nakji

I've never had rijstaffel before. Were there any notable dishes in the selection you tried?

I don't know if you've been and gone yet, but here are some of my suggestions: Grab breakfast/lunch at any one of the Gimbap Cheonguk/Gimbap Nara chains (hard to miss, they're everywhere and they're orange), where you can get gimbap, bibimbap, kimchi jigae and the like. Good if you're eating alone. Walk through Insadong in the afternoon and stand in line for a hotuk - a pancake filled with brown sugar and ground nuts. Go into any one of the teahouses that run off Insadong and order some bokbun jaju; a kind of sweet berry wine; and kamja jeon (potato pancake) or haemmul jeon (seafood pancake). At night, hit Sinchon, and wander through the alleys until you find a Chuncheon Jib Ddalk Galbi chain, and enjoy a hot pan full of chicken and rice cakes in spicy sauce. Alternatively, try any of the amazing galbi jibs (Korean barbecue houses) in that area. They're all cheap, because it's a student area. Just look for a place with real coals in the table, and lots of people. Order at least one bottle of soju. There's lots of good street food here, as well, like ddeok bokki and odeng stalls. That should get you started, and if you walk into any restaurant the Korean staff will be happy to help you choose something - just remember, even in Seoul, not a lot of English is spoken. Be adventurous and you'll be rewarded.

Do they still do "Roll Up The Rim To Win"? Yeah, if someone showed up with a box of Boston Creams right about now, I wouldn't turn them down. Someone once told me their coffee has MSG. I believed it, since their coffee is so old by the time it gets brewed, they need something to boost the flavour. Urban Legend? Can you even add MSG to coffee?

"A Mormon Cookbook: Food, Facts & Friendship", which a friend bought for me in a gas station in Idaho. It contains recipes for "Apples slices and Peanut butter" (just that) and "Polygamist Potato Pancakes". It's not really all that strange, I guess, but since I own a total of 4 cookbooks altogether (How To Cook Everything; a book of handwritten recipes from a Thai friend; a small Vietnamese cookbook, and A Mormon Cookbook) it kind of sticks out.

Chop them in half, and put them in an omelette with chopped red onion and cilantro. I had this for the first time in India, and fell in love with it. Sometimes they'd add a spice mix - I have no idea what, they just called it masala - and put it between toast with a slice of American cheese. Heaven!

Tim Hortons Tries for US Expansion (NY Times link; requires free registration) It's been four years since I've been in a Tim's, long enough to lose my Canadian passport by some people's standards. In that time, I've had my first drink of Vietnamese coffee, and my first bite of a warm Krispy Kreme right off the conveyor belt. Nostalgia aside, I have no further reason to ever enter a Tim Horton's again in my life. According to the article, it seems that Tim's has achieved near market saturation in many parts of Canada, and is now looking South for growth. I recall that the Tim's in Halifax converted a central bakery that distributed donuts to most of the franchises in the area. Donuts were almost universally hard and stale by the time you got them. As for the coffee, I thought it was undrinkable - a long time black coffee drinker, it tasted like tar without the two creams and sugars most people drink it with. I do sometimes fondly recall the chocolate chip muffins, however, with the big sugar crystals on the top. They got me through almost all of my third year of university. And when the article image of a donut loaded up on my computer, I got a lump in my throat - it remains a powerful image of "home" to me. Have you tried Tim's product? What do you think? How do you think it compares to Dunkin Donuts?

Do you think a biscuit dough would be too soft to flip? Also, my rice cooker doesn't have a timer, just an on/off button. Where have you seen these recipes? Just so I have a starting point....

Excellent video! In retrospect, I think my rice cooker is too small. And there's no yeast at my local market. But I might be able to try biscuits, as I have some baking powder here.

My Japanese teacher cooked me a banana bread in her rice cooker the other day. She ran it through the cycle three times, then finished it in a frying pan. It was great. It also prompted me to think about baking regular bread in a rice cooker - after all - isn't a bread machine just like a rice cooker but with a kneading cycle? I have a really cheap rice cooker that I'm getting rid of in a week, as I'm moving to Japan. If I could get my hands on some yeast... ......dare me?

Mon nay ngon tuyet! Sorry I can't render the tones. First word, rising; second word, falling; third word, flat; last word, one syllable, with the sound pinched off at the end. Or you can smile and pat your tummy, which is what I usually do; I'm hopeless at tones.

