Korea - Land of the Morning Calm

[Peter Green]

yum yum How about hoddeok?

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Sheena,

My reference tools have woken up, and yup, we've already had some hoddeok. That was at Seoroksan. The rate I'm going at, we may not see those pictures for weeks.

What's the name of the fish with red beans stuffed inside? I'm drawing a blank on that one.

Cheers,

Peter

[Domestic Goddess]

I found the name!

Bunggeo-pang

Bunggeo means goldfish and it's the shape of the mold where the batter is poured. Then it it filled with red bean paste and is a favorite Autumn and Winter snack all over Korea. I'll take a couple of pics of it later.

And I found a very informative link with pictures of it on: Korean Winter Food - Bunggeopang

Edited October 19, 2007 by Domestic Goddess (log)

[milgwimper]

Sorry I am still new to Egullet so I don't know how to speparate the posts or post between the quotes, so I will try to make it clear as possible.

Anyways...On the unknown herbs :

The one that says "clothes"Namool = I found it to be Rhus verniciflua Stokes, The lacquer tree.

I looked it up on a korean website herbmart. Sorry I don't know what the policy is for linking here but I am sur eyou can find it fi you look. But one of my korean dictionaries says it is poison ivy, and the other has other words for poison ivy. ARGH

The other listed keeps telling me I am misspelling it in korean, and I have no idea what is is in english or latin. I am thinking it is crysanthemum because of the sook.

Anyways I hope it helped and not made the confusion worse.

The food and Company!

I have to agree that I don't like the dabang for coffee but I do love the teas! Thanks for reminding me that I need to get some bori, and oksusu for tea. I am running low myself.

The marinated crabs! Yum in our family none of the males will touch it, but my mom and I chow down! I love this too, but my favourite has to be the raw crab mucchim with spicy paste...

I loved the picture with Doddie, Billy, Serena and yourself, too bad Yoonhi wasn't in the pic. It looked like everyone had a great time.

Doddie you look so pretty and I love you hair!

The pics are awesome and I want to be there! Wow I haven't seen that many banchan on the table in a long while. Thanks for posdting the pics it almost made me feel as I was there! *sniff*

The chokbbal looks so delicious! Yum Yum! I miss the seafood the most though. I do get some seafood but not the variety that your pics show...not even the variety I used to get in california. *sigh*

The Korean pears! I love the korean pears nice an cold on a warm day. I love the chame (yellow melons) too.

Talking about perilla I told my husband we had to start growing it indoors starting tomorrow.

Nanta! I so wanted to see that the last time I was in Korea, but getting tickets was pretty impossible task. I don't know why they make it so hard for people. I just found there phone number for reservations if anyone is interested. I hope you enjoy the show!

[Peter Green]

Oct 11 – Back in Seoul

The bus ride was uneventful, which is a good thing. A smooth one hour back to the station out on the east side, and then we did a quick tour of the Techno Mart, as Serena was in search of games.

Well, Techno Mart was a bit of a bust. Floor after floor of camera equipment (some videos, but primarily stills), a smattering of movies and games but none of interest to the girl, especially when she came to understand that the games would probably be in Korean, the usual cell phone counters, and graphic boards and such like.

The stopover was only saved by two items.

One: some really good looking fridges. These were beautiful, with lower freezer sections, sleek finishes, and all sorts of flashy controls. You can network these, and have internet screens for access, internal scans for inventory, expiry dates. Way cool. Gone are the days when the Korean appliances were second to the ones you’d pick up on the base at Yongsan. And, with the fridges were the kimchi fridges. These things, the size and shape of a small chest freezer, will keep the kimchi at an even temperature and humidity during the ferment, replacing the old George Romero method of putting them in the ground until it’s time for them to raise themselves.

Second: we’ve got the parking lot girls. These young ladies, in the most tasteful of latex miniskirts and knee high boots, bob and weave and dance through the parking instructions for cars coming in, and still with a little bow as you go by. I could watch them all day (or until Yoonhi whacks me on the side of the head).

The Green Line (no relation to my family tree) got us back home from there, and we came back through the lobby, past the table of menus, and up the elevator.

When I’ve been elsewhere, particularly Europe, I’m always struck by the proliferation of posters and flyers for rather, well, personal services. Here, it’s food. There’s the table especially laid out in the lobby, but there were also flyers taped in the elevators, and stuff getting slid under the doors.

These people are serious.

(I particularly liked the yellow bunny menu – which said “You love me?” on its tummy. It’s a Chinese restaurant, which means noodles).

Home and washed, it was time for dinner.

Tonight it was mapo jib over in Dogokdong near Maebongyok (Maebong station). I think I’ve got that right. Yoonhi’s sleeping, and it’d be worth my life to wake her up for this. This was down the alleyway (golmok) or rather the eating alley (mokja golmok).

