torakris

I bought the tickets yesterday, we are headed to Seoul this winter!! We are thinking of staying in the Myeongdong area and are looking for cheap eats as well as one nice meal. My kids (ages 12, 11 and 8) eat anything and have no problems with spicy food. My biggest worry is our lack of knowledge in Korean, I am going to brush up on my hangul but restaurants that have either picture menus or menus with either English or Japanese translations would be really helpful. Just how easy is it to get around in Seoul without any Korean? We also plan to try some of the best fast food Korea has to offer, my kids love hitting McDonald's in different countries. Any fast food recommendations? We will be there for 5 nights, 4 dinners and 5 lunches. We haven't decided on a place to stay yet but are looking at guest houses and most include breakfasts but if there is a don't miss breakfast in the area I would love to hear about it.

For me it depends on the cut, paper thin slices are best as sukiyaki (like nakji mentioned), thicker steak like pieces are best seared (preferably over a flame) and served rare to medium with a bit of salt.

The McRib and bacon potato pie are back, for a limited time only.

What about me!?!?!??!?! ← Rona, You are always welcome! Give a us a date that works well for you to make it up here. The place is small but you are more than welcome to crash in the kids' bunkbeds...

This is the only dish that doesn't look quite right to my eye. The sauce should be much thicker, and coat the mochi smoothly. There shouldn't be so much soupiness on the plate. This is a dish best eaten on a paper plate with toothpicks, in a red-and-white striped tent on the street somewhere in Seoul, with a cold wind blowing in off the Han. ← This is the same way I felt, though I have seen recipes and restaurant versions (in Japan) that look the same. I prefer mine with a really thick, almost syrupy sauce, that clings to the mochi. I am also a purist in that I want nothing but mochi on my dish, this is definitely street food. I also had one of the best versions of my life at a place in Shin Okubo, I doubt I could find the place again.. Maybe it is the same one.... An outing to Shin Okubo would be a great way to spend a fall weekend, one of my best friends here is Korean and she may be interested in showing us around (and getting us some good food). If anyone is interested I could try and get an event going.

Whenever I am going to puree kabocha (such as for soups, stews, etc) I cut the whole kabocha into quarters. I wrap each quarter in saran wrap and microwave it for about 5 minutes. I let it cool for a bit then I use a spoon to scoop out the flesh, it takes just seconds. These microwaved pieces freeze really well. I always buy a whole kabocha and while sometimes I can use the whole thing up and other times I can't, freezing the microwaved pieces gives me something for a quick meal sometime in the future.

This new product sounds intriguing, if I find it in a store I may just give it a try: Soy sauce-sauce for ice cream (アイスクリームにかける醤油） Earlier this year Nestle put out a soy sauce flavored Kit Kat, I wonder if soy is the new sweet?

I have two pasta cookbooks that I wouldn't trade for anything and the combination of the two gives me everything I need. The first is Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces: Authentic Regional Recipes from Italy by Diane Seed (#3 and #8) on your list. I have been using this book for almost 20 years and have probably made everything in it. This is definitely an Italian pasta cookbook rather than an Italian American pasta book. This is the kind of pasta my Campobasso born grandmother used to make. My other favorite is The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles by the Cook's Illustrated guys. I have made close to half of the recipes in this book and can't recall being disappointed. It has a section on Asian noodles as well and I have made some great stuff from there.

I am currently a fan of the Danone (Dannon) Bio yogurt, this is known as Activia most other parts of the world. The fig mix and prune are both wonderful. This is their current line-up in Japan Today, 9/22, the newest flavor goes on sale. Yasai (vegetable) with 16 vegetables included in that tiny little cup. I am looking forward to trying this one. ETA here is more information on the the new vegetable flavor

I wasn't sure if I should put this in the pasta thread or the ramen thread, so i chose this thread instead. Is it ramen or is it pasta?? Currently in two flavors: tonkotsu (pork based ramen broth) and carbonara chicken based ramen broth and tomato sauce with basil Only 5 minutes in the frypan! I think I will pass...

I made a kabocha salad last night too! Mine was also zapped kabocha but mixed only with mayo and salt. Miso and cheese? Sounds interesting I may give that one a try...

Thank you for the recipe! I can't wait to give it a try, I haven't had amanatto for years... and I have tons of dried beans in the house.

Here is a link to the foods being offered at the Osaka Fair at Shibuya's Tokyu department store. Click on the curtain to see the different foods being offered.

Hi Temple, Thank you for the information! This was completely new for me. That chobo-yaki also looks really interesting, I saw a couple references to it when i was looking for information on the kurotako but was having a hard time figuring out exactly what it was. Your pictures and description have helped immensely. I think I may make a trip to the Osaka fair at Tokyu some time this month....

