anything. The taste is...acquired, but if you do it properly like lambretta says, ice cold and drunk in one shot, it hardly matters. I cannot, in any case recommend Korean beer, unless the stuff available in the US is significantly different than the stuff in Korea. In my opinion, it tastes like chemicals. I have fond memories of dining with Koreans, and they'd ooh and ahhh over the fact that I could drink soju..."Isn't it too strong for you?" they'd ask. People, you should see what I drank in university!

One of the many annoying things about living in Korea was that foreigners could not shop online because they didn't have the necessary numbers to register for websites; Koreans use their national ID numbers as required registration; foreigners are given different numbers that most korean websites are not set up to accept. (Some wag dubbed it "cyber-apartheid") Also, they require the use of Korean credit cards; which most foreigners aren't able to acquire without a Korean co-signee. But Zenkimchi has a Korean girlfriend so perhaps she could sort this out for him. I know my friend living in Seoul had a convection oven; his girlfriend bought it for him, although I'm afraid I can't recall where. I had a proper oven, and it was lovely. Friends of mine bought a toaster oven from Costco that had temperature controls and such. Have you tried looking there? Living in a country so set in its ways and so hostile to foreign influence was unbearable for me; it's what drove me out in the end.

I had (four) Halidas, each drunk very quickly before they got warm. When it's this hot, any beer tastes good, as long as it's cold.

Ah, soju cocktail! I've forgotton many a night due to soju cocktails. I agree about the yogurt ones. Delicious. I always felt sorry for the bar staff who had to prick open all those little bottles to fill the pitcher. The hof near my place in Incheon used to sell a "rainbow" which we'd order when we went out with friends; cherry; grape; orange; lemon; mango and peach bottles, all served in a row. And then the bar staff would watch in amazement as we slammed these back - for god's sake, it was only 20% alcohol mixed liberally with fruit juice - hardly the Kamikazes and Purple Jesus' from university days - but you'd have thought we shooting straight brandy or something by their reactions. And we always tried to avoid buying the obligatory food by claiming we'd just eaten dinner. We were once served, and I know you're in Korea, so you'll believe me: slices of spam on triscuits; with processed cheese; peanut butter; ketchup; and mayonnaise (from a star tip, of course). And sweet pickles on the side. I can see in your photo something sludged heavily with mayo and ketchup. What was it?

Khadija, Thanks for your clarification. I didn't mean to imply that you were being necessarily simplistic. I was trying to clarify my feelings from my first post - I wanted to be perfectly clear that people in other countries have similar standards to ourselves; in my (humble) opinion it's not the culture that results in the dirty stores, it's other factors. And I just felt that some posts were offering explanations that suggested culture was part of it; and excused it for those reasons....but that was my reaction, and rereading the thread I see that that's not true of any one post; it was my reaction to the thread as a whole. I'm guilty of projecting my own sensitivities! I apologize for misreading things. I also clearly misunderstand the true meaning of cultural relativism, as my understanding of that term was the, er, shallow sense that you described in your first paragraph. So, off to Wikipedia for further reading. Interesting, about the use of "ethnic" as a term - I used to teach from an ESL book that asked students what their favourite "ethnic" food was - well, this was a completely useless task, as what the book designated as "ethnic" food was to them, simply "food". This chapter drove me batty, and I was angered by the [White, Western] assumptions made. Especially in an ESL text! In the end, I simply taught the students that it meant food from countries or cultures not your own. I'm not sure if that was the best definition, but it got us through the unit. I think I'll go look up that thread! Turnabout is fairplay, however, and the Koreans and Vietnamese I've talked to at length consider "Western" an ethnicity, and consider Western food to be hamburgers, pizza, spaghetti, cola, and so on; westerners eat this every day; which is why everyone there is so fat. I've had the hardest time trying to tell them that a) the west is very diverse (read: not just America) and b) people in the west eat different things every day. They do not eat hamburgers for lunch and pizza for dinner. Overall, this thread is very interesting to me, as I have spent a lot of time in ethnic western stores in my years in Asia, and have found them to be in the same condition as similarly themed (imported, hard to find ingredients aimed at recent immigrants or expatriates) food stores in Canada.