As you can guess, the specialty is pork. Charcoal bbq’d pork rib specialty.

As usual, the panchan is out in a flash, and we could start getting some nibbles started. Mulkimchi of sliced Korean radish (mu) to keep us busy.

The pork comes out in the marinade, and there’s a helping of garlic that’ll be roasted with it. Korean marinating is wet. Very wet.

And there’s ddeanjang (bean paste) to have with the meat.

The meat’s a good cut, none of this thin-sliced stuff I’d been used to in North America, and the cloves of garlic go into a little foil cup for roasting (we love roasted garlic).

(Sorry for this shot, but I was getting blurry). As usual, we go running with scissors and snip the meat into bite-sized pieces once almost cooked (it’ll finish as we prep the wraps for ssum). The perilla (there, I’m using it) and lettuce enfold the meat, spring onion, ddeangjang, garlic, and pork, you pop it in your mouth, and move onto the next one.

The chigae was a good broth worked up with kim chi, and then dressed up with some chunks of pig blood. The staff were wondering if I’d eat it! Hah!

Once we’d slowed down on the pork ssum, we called in some mungbean nengmyun (cold noodles).

This we used to make up individual servings of bi bim nengmyun (mixed up nengmyun). Just like bi bim bap.

And dessert was those sweet little grains of fermented rice in sugar water – sikkae.

This place was packed by the time we were getting ready to leave. Jason remembers it from when it was a hole in the wall, and really beaten up, but they’ve had a lot of renovation work done in the last year. The kitchen looked good, new stainless steel everywhere (although the wiring always makes me wish I was wearing rubber bum boots).

We did a stroll up the alley. I’m almost tempted to take a short vacation and just try and eat one of these. Even that is fairly ambitious.

Serena did her part though, ordering up more chocolate gelato across the street.

It was getting late for the girl (even with her gelato sugar buzz on), so we sent her and Yoonhi back home (okay, it was getting late for Yoonhi, too) and Jason and I headed over to Rodea Drive in Apgujeong.

As you can guess from the name, this one of the posher parts of town. You pay more to eat and drink here, just because of where you are. On the bright side, that tends to raise the overall quality, and draws in the crowds. And, as trendy is everything you see more experimenting with stuff, and less adherence to tradition.

Our purpose here was to try the fruit soju. For this we headed down into Café Ahn, also known as AFS – “alcohol fruit soju” – which does sound kind of redundant, but what the heck.

The décor is …..eclectic. It was broken off into quadrants, each with its own style, and some Austin Powers’ 1960s cushions in the middle.

As soon as we were sat two plates of appetizers came out, one deep fried mandu (dumpling), and the other – frankly – unidentifiable. We think it was marinated seafood bits. But we weren’t here for food…..well, not this food.

What we did want to try (and remember, you have to order food with your drinks, “anju”) was the snails - golbaengyi. These were served mixed up in noodles and kimchi. Tough little guys, with a very distinctive flavour.

But, the star of the show (and our very raison d’etre) was the apple soju. This comes out in a big bowl with lots of ice. What it doesn’t come out with is lots of soju. Really, it’s seen as more of a lady’s drink, but we don’t put up with such condescension to the fairer sex.

So we ordered two more bottles of soju and dumped them in.

That was about right.

Rather than a cup, you’re served from hollowed out apples. It’s a nice touch, but you get really tempted to eat your cup at some point when the soju triggers the munchies.

All of this of course led to an interesting evening. We caught up on old movies, and new movies that I need to see. And, of course, on food plans for the next couple of weeks.

Lots of food plans.

[Peter Green]

Anyways...On the unknown herbs :

The one that says "clothes"Namool = I found it to be  Rhus verniciflua Stokes, The lacquer tree.

I looked it up on a korean website herbmart. Sorry I don't know what the policy is for linking here but I am sur eyou can find it fi you look. But one of my korean dictionaries says it is poison ivy, and the other has other words for poison ivy. ARGH 

The other listed keeps telling me I am misspelling it in korean, and I have no idea what is is in english or latin. I am thinking it is crysanthemum because of the sook.

Anyways I hope it helped and not made the confusion worse.

←

Thanks, Milgwimper! This one was a mystery. But, what would we do with poison ivy????

Cheers,

Peter

[milgwimper]

Anyways...On the unknown herbs :

The one that says "clothes"Namool = I found it to be  Rhus verniciflua Stokes, The lacquer tree.

I looked it up on a korean website herbmart. Sorry I don't know what the policy is for linking here but I am sur eyou can find it fi you look. But one of my korean dictionaries says it is poison ivy, and the other has other words for poison ivy. ARGH 

The other listed keeps telling me I am misspelling it in korean, and I have no idea what is is in english or latin. I am thinking it is crysanthemum because of the sook.

Anyways I hope it helped and not made the confusion worse.

←

Thanks, Milgwimper! This one was a mystery. But, what would we do with poison ivy????