Baking? What do you put them in? I have never thought of baking with them... Even the cheap-ish ones are in the 400 yen to 500 yen per 100g range, at this price they are for eating out of hand only.

I had never thought of making amanatto before!! I really love them but they are so expensive, do you mind sharing how you did it?

390 is cheap for ramen but not unheard of. My husband and I used to often get the 390 ramen at Bamiyan (cheap Chinese chain restaurant). While it isn't the best ramen I have ever had it is very good for the price. Miso ramen will set you back 440 yen and my favorite sesame-miso tantan men (with a spicy ground meat topping) is 590 yen. Here is their menu (for Eastern, Northern Japan) To see the ramen click on the 麺、飯、粥 (noodles, rice, congee) link on the left of the screen and scroll down. I haven't been to Bamiyan for some time now and was interested to see that some stores offer a breakfast in the 400-500 yen range, not half bad. Click on the morning (＜モーニング＞) link on the left side so see the offerings, including ramen for breakfast!

A flyer in my newspaper a couple days ago was advertising an Osaka Fair (with foods) at the Tokyu department store in Shibuya this month. One of the pictures of the foods was a dish called kurotako (黒たこ-black octopus), this was a new one for me. Apparently it is takoyaki made with squid ink in the batter. Has anyone had this? How is it? Does it turn your teeth black like most other foods made with squid ink? ETA lots of pictures here

World Gourmet Festival 2008 Where: The Four Seasons Bangkok When: September 22 through 28 Activities: Seven international chefs, with a selection of wines. Dinners, cooking demonstrations/lunches, and additional events Charities: In support of HRH Princess Soamsawali's project, Save a Child's Life from Aids under the auspices of the Thai Red Cross.

Please use this thread to post listing of upcoming food events in any of the areas covered by Elsewhere in Asia/Pacific. To keep this thread as easy to read as possible, please post comments/inquiries/photos in a new thread. Posts will be deleted after the event is over to keep the thread up to date.

The Japanese cup is 200ml. I wish more cookbooks were "universal", Having spent the past 14 years in Japan I have pretty much completely switched to metric and find it so much easier. The ideal cookbook would have both US and metric measurements for everything. I would also avoid using terms referring to the packaging, I still see in US cookbooks 'a stick of butter' or 'a carton of cream'. Butter is sold in 200g blocks and cream in 200ml cartons in Japan and I no longer have any idea of how much butter is in an American stick or how much cream is in a carton.

材質:本体・ローラー・キャップ:鋳鉄(錫めっき)、ハンドル:鋳鉄(錫めっき) It says it is tin plated cast iron (the main body, roller, cap and handle) Mine is a different brand but looks almost exactly the same and it also tin plated cast iron. I can vouch for Captain Stag products as well, we have a lot of them. They are a wonderful (and cheap) brand for camping/outdoor products. We have their dutch oven and it cost a 1/3 to a 1/4 of what other brands do and is great quality, we use it every time we go camping and often for BBQ's in our backyard.

Wow! the ones on that second page are really expensive, even for Japan! I have an all metal sausage maker/grinder that I am pretty sure I saw for about 4000 yen somewhere in Japan (after I paid $40 and lugged it back from the US). Does it have to be a meat grinder? Is this something that could be done in a blender of food processor? Both of which are more expensive of course, but can also be used for many other applications.

Korean restaurants have popped up occasionally in various topics but it is time they had a thread of their own. There are a wide variety of Korean restaurants from the Japanese-Korean grilled meat (yakiniku) places to the little whole in the wall places in Korea town to chain restaurants. About 2 weeks ago my in-laws took us to what is now my mother-in-law's favorite restaurant. It is chain called Chegoya. We went to the Machida location which is actually on the restaurant floor of Tokyu department store. The lunch prices (which for some reason aren't on their homepage) are actually on the cheap side at between 800 and 1200 yen. Most of the lunch sets are combinations such as reimen (cold noodles) and bibimbap (stone pot rice dish). I ordered the reimen and yakiniku (grilled beef) salad set, the soup on the reimen was the best I have ever had and the "salad" was actually served on top of rice and proved to be more food than I could actually eat. All sets were served with a small dish of a variety of kimchi and all you can drink roasted corn tea (there are pitchers on the table). The following aren't the best pictures since they were taken with my phone... reimen yakiniku salad After mixing it up My son had the kid's meal (he already ate 2 pieces of the sushi roll) My husband the bibimbap and reimen set When it comes down to yakiniku though, in my area nothing is better than Ichigoya. It can get really pricey at dinner but they have wonderful lunches.

I really like moromi miso, I buy it about once a year as a little bit can go a long way. I use the leftovers as a filling for onigiri and it also works as a great "dip" for hashouga (young ginger stems).