A small nit to pick: Korea is generally considered to be in North-East Asia. It hangs out right next to Japan. That being said, I'm not sure if I know of any English magazines that focus on this kind of cuisine. Have you tried looking at Australian food magazines? I find they often features dishes with south-east Asian influences.

Oh no. Egullets reveals another sad addiction. I collect bag clips. In fish (and other sea creature) shapes. My prize clip is a red octopus clip. I also have squid, crab, and fish. I also use the binder clips, as they're more readily available. I like the range of sizes they come in.

Your description of roasting coffee sounds just like what I see every day in Hanoi. Lots of little cafes do their roasting out on the streets, using a wok and little coal burner. It smells kind of burn-y, and it always makes me want to pull my bike over and grab a quick cup. That cake made my mouth water. I've been coveting that book for a long time, but I just don't live in a place where I can reasonably do any baking.

I'm tickled you enjoyed them. My husband loves beans, and this is one of my favourite ways of cooking them. Another way I like to do them is to stir-fry them with lots of garlic and a bit of fish sauce. It makes a nice side to lemongrass chicken, or a thai curry.

When I was travelling Australia and New Zealand, all of the "barbecues"/grills at the campgrounds - and peoples homes - looked like that. I think I saw an actual grill once. They cooked burgers and sausages really well, with the added bonus that you could fry up onions in butter on the side. It went a long way in convincing my husband to eat onions.

Sometimes I blanch some beans, then saute some bacon and garlic in a pan. I drain of a bit of the fat (not too much, though!) and then add some honey, dijon mustard, and red wine vinegar to the pan, making a kind of dressing. Toss the beans in the dressing and serve warm or cool.

Virtually all of the best Vietnamese restaurants in Hanoi are named after their street address. I don't know why - tradition, I guess, or maybe because certain streets are famous for a particular dish. Either way, it makes them easy to find.

Blueberries and pine trees? I'd say Maine. Is it johnnyd?

Isn't that funny? I just mentioned that tip in another thread. If keeping it all together is a concern, definitely a sturdy roll or mini-baguette will help - and wrapping in tin foil is better than plastic wrap, too. Although that might be more expensive.

My husband's cork is that he likes to put the mustard between the cheese and the meat - not on the bread (where it would sink in), because he enjoys the mustard as a topping in its own right, not as a condiment. We go through a lot of grainy mustard.

I agree, the only sensible way to cut up kimchi is using (red-handled, of course) kitchen scissors. That way you save all the yummy juice, instead of getting it all over your cutting board. I also use them for cutting quesadillas, and occasionally for the really soft baguettes we get here in Hanoi.

Hmmm...so basically, you fear that most meat and cheese fillings wouldn't survive the heat of the trip? Is it possible to get a cold pack for your bag? Alternatively: Hummous and veg on multi-grain bread. (Just be sure to put the hummous on both sides of the bread and the veg in the middle, to keep the bread from getting soggy). Roasted veg and feta cheese (harder cheeses seem to hold up okay in the heat). Avocado (or even better, guacamole) and crispy bacon. Or Sun-dried tomatoes. If you're not worried about calories and carbs, maybe leftover pasta in a baguette. (A rugby player friend swears by this). A cooked omellette in bread. A chip butty? Onigiri? Not sure about the strict food safety of all these suggestions...

Thanks Hiroyuki, that is a great site! I'm a beginner at Japanese, but being able to sound out oishii on the page was a great confidence booster. Sheetz, you might also want to check out Torakris's great "Daily Nihongo" thread: Daily Nihongo

Wow, that was fascinating. Coke and bananas appear almost universally! It was their "Favourite recipe: soup with fresh sheep meat." that choked me up. I wonder how often they get that for dinner? It really made me appreciate how lucky I am. I'd have a hard time guessing what I ate each week, though - I shop on the day I want to cook, and eat out more than I cook. The only things lying around my house are condiments, bags of dried pasta and rice, bottled water and coffee. It was also interesting to see the relative cost of things - In the UK, about $250, In China and Poland, around $150, almost $200 in Mexico, $350 in North Carolina... ...although a lot could be chalked up to the age and number of family members. I'd like to see their food expenditures as a percentage of all household spending. Which family looks most like yours? Mine looks like the family in Kuwait, mostly due to the bag of rice, flats of bottled water, and a small amount of meat.

Today I made the double-mustard potato salad from this book, for a barbecue I'm going to. It's amazing! And since my husband and I are of two minds about how we like our mustard (I like standard dijon; he likes grainy) we'll always have the ingredients on hand. I think it'll go with sausages quite well, it's so tart.