Cheers,

Peter

←

LOL yeah it would be a little bit crazy to use poison ivy. Well I looked it some more, and it is the lacquer tree. It is apparently used for medicine, and some other things Korean use it for but I cna't decifer. Sorry, that is about all I can tell you, other than that there is research on this plant for cancer research.

The BBQ pork looks really good, and thanks for the beautiful picture of the Perilla leaf. It took me a while to find the scientific name of the plant so I could get seeds (this was 10 years ago). Then I realized most places only sold the japanese green kind which to my taste is milder, but now I have a lot of seeds and only a balcony now.

I love the fact that Korea has all these streets with food, and side streets with food, and street stalls with food. Hmmm wonder if their facination with food is due to history of famine? Anyways I am happy. I love Korea tv because 1/2 of the shows have to do with food. Even the drama shows have food pics...

Oh the Golbaengi Rocks my Socks! Yum, although I am used to a lot more veggies and no noodles, but was it good? Although I think the toughness has to do with how long they are cooked. But it is all good. Still wondering if you had a chance to try the rice paddy snails. No pressure!

[Domestic Goddess]

Milgwimper - thank you (for the nice compliment)! Would you like some perilla seeds? I bet I can find them here in my tiny agricultural town of Janghowon and it'll be no cinch to mail them to you.

[milgwimper]

Milgwimper - thank you (for the nice compliment)! Would you like some perilla seeds? I bet I can find them here in my tiny agricultural town of Janghowon and it'll be no cinch to mail them to you.

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Oh thank you Doddie I appreciate it, but I do have some seeds currently. Now if they are viable I will have to see. If they don't sprout could I ask you send me some seeds?I will know sometime by next week. I live in germany so if you want something please let me know! I am willing to make care packages with food!

I told my husband that Peter's pictures of the perilla leaves were making my crazy, and I needed some, so this weekend I'm gardening. I have a whole bunch of the canned seasoned perilla from my Mom. She knew how crazy I would be without some in my life. I wonder if perilla have some kind of addictive quality to them? Will I need to sign up for a 12 step program?

I never want to be cured!

Dinner today will be jangjorim (beef in soy sauce), gaennip (season perilla) some chinese pickles (dont have any kimchi but the pickles are good. ) and kamja jorim or kamja dwenjanchiggae haven't decided yet.

Dessert will be banana bread with chocolate chips. (p.s. I ate this for lunch too... )

Sorry Peter for hijacking your thread.

[Peter Green]

Sorry Peter for hijacking your thread.

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Hey, don't fret. This is what threads are for!

We just got back from Cookin' Nanta and then beers at Platinum. A great show. Yoonhi's now scared of what sort of mess I'm going to make in the kitchen when we get home.

Here's the trick for booking! Get a Korean friend (or a concierge or whoever) to book the tickets for you online. That's the only way to prebook.

Or, show up at the ticket office 1 hour before, and there's a very good chance that there'll be open seats. Tour operators are block booking seats (primarily for the Japanese), and these get released just before.

If you want to be chosen to go up on stage, sit on the aisles.

And be prepared to fend off flying things.

Cheers,

Peter

[milgwimper]

Sorry Peter for hijacking your thread.

←

Hey, don't fret. This is what threads are for!

We just got back from Cookin' Nanta and then beers at Platinum. A great show. Yoonhi's now scared of what sort of mess I'm going to make in the kitchen when we get home.

Here's the trick for booking! Get a Korean friend (or a concierge or whoever) to book the tickets for you online. That's the only way to prebook.

Or, show up at the ticket office 1 hour before, and there's a very good chance that there'll be open seats. Tour operators are block booking seats (primarily for the Japanese), and these get released just before.

If you want to be chosen to go up on stage, sit on the aisles.

And be prepared to fend off flying things.

Cheers,

Peter

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I will have to remember your advice about prebooking. It was terrible trying to get tickets the last time we were there, so DH ended up taking me out for some hwe. DH didn't eat any and couldnt bear to see me eat it but I did. He as of last year or so started to eat raw fish. Still won't eat raw crabs. ut just leaves more for me!

[Peter Green]

October 12 – Food Exhibitionists – Part 1

On the subway the day before, we’d spotted a sign for the Seoul International Food Expo and Korean Food Awards.

How odd that such a thing should draw my attention, I know.

We’d had Jason call them up so we could figure out where it was, and then navigated a cabbie over to the AT Building. There we found the event in full swing.

The triffids were out in full force. If you thought that was overkill for a bar opening (Oct 11), then these events are way over the top.

The floor was broken into the Expo and the Food Awards. We concentrated on the left side of the hall first, which was the Expo.

This could be broken down into demonstrations (of which there weren’t many, I’m sorry to say) and food displays; food products; kitchen and restaurant products (which I love to geek over); and places to eat.

