Flavor Boulevard

Uh oh, it looks like ink.

The color is just screaming fake, real taro is faintly purple. My palm stains with indigo dye as I scoop the ice cream out of its cheap plastic tub. Sigh, I take a spoon. Divine. Coconut milk sweeps across the mouth. Nutty and grainy taro filters out all troubled thoughts. I thought taro yogurt with brownie bites at Yogurt Land was unbeatable, but this tops it. I read the ingredient list on the label.

No coconut milk.

Magnolia‘s 1.75-quart taro ice cream: $7.29.

So what would you choose, the real and tasty kind or the artificial and supertasty kind?

Previously on Down the Aisles: Yeast Cookies

At first you taste a field of lush wet grass, then sweetness creeps in and lingers. It is neither rich nor plain. It is not colorful or sparkling. It has no charm in a 16-oz styrofoam cup. You will never be its addict. It relieves thirst better than coke, and contains nothing but natural hymn. It is the girl-next-door drink.

Where I’m from, nuoc mia carts usually park in front of school gates. They have a bucket of yard-long sugarcane stalks, some ready-to-go nylon bags filled with the yellow tinged juice, tied with a rubber band and equipped with a straw, a glass box to store the inch cuts of decorticated sugarcane – cheap, all-natural energy snack for school kids.  The sugarcane ladies, usually in cone hats with their faces charred by sunlight and sidewalk heat, can reel sugarcane stalks through the grinding wheels so fast and so rhythmically, like a skilled tailor drawing cloth through a sewing machine. I used to marvel those ladies and their cool sweet drink, from a distance, as my mother doesn’t believe in street food. I may recall one or two instances of drinking sugarcane juice over the years, some vague memory of how wonderful the taste was after you added a teeny pinch of salt. There were times my mom would buy whole sugarcanes from the market and peel off the outer shell with one heck of a mean-looking sharp knife, then cut them into bite-sized chunks that I could chew and suck. The juice was heavenly. Its memory just wouldn’t let me rest.

Around lunch time we arrive at CD Bakery. As soon as I ask the cashier lady for one “nước mía”, she yells out the order to the juice man, who starts sticking and pulling sugarcane stalks into the grinding wheels boxed up with metal walls.

After running the stalks a couple of times through, the juice man reaches into the tin box to grab a plastic jug filled with lightly foaming juice, pours it into a styrofoam cup with a few ice cubes, closes the lid and dunks a straw. Three-dollar-and-three-minute soft drink. The only way to beat this minimal procedure would be to lick maple sap from a living tree, or chew on some sweet grass. The cashier lady asks if I want kumquat (salted, perhaps?) in my nuoc mia too, but after a split second of thought I go with No. Sugarcane juice can make it on its own. That is its beauty, and it deserves my trust. How would the aged, salty, bitter, sour kumquat tantalization fuse with the tingling, deeply soothing, freshly pressed, sweet sugarcane nectar?

I’ll try it next time.

Address: CD Bakery & Deli (also called Dao Bakery & Deli LLC)
(in the Lion Market Plaza on Tully & King)
1816 Tully Road, Store #198
San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 238-1484
Open everyday from 8am to 8pm

I’d never thought I would walk an over-two-mile round trip just for food. But Carolyn Jung at Food Gal convinced me that A Taste of North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto just sounded too good to ignore, and with a mere $25 ticket it was well worth the ankle exercise. Granted the weather turned its cold back on us, we couldn’t drag our feet to all 27 locations, nor were we enticed by the smell of wine, we felt good at the end of the day knowing that our tummy was full, a beggar’s tummy was appeased (with a cup of Greek soup from Soop, a lime-chipotle drumstick from Poulet, and a square of brownie from Andronico’s), and we found a new favorite.

The marathon started off creamily with Bistro Liaison‘s Quenelle souffle – salmon and scallop mousse in a lustrious shrimp sauce. Captivating from the very first bite. Oh, guess what? It’s not on the menu.

Taste of Himalayas – Most Generous Tasting “Sample” ever. We were allowed full freedom to load our plate with whatever our eyes desired.