I'd like to re-iterate my point here, because I think it's getting lost in cultural relativism. I don't think that there is a pre-disposition in any culture to be more accepting of dirty/dusty/weeping/misordered cans or other food containers. Whenever I travel, I make it a point to search out food stores; I get a kick out of strolling through foreign supermarkets. I've been in food stores or supermarkets all across Asia, and have shopped regularly in both Vietnam and Korea. The food stores here are full of clean, bright cans and bottles facing forward. Nothing is weeping anything. Nothing is dusty. People care a lot about the cleanliness and order of the products. They do not have lowered standards. They are not "used to" eating this way and are more accepting of it than us in their home countries. But When I visit special "western" ethnic markets; that is to say, small stores specializing in western food products that have been imported to Asia, such as cereal; bottled spaghetti sauce; Macaroni and Cheese; corn chips; various cheeses; lunch meats, etc.; these stores have been dusty, crowded, and jumbled full of cans and bottles in various states of disrepair. Are all the Vietnamese people who visit wondering, "Goodness, these foreigners who shop here must be used to such dirty stores! They must have special immunity for eating this stuff"? So I think it's not where the shoppers are from that matters. It's the fact that 1) The products have come a long way and have suffered in transit and 2) shoppers in these stores have little choice when it comes to purchasing these products, so they must accept them in whatever form they find them in. So to sum up: [Asian] people do not have lower standards for the condition of the products that they purchase BUT people who are buying products that remind them of home and can't find anywhere else do.

Yeah, I remember blocks of frozen hot dogs, slowly defrosting in the aisles. I also got the impression that at the end of the day, they just chucked the unsold back into the freezer! Why do ethnic markets seem less concerned with cleanliness? I think Zenkimchi partially answered that. Because people will buy it anyway, if they're desperate enough for the product. So why bother? I remember buying cottage cheese from the western markets in Seoul; keeping it in my backpack all night; taking it home on the bus and eating the next morning for breakfast. Would I have treated cottage cheese that way in Canada? No way! I would've assumed it would kill me. In fact, I just finished off a plate of lovely fried Halloumi that I got at a western market here in Hanoi. It also sat out of a fridge for hours, as the place I bought it from was far from my house. I don't care, because if I didn't take the products like that, I'd never get them. I hardly care that the store I bought it in was also full of dusty and dented cans - of Hunt's tomatoes! So ultimately I think it's a combination of the distance the products have to travel, and the relative desperation of the consumers buying the products. If they can't get it anywhere else, they'll take it like that! So management doesn't really care about the state of things. I've lived in both Korea and Vietnam, and I can say that regular stores in both these countries and clean and neatly stocked. So I don't think it's that people from those countries don't care about that. Hmm. I'm not sure if that's as coherent as I think it is.

Indeed. I held each piece with my fingers at each end, and they snapped in half, cleanly. I even did one, not holding the ends, but just pressing in with my fingertips. Still worked. But then, this box has been open in my kitchen for about a week, and I'm in Hanoi. So the average humidity is somewhere around 160%. I feel this may have an affect.

I just went into my kitchen and tried this out. I had a small bunch of spaghetti in a box - not enough to to cook for one person, but that I had perversely saved nonetheless - just the thing for a pointless experiment! I broke four pieces in a row, and all of them broke perfectly in half. Did I do it wrong? Maybe my kitchen is more humid than average - would that affect it? edited for spalling

Just before I left, the latest rage in Samgyeobsal restaurants was to use a slanted flat stone to cook the meat. The pork fat would run to the bottom, where canny diners such as myself would lay strips of kimchi or mushrooms, garlic, etc. The kimchi cooks up incredibly in the pork fat (what doesn't?), and tastes ....divine. The highest culinary elevation of kimchi, for me. Now I'm dreaming of Samgyeobsal...in Hanoi! Drat!