They had some demonstration areas, like this one, where the kids are making rice cakes, pressing the ddeok to place the design (the ddeok tojang – ddeok chop).

There were a number of people out from the cultural centres, said centres always carrying a good proportion of food studies.

If you wanted to see a lot of kimchi, you came to the right place (I’ll leave it to the truly obsessive out there to name them all). Plus there’s gimbap and lots of other stuff.

Andong had it’s own display, showing off old royal cuisine. I won’t put up all the pictures, but they’re too pretty not to show some.

(bibim guksu – noodles ready to be mixed up)

(Geonji Guksu – more festive looking noodles, but with broth)

Andong itself is an interesting place, as they’ve developed quickly since the 1990’s, while at the same time bleeding their population off to Seoul. The place gets bigger and smaller at the same time.

(This looks like a ssum – little cabbage cups with stuff in them to pop in your mouth.)

To try and stem that, they/ve been very actively promoting it as a centre for culture (and tourism) – based in large part on the traditions of Silla.

Decorated bean curd; divots cut in the curd, and then the spices and other flavours painstakingly placed.

Salmon fillets with the smell of perilla about them.

Fish peaking out from under a duvet of gochujang based sauce, garlic, and spring onions.

(grilled meat on shredded green onion and cabbage)

Meanwhile, as I engaged in food porn, over in the food products Yoonhi found the candied ginseng that we like so much, so a couple of boxes of that are now in our suitcases.

Shrimp fry for making kimchi (and other things).

And there was no shortage of soju and other fun stuff.

And all sorts of bean pastes (we won’t try to count the variations).

And those little fishies, those little fishies we love to eat. These were the standard version, caught in nets.

These other ones, though, were caught differently, in a manner such that they didn’t thrash and damage the scales. As expected, they were a heckuva lot more expensive ($80 to $150 a box).

Like most of Asia, Koreans love putting things in bottles. Either the old mason jar approach,

or nicely packaged as a refreshing beverage, such as this one that promoted itself as a blend of “five flavours”.

Serena had to get her picture taken. Notice in her hand she’s got a cup. This was full of the little anchovies (myulchi). She’d keep going back and replenishing her stock, but the vendors were too polite to stop her.

Another display showed standard Korean foods with their calorie levers, from those intended for infants (porridges and broths), through adulthood (the good part), and finally back to the easily chewed and digested (at least I have something to look forward to!).

On the equipment side, I was having a lot of fun. There were knives, stone serving pieces, porcelain serving pieces, and what may be the biggest selection of table top indoor grills known to man. If there was one piece of equipment that was everywhere, it was the grill, either separate, or built into a countertop.

And with the grills were numerous machines for cleaning them. With the marinades on a lot of the Korean meats, you get burning fairly readily, so when you run a restaurant you have to be prepared to swap out grills fairly often. So, you’d better either buy a nearby storehouse for clean grills, or have a machine to scour them.

I was lusting after this set of carving tools for decorating stuff (“and when are you actually going to use it?” says someone whom I won’t mention).

And there were several booths selling “happy call” buttons. Need your waitstaff, then just buzz them.

These were imbedded rice pressure cookers. You’d put your ingredients in, then drop them in and seal them.

Yoonhi and Serena were both impressed by the carbon (“charcoal”) furniture. In addition to the cookware, they had couches and beds that were heated, so you could sleep all cuddly.

I was more impressed by the cookware, which will radiate an good, even heat, but it was way to heavy to consider taking home by air. And if I bought a place here, I’d never cook at home……..

That was enough to get us started. Somebody was getting hungry, and after hungry comes cranky (these are the guys that didn’t make it into the 7 Dwarves A Team), so it was time to get some food in us. About 1/3 of the floor space had been put aside to vendors selling their regional specialties, and we walked through the offerings, with an eye to getting Yoonhi fed quickly.

Of the stands, about four were Turkish, selling shwarmas, breads, and such like, which I suspect is where the “international” part of the exhibition’s title came from.

We settled on a place doing ssukmyun at Gyeongnam Yangsansi Yundonggyun Hanbangneng Onssukmyun (say that fast five times, I dare you).

The ssuk gives the noodles (which they were making there) a green colour, like the darker celadon. Chopped gim (seaweed) and some mu (daikon) along with the ubiquitous egg and the evil red sauce.

For the princess they did up a version without the gochujang, as certain people are still too wimpy to take proper flavours. Even dumbed down for her, she still hardly ate any, but rather spent her time watching the break dancing competition underway on the stage beside us.

I always look for good breakdancing when I’m at a food exhibition, don’t you?

But, back to the eating, the owners insisted I try the ssuk makeoli (fermented rice – very low alcohol content) and gave me a cup. A little chalky on the palate, but pleasant enough to clear the hotter tastes from my mouth.

It’s always the case (at least for me in Korea) that once I’ve settled in to eat one thing, I see another that I’d really like to try, but I don’t have enough room for both. Right across from us was a kkot bab place (flower rice).

This was prettier than even anything I’d seen in Thailand.

But I was sated. Full from the noodles, tired on my feet from walking the exhibition, and ready for a rest.

Nah, you know me.

Next: more food porn

[Peter Green]

October 12 – Food Exhibitionists – Part 2

We do caution you, the following post contains scenes of graphic food.

Once fed, we headed for the other half of the show – the Korean Food Awards.

This consisted of three areas – two of which we won’t pay much attention to; the stage where they were doing decorating demos, and the table settings.

It’s the third one we’re going to spend some saliva on – the competition dishes.

Now, I have no clear idea what all of these are, so feel free to jump in. They’re not really traditional, as this competition is clearly about making things look good, but I’m okay with that.

I made two passes, once with video, and the second time with the still. So let’s pull out a subsample (about one in four) of what was on display…….

Candied fruit of some kind.

Meat rolls.

This looked to me like peanut brittle.

Nothing too fancy about this, but it’s pretty. This is sort of what we’ve been eating for days now.

I watched one of these clams make a break for it, pushing itself off the boat with its foot, only to be quickly captured and returned to its companions. “Never get off the boat”.

It’s hard to see, but each of the glasses seen under the plates contains live fish.

Seafood wrapped in kimchi.

Crabs, crabs, crabs!

Is this a snapper? I like the dead look of the carved vegetable over the eyeball.

Crab marinated in soy. This is what we had with Doddie in Icheon.

Isn’t that pretty?

And so is this. There were a lot of “rolled things” in the competition.

Stuffed quail, or at least “small birds”.

Three colour noodles in broth. Gom tang is the broth from boiling bones down to a milky white.

A steamboat – shinsollo – palace food.

There’s some yukkhwe down in the right corner – raw marinated beef. One of my favourites.

Pumpkin blossom. This one the chef was there and could tell me what it was.

Rice cake with pine nuts.

Meat rolled around ginko nuts.

More rolls and stuff on sticks.

And this was an intriguing fish. Blackened on the outside, but almost raw in the flesh.

And little stuffed veggies.

I think I’ve already mentioned my mushroom fetish, haven’t I?

There, that’s a condensed version of the floor. At this point we were pretty much exhausted from all of this food, and felt it was time to do something else.

Next: dinner

[Domestic Goddess]

Milgwimper - if you send me a care packages of german sausages, I'll send you any korean food/product that you want. More canned perilla, perhaps? How about dried anchovies? I bet I can mail kimchi to you.

Peter - I adore yukkhwe! It makes my husband shudder everytime I eat raw beef but nothing taste better (well maybe my rare terderloin steak). Those pink rice cakes are so pretty! I think I'd rather look at them and not eat.

Today we went to the Seoul International Toy Exhibit in COEX mall. You guessed it, hundreds of cubic feet of toy booths. Billy was in hog heaven while I got dragged to every toy display in the exhibit. Now I am massaging my poor, tender aching feet.

Oh, Billy had pepperoni pizza at Sbarro's while I had Beef Pho noodles at Pho Tai (which unfortunately sounds like the sleazy nickname for the female part in the Philippines).

[Peter Green]

Doddie,

Better your feet than mine! (but I'm glad Billy had fun at Coex).

Serena's been visiting with acquaintances her age she met in Vancouver in the summer, so we took the opportunity to get out to Garak Market to gorge on crabs today. I'll bore everyone with pages of it later when the chronology fits.

But, while there, we found this for Sheena!

Frish from the waffle grill!

[Peter Green]

Oct 12 – the remains of the day

When we’d been in Korea before (back in the late 90’s) we hadn’t spent much time south of the river. Then it had been about the cultural sites, and cheap shopping at Itaewon, Namdaemun, and Dongdaemun.

So, seeing as we were staying in the south, it seemed like a worthwhile idea to ditch the girl with Jason and explore this brave new world.

The first thing that stands out is the grid. The streets run at right angles, broad, with clear subdivisions, and sparkling new architecture.

One of the new sites is the Centre For The Performing Arts. The building is instantly recognizable as a wide brimmed Korean hat (at least to Jason and me). Once you step through the water bridge and approach it up the hill, you’re in a different world. A quiet world of clean lines and hushed voices (even the children playing in the kids zone weren’t loud).

Kiosks, umbrellas, and tables are set out in the plazas, and people are quietly taking their cappuccinos and espressos, nibbling on their sandwhiches.

It almost feels like I’m in one of those science fiction movies, but I thought all of those were shot in Shanghai?

Anways, there are galleries, museums for musical instruments, and plenty of performing halls. If you want to see traditional Korean performances, this is the place to be on the weekends.