Taste of Himalayas - Lamb momo and orange dessert

Taste of Himalayas - vegetable samosa, momo, and pakora

Both the lamb and the vegetable momos (dumpling) are adorable pockets of goodness. The pakora (deep fried vegetable) hits the grease spot. The samosa is utterly beany. The unidentifiable bright orange dessert feels like fish roe.

Crepevine – The Least Expectable Taste. Its cute facade sugarcoats a trendy menu with international crepes that fare more or less like Subway sandwiches: edible, not bloggable.

Crepevine - Salad and Greek crepe with feta cheese, roasted almond, spinach, and calamata olives in tsatziki sauce

Chick-O-Pea’s (in Barney’s) – The Nicest Service. We arrived just as they ran out of falafels, and the owner offered Mudpie a beer while waiting for the new batch.

Chick-O-Pea's/Barney's - Falafel with hummus, tahini, and zachuq

(We didn’t take the offer.)

Cha-Am – what can I say, Thai food is comforting.

Cha-Am - chicken pad thai

Chocolate Tasting at M. Lowe & Co. Jewelers – Most Beautiful Sample.

Chocolate tasting at M.Lowe & Co. Jewelers

The taste? See’s Candies‘ truffles are better.

Alegio Chocolaté – Most Educational Tasting. Also our first try of whole Chile finest chocolate bean, bitter just like a roasted coffee bean. The enthusiastic host is a man of hand and mouth, as we Vietnamese would say: chopping and crushing chocolate bars into bits, speaking expeditiously about each kind’s origin and composition, grabbing onlookers’ quizzical attention with the busiest, most irresistibly chaotic display of the brownish hues.

Alegio Chocolaté - chili pepper dark chocolate

The 80% dark chocolate flavored with chili pepper pictured above is only for the bravest. We took the challenge. Then Mudpie sheepishly tasted a darling chocolate covered peppercorn and felt sick for the rest of the journey. Lesson learned: sometimes cute looking things can kill you.

Also snuggled in the Epicurious Garden with Alegio Chocolaté are the aesthetic Chinese Imperial Tea Court, where we had a taste of puerh tea and some uberspicy hand-pulled noodle…

Imperial Tea Court - cold noodle and onion pancake

…and the beautiful takeout Kirala 2, with a sample of sake maki (tuna) roll, Californian (crab and avocado) roll, and potato croquette.

Kirala 2 - California roll, sake maki roll, and potato croquette

Soop – housing the Most Expensive Banh Mi’s.

How about Soop with banh mi?

Unfortunately the banh mi wasn’t on the tasting menu. Instead, the 4oz greeting of Avgolemono soup is undeniably proper: Greek soup with shredded chicken and long grain rice in enticing lemon flavored chicken stock thickened with egg.

Gregoire – Best Dessert of the whole event. Possibly the best dessert I’ve had in a long time.

It’s just a takeout, but it’s not just a takeout. Despite the chilly breeze, people queue up for its delicious fine tastes, changing seasonally, and perhaps for a friendly joke or two with the chefs to warm up your mood.

“So Mai, just what is your new favorite?”, you may ask. The pork belly sandwich at Trattoria Corso. Look out for a post on this Florentine exquisite in the near future.

Another day, another banh mi.

And another. And another. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted thịt nguội (Vietnamese cold cut, also called “ham”), chả lụa, or pâté, and I didn’t want to settle for the special ($3.20) which has all three, because that means there is less of each. Like a good girl I got all three ($2.75 each), then mixed and matched. Cha lua is nothing beyond expectation, smooth and pure, sliced as thin as chicken skin. To its left is the firm rosy thit nguoi, made from cured pork and fat strips, similar to pork belly. To its right is pork liver pate banh mi. The brown spread looks like nutella with pepper,  feels grainy and silky on the tongue, and tastes magnificent. In one bite of oozing goodness, you can find something nutty, something sweet, a bit fatty and rich, a lot of salt, no sign of bitterness, all tempered by the