jschyun

Yeah my mom uses kkanari aekjut (fermented lancefish sauce) for some kimchis. Actually is very similar to nuoc mam in every respect except it smells worse. I never have tried using it though but my mom's kimchi is awesome so I suppose I should get my ass in gear and start using it cause I've only ever tried oysters and seujeot (brined shirmp) and my kimchi is alright but not as good. Skchai had a good recipe that required no fermented fish products. I don't remember where it is though, argh. As for the wateriness problem, I started thinking about my kimchi problems and I have no idea why it would happen with the green onion kimchi but it could be that goya, like cucumbers, is mostly water. Thus, maybe if you stufed the goya as in stuffed cucumber kimchi, there's less surface area and it won't get watery as easily over time. It's only an issue if you don't eat it right away, right? Also, I make sure that after washing I dry my veggies pretty throoughly but i'm sure you're doing that. I could be wrong but I don't think adding a slurry would answer your probs because that just adds more water. Not sure if that helps but good luck anyhow.

Wait, which kimchi are you having trouble with? My problem was with kkagtugi for some reason and I fixed it somehow but I'm not sure if it's because i changed the recipe or because I just got better.

haha, cute pics Zenkimchi. I like the one with the boy who is holding trainer chopsticks. Well I guess you learn something every day.

I know what he's talking about. This happens with beginner kimchi makers who don't have someone to guide them. I remember I had one batch turn out exceptionally watery. Hmm, all I can say is just keep practicing because you'll get better. If I get a chance to make some kimchi in the future (not now) maybe I'll have smoe more helpful advice cause right now my brain is fried.

I just got some green tea ramen. i haven't tried it but will let you know how it tastes when I do. -hmm, i just realized that it's not strange and I'm behind the times. oh well. hehe

I've never heard of anyone shaking their lunches before. That was bizarre. OTOH, it's a great idea for bibimbap and there's probably some company who makes a good living on shake and eat bibimbap haha!

Ahaha! AAAAHHH!

I've never seen a dosirak that looked that horrible. Fat Man had more accurate pics on his blog unless things have drastically changed very recently. also older people sometimes call a doshirak a "bento" because of the occupation which forced koreans to learn japanaese. --personally i like to make mine just like jeniac's

Yeah, it's just down the street on Barber. I recently heard on Chowhound from Melanie Wong that ABC got some new chefs (from the now defunct Harbor Village). However, my friends only seem to like Mayflower and I like it too.

Oh yeah, I drink this all the time. It's supposed to be really good for calcium but it also tastes great, creamy sweet and rich.

can't believe I missed this. Awesome!

Why, you know where these restaurants are, hzrt8w! Eagle Rock is pretty close to San Gabriel Valley. :-)

Eagle Rock's actually not a bad place to be, esp if you like Chinese food. You're not terribly far from downtown either (in my view, but I'm an OC person) Can't help w/ South American, sorry.

Yes this is the only kind of rice he uses. He said it was the best. He's very free with information like this, even to rude nosy Americans like me.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say but screwed up. There are bazillion varieties of perilla and this is one strain. I have to say, though the k. mint leaves were definitely smaller, about half the size of the kaenip one, it did look pretty similar and I was able to fool someone into thinking it was kaenip. Until she tasted it haha. The pics online don't really show the leaves too well. Plant is so gorgeous though, don't you think? Those purple flowers really wowed my neighbors.

Darn, where is gautam? I think gautam can answer this question. Ive grown korean mint (anise hyssop here) and it is not kkaennip. leaves look and smells pretty similar tho. But plant habit very different, as you can see in the pics. Also taste is actually sort of...not good, kind of bitter and harsh in a way. Hard to say since I haven't had it in a while. Beautiful plants. For a while, I was so confused as to whether kaetnip was perilla or not. I thought it was the leaf of the sesame plant because that's what everyone says, but you know "dulkkae" basically means "wild sesame", right so this is what they meant by sesame I guess. I think I read that both dulkkae and chamkkae are used for oil so maybe this is why they get so mixed up, because even Korean people say it is the leaf of the chamkkae that you use, but I'm just guessing. But have you ever seen a sesame plant? The leaves are kind of skinny, at least the ones I could locate on the internet. Looks similar to kkaenip but not similar enough. Then again, I've never grown sesame, so maybe there is a variety I don't know about (gautam?). Anyway, I guess I am in the minority (big surprise) because I think kkaenip is perilla bred to have large flat mildish tasting leaves. I suppose the resident Korean experts can answer this question once in for all. --maybe a little too off topic but in case someone goes out and tries to get "anise hyssop" for some reason, bear in mind that for some reason anise hyssop is used to denote the korean mint and also another plant whose latin name I forget and too tired to look up. So make sure the latin name is correct or packet says "Korean Mint" somewhere. Not that anyone is crazy enough to do this, I'm sure.

Yeah, this is what they tell you when you go on tour of Changdok Palace, IIRC. Or was it at Biwon? Crap I forget. Anyway, they tell you the whole spiel about how the silver chopsticks turned black if there was poison in the food, which is why the king and his buddies used them. Honestly I find the whole "not korean enough" thing weird since everyone I know is sending their kids to America for a year or more to learn English. Smells like butter, hehe whatever. But I know what you guys are saying. Luckily I'm so American, nobody really says anything about my accent. If there's any doubt, i tell them I'm American and apologize for no reason, then I can get my business done without further incident. So far, i don't actually know anyone who is teaching their kids Chinese though I read about it somewhere, and this would make more sense than learning English.

Putting the soup into the rice is practical esp if you are sharing a tureen of soup. But when I have my own bowl of say soft tofu stew, I seem to enjoy it better when I spoon a bit of rice and soak it in the chigae then eat. Sort of reverse of the way it's normally done. I've never seen anyone else do this but was wondering if anyone had tried it.

Well it makes sense to use spoon when you're eating soup because it tastes good when you soak rice with the soup/stew and eat it that way. In fact I always ate rice w/ spoon when growing up and just realized that it's prob because my mom loves soup. I start in on the banchan the moment it comes out. I like starting with the kimchi first. Haven't gotten any raised eyebrows yet.

Prasantrin maybe because the candy was fresh was why it disintegrated so fast. I'm in the US and that pumpkin taffy I get at the store here lasts a while. That Chinese dragon beard candy fricking amazing and expensive. Yeah, that totally disintegrates fast unless it's kept sealed because the sugar starting sucking all the water out of the air and wilting beofre your eyes. I was not aware Koreans had a version. Had some specialty ssamjang other day, oh my god blew my mind. I just ate a ton of it with rice and lettuce leaves and nothing else. If you can get some of this and some really good gochujang, life is good.

On a sort of related note, Little Tokyo in Los Angeles has a 99 cent shop (the equiv of a 100 yen shop) that has got to have one of the best selections of nice bowls, plates, chopstick holders, rice presser thingies, various gadgets whose utility is unknown to me, etc. If anyone is in that area, it is worth a look, especially since it is right next to the Mikawaya shop which has 75 cent mochi ice cream treats that are kept in a special freezer so they are very soft and luscious. Oh and one of my favorite garden shop is just a block away. Got healthy young pepper plants there a month or so ago (didn't start mine from seed this year). Only $1.25 per plant! They also had tomatoes, eggplants, and chilis.

Kiem Hwa, those pics are making me hungry! I can't believe those are homemade! A month or two ago, I was able to get some sakura daifuku and it alleviated some of my daifuku-deprivation pain. I found it at Minamoto Kitchen in Costa Mesa. Delicious.

Korean moms and guilt? This is not an uncommon combination. I've never been to howondang. Where is it? I think I'll go buy some stuff for my mom there to make her happy only to have her scold me that I spent too much money on things she can buy in Korea for better quality and better prices. But she'll be happy, after she's made me feel bad... ← It's in the Galleria Mall, both the LA and Northridge ones. Kind of pricey, I think, but maybe that's just my mother's influence, hehe. --FWIW my mom doesn't look like that pic. She's more of a party person and always ready to spend my money on travel and stuff. I wish I was more like her sometimes. And she can't scold me because I get outrageous travel deals that she can't touch ($200 round trip ticket on British Air, Heathrow to LAX, for starters, $800 trip for 2 to Oahu including air, hotel, transfers, tax) Bwahaha.

Toljabi is a ceremony where you set a bunch of stuff in front of your 1-year old and you let the child pick an item. Usually the parents will put out a caligraphy brush, a sword (a pretend one for a baby), money, rice cakes, and some other stuff, I can't remember what else. Whatever the baby picks is supposed to predict her/his future occupation. The caligraphy brush means s/he'll become a scholar, sword - a soldier, money - wealth, I can't remember what everything else meant. Anyone else? ← Pfft. Parents always make the kid choose the calligraphy brush. Worked for our family, can't complain, but such a load of you know what.

Yes I came to this same conclusion a while back when I was really trying. No recipe I have ever seen (now I'm handicapped because my Chinese character knowledge is very low) has remotely resembled a recipe that could reasonably be expected to make the restaurant daan tat. On the other hand, as long as you don't care for a perfectly flaky crust, it's doable. However, the perfectly flaky crust is what makes it. *sigh*