And if you have an interest in traditional Korean instruments, then come here. The kayageum in particular is an instrument I’ve always been fond of. A “zither” would be the proper descriptor, I suspect, but it’s best to consider it as a precursor to the Japanese koto.

As we were ambling, I heard a really odd sound, similar to a didjeridoo in some ways, and vary familiar.

On the back side of the centre, an orchestra was in rehearsal.

“It’s Korean,” says Yoonhi.

“Mongols,” say I. “They’ve been doing that throat singing thing.”

And so we sat and listened for half an hour as they practiced their pieces.

You never know what you’ll stumble across in Seoul.

We strolled back, past the English language Arirang studios and down towards Nambu terminal, taking in the upscale cafes

and kim bap shacks that exist so easily next to each other.

To be honest, I was more interested in the gim bap joint. We stopped in and picked up some dinner for the girl. We know she won’t say no to gim bap.

Gim bap places are pretty much identical to a sandwich shop back in the West. All the ingredients are trayed out at hand, the prep surface is handy, and you’ve got sauces ready in squeeze bottles to get things done.

You just work with seaweed and rice as your canvass, as opposed to bread and butter.

Now, our aim, seeing as how Serena was home with Jason, was to get in some kop chang. And Jason, like Serena, is not a kop chang fan (to each their own, say I). Just down the hill from the Nambu Terminal are three kop chang places considered very good by Seoul standards. Of these, the first two are the original shop and it’s expansion restaurant (hence “kop chang II”). The third is, as expected, the vulture, who will try to profit off any overflow from the original.

We couldn’t make it into the first shop, so we went to II. It’s all the same kitchen, anyways, for these two.

Some may consider this an acquired taste, but I must say, once acquired, it tends to stick with you. Kop chang are the entrails and nasty bits of the cow.

We started with the appetizer of cold raw liver, and cold raw entrails. The entrails, in particular, have a good snap to them as you crunch in, and there’s something about eating raw cubes of liver that just makes me want to rise from the dead.

With this we have cabbage, fresh chives, big cloves of spicy garlic, ddean jang, and dipping sauces of sesame, garlic and salt (bottom right) and another of soy, chilis, garlic, and other stuff I’d have to ask Yoonhi about.

And before you start grilling, it’s a good idea to put on an apron. Actually, most Korean grilling joints will have aprons to protect your clothes. Some will even provide jackets for your jackets, to avoid the grease splatters.

The other condiment, of course, is soju. You can use beer (meakju) to clean things out a bit, but soju is the best way to reconstitute your palate between bites.

The kop chang here is grilled down in a mess of body parts, onion, spring onion, and potato (the potato will extract some of the stink of the entrails).

There are three types for grilling: yang – one type of the stomach (not to be mixed up with “yang” for sheep); kop chang – the large entrail; and makchang.

this is the near perfect drinking food…..where did those other bottles come from?

And a good finish for this is bokkum bap….with some more drinks.

Next: icha – the second phase

[milgwimper]

Doddie,

I am willing to send you some sausages. The smoke variety shouldn't be a problem, and they do have some canned stuff here too. I will have to do some looking around. Is there any type of sausage you prefer? It will take me a while to get a box together, but when it is ready I will let you know.

I don't think I want any more cans of the perilla mom sent 25 cans and I have only cracked two so far. I Think I am good for that. Give me some time to think about it and let me know. Thanks!

Oh yeah DH doesn't like the fact I LOVE yookHwe! LOL It is another dish Mom and I eat only together. If I ever come back to Korea we will have to go for yookhwe together Dodddie! Yum!

Peter:

I am blown away by the food pics from the chefs. They are beautiful. I love foood festivals!

Gopchang! YAY! The gopchang looks pretty good. Was the gopchang marinated or just placed on the grill with the other vegetables? Well it wasn't or was marinated the gopchang looked good. Yeah DH doesn't like gopchang either, but I get a hankering for them sometimes!

[Domestic Goddess]

Milgwimper - I'm bouncing off the walls with glee! Any kind and anything!!!! I love german sausages! How about I send you some canned silkworm larvae? Bai-top snails? Or a stoneware pot? And it is a definitely a yukkhwe date for you and me (and Peter and Yoonhi should they be here, too).

[Ce'nedra]

A very well made thread! Thank you for all these wonderful postings! I love how Korean food has a little bit of everything in neat little plates/piles. And the resulting combination allows for a mouthful of such unique flavours!

Do Koreans eat congee often? Much like how the Chinese do? And is it eaten in a similar fashion?

I've seen a few pictures of Korean congee before and all I remember is that it was accompanied by lots of small plates.

[Ce'nedra]

And so we sat and listened for half an hour as they practiced their pieces.

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Is that Korean or Mongolian costume? It actually reminds me alot of the Yakuts in Siberia...or any of the various nothern Asian tribes that reside in Russia (and the norternmost part of China).

[Peter Green]

Is that Korean or Mongolian costume? It actually reminds me alot of the Yakuts in Siberia...or any of the various nothern Asian tribes that reside in Russia (and the norternmost part of China).

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It's very much a Mongol costume, perhaps more so from what the men were wearing. The female costumes were a little more elaborate for the performance than what you'd normally see.

Having said that, the Northern tribes share a lot of common traditions, and many of those were brought together by the Mongols in their heyday, so I'd expect similarities.

But we checked and the group was out of Ulaan Bator.

That's a place I should get back to.

[Peter Green]

Do Koreans eat congee often? Much like how the Chinese do? And is it eaten in a similar fashion?

I've seen a few pictures of Korean congee before and all I remember is that it was accompanied by lots of small plates.

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If you give Yoonhi or her friends a choice on breakfast, they'll have juk (porridge). But that's 'cause they can't get it at home.

One of the prettiest congees was put together by one of our Korean friends who came out to the WGF this year.

Talking to Jason, a lot of people here now eat juk as a health alternative. Previously, it was mainly for people with digestive problems.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Petet

[Peter Green]

October 12 – Icha (second phase)

The Koreans handle their evenings in a sensible, logical manner. They divide them into phases. After you’ve finished your first part (generally food and drink related), you then move onto the second phase – icha – (which, oddly enough, usually ends up being food and drink related). This in turn to be followed by samcha – third phase…..and you can see where this is going.

Jason had to pop out for a bit, so we made it back home to take over the girl. Content, we relaxed on the balcony, took in the evening lights, and had some pear and Armagnac.

We eat a lot of pear when we can find it.

Same goes for Armagnac.

But after an hour, Jason was back and wanted to know if we cared to come out for the evening. What could we say?

First stop was the batting cages over by Kangnamyok (Kangnam station), pretty much on the opposite side of the same district as Big Rock. Jason and the lads had a game coming up, and, for some odd reason, felt that practice might be a good idea.

Baseball is a big deal in Korea. Not as big as soccer (or football, depending on which continent you’re in), but soccer had the advantage of the World Cup madness here – which really was insane, with over a million out in red downtown watching on the megascreens that were set up. But anyways, baseball is big, highly competitive, with that “if Japan does it, we’ll do it better” attitude.

So, dotted around the entertainment areas you’ll find batting cages, with maybe four or five different cages in each, each with a different pitching speed.

Serena agreed with this whole-heartedly, as a trip to the batting cages not only means a chance for her to try her skills, but also that there’ll be video games and stuff for her to play with.

Most of it was pretty tame – shoot-em-ups and the like.

But then she found the punching bag.

The previous record on the bag was 808. Serena whacked it for 859.

This, obviously, drew the interest of some of the others, and we all took some shots. Nope, 859 was holding as the record.

One young fellow, with four female friends, rose to the challenge. He took a number of swings, and managed to break 700. On his last swing he put his whole body into it, and then ran straight out of the place, knowing what the results would be.

This obviously called for celebrations, so we cast about for a place to get a drink and some food (after all, this had been strenuous exercise).

By now I suspect I’ve communicated just how hard it is to find a place to eat or drink in this country. Kangnamyok in particular goes all night long. On the south side of the river, this is the main area for the study halls. This is where the kids go to study after they’ve finished their school. So this area is always packed with people coming and going, and that, in Korea, is a prescription for food and drink.

I was of a mind to try the small brewery places. There were three quoted by Jason and his friends with good draught beer. Big Rock, which we’d already covered (even though it’s not a micro-brewery, as they don’t brew their beer here, but ship from Canada); then there was Platinum, but that was over in Apgujeong (where I’d been drinking apple soju and snails the night before); and then there was Herzen, which was walking distance.

We were going to Herzen.

Very slick looking, and well packed. We grabbed a booth as the guys were on their cells calling friends to meet us (another part of icha).

We ordered up a proper beer, a five litre tower of their Helle,

And a platter called “hot bomb”.

Ordering things called “hot” in Korea is not the wisest move.

The “Hot Bomb” was a mixed seafood platter, all heavily marinated in gochujang, more chillies, and some more chillies. Of course, “platter” here means cooked in a sizzling pot served as a burn hazard to a table of drunks.

It wasn’t bad. The shellfish are always a welcome treat for me, as are the tentacles of most anything. Prawns I’m so so about, but there were plenty of takers. And the crab (of which there was plenty) was of the sort where you just bit in and the meat came oozing out into your mouth.

Besides the Helle (which was quite drinkable) Herzen also does a Weisse and a Dunkel.

Obviously, these are following the Munich traditions, and taste accordingly. Nothing at all wrong with any of these (I did work through them as a matter of professionalism, but not in 5 liter towers), but they weren’t particularly exciting. Still, while it followed the mold of the Paulaner houses across Asia, I found the beer tasted better.

Or perhaps it was the circumstances?

After a couple of hours in Herzen, it was getting kind of late, and we started to lose some people, with Yoonhi taking Serena home.

This led to an important question.

Samcha or call it a night?

Next: Samcha!

[Peter Green]

October 12 – Samcha - Phase III

Late night, early morning? All you really know is that you’re somewhere different, and it’s dark.

Our party lessened in number, but not in spirit (based upon percent volume) we stumbled out looking for bul dak (fire chicken).

We found what we were looking for – Red Station’s nearest outlet for burning hot chicken. And they were still open – just.

This was upstairs, so we did get some valuable exercise in.

Once up the stairs, we had a horrible thirst upon us, so we ordered some beers and chicken. The menu was a frivolity at this point in time.

We wanted something that would hurt us.

The chicken sits in a pasty marinade (as opposed to the wet marinades we’d observed earlier), and is then grilled on aluminum foil over flames, ideally to char on the marinade, and give it a hot crust to complement the burn that had worked into the meat fibre.

The bird came out, and….

We were disappointed.

It wasn’t dark and evil looking enough. We tried a bite. We called over the waiter to remonstrate. We complained that it wasn’t hot enough.

(Meanwhile, I could feel the chilis making the front of my mouth a searing burn of pain)

The manager came out and explained that they weren’t grilling it with as much of the paste smothering it anymore, as it had been extremely hard on their grills, and had required a lot more scouring to get it off, and pitting of the metal.

That sounded like just the ticket to us. We bullied the manager, and he went back to cook one the way we wanted it.

As a side comment, it’s good to be older in Korea. You can get your way most anytime with younger people. This even works with cops (up to a point).

We ate the first one anyways, and the fire grew and grew the more you ate.

When the second one came (and more beers) we could see the difference right away. One was orange red, and the other was orange red. But the burn on the second one was more intense, and the feel rougher, and more brutal. It was actually a bit of a chore getting through this plate, but at this point we were sort of committed (or should have been).

We pushed back from the table and left the poor staff to close up. It was after 4 a.m., and they probably were looking forward to getting home at some point in their lives.

The only remaining issue was to get a cab. This can be a tough thing to do in this part of town at this time of the night.

Cabbies in this situation are looking for the big fare that’ll take them to the suburbs. What they don’t want is a short-hop $5 or $6 ride.

What they also don’t want is a lot of projectile vomiting in their car, which is a serious possibility when you’re picking people up from this part of ttown at this time of the morning.

What you have to do is up the fare. The cab comes by, hold up two fingers. This means you’re paying double. Three fingers, you’re paying triple.

We ran with two fingers, and it worked.

And it wasn’t even dawn, yet.

Next: Ring of Fire

[milgwimper]

Domestic Goddess,

Umm I will pass on the silk worm larvae. Funny enough I can get that here, but I outgrew the taste of them a long time ago. Even my mother can't seem to choke them down anymore. But a stone ware bowl would be really nice! Don't be a rush to send it out though your box will take me a while to get it out to you. It takes me while to get anyones carepackage together, but it will get to you!

We are so on for a date for Yookhwe and whomever wants to come and enjoy the festivities! Yum! Don't know when but I can't wait!

Peter,

I had to laugh at the boxing thing. I bet he was surprised he couldn't even touch her score!

I never liked beer until I came to germany. Now the only beers so far I like are the hefeweizen, krystall, dunkle, and there is a dark beer here called kings something or other that is pretty tasty but I had it only once and can't remember the name. The beers here in germany tend to be much higher in alcohol than the states. I had forgotten is the alcohol content of the beer at the microbrewery in Korea high as 12.5 percent?

The crab looks good, but then all crab looks good when you can't get them here, or of you can it is mighty expensive.

Puldak so yummy looking. I wonder do people ask if you can handle the heat? The problem I had in Korea, once in awhile people would try to water down the spiciness of my food. They didn't think I could handle the heat and then I would have to ask them for more gochujang or gochugaru to make it spicier in Korean. It didn't happen most of the time but when it did... Usually they say that foreigners can't eat spicy. They should come and eat at my house I would incinerate their lips But luckily it hasn't happened in a long time.

[Peter Green]

Puldak so yummy looking. I wonder do people ask if you can handle the heat? The problem I had in Korea, once in awhile people would try to water down the spiciness of my food. They didn't think I could handle the heat and then I would have to ask them for more gochujang or gochugaru to make it spicier in Korean.  It didn't happen most of the time but when it did...   Usually they say that foreigners can't eat spicy.  They should come and eat at my house I would incinerate their lips    But luckily it hasn't happened in a long time. 

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Milg,

There've been a number of queries along the lines of "can he eat this?", but I've got my entourage along, so they'lll yell them down.

Once they get to that stage, beyond the innate politness level (which I do admit is hard to get past here), a national pride thing kicks in and its "let's try to burn the white guy's mouth out".

Luckily, I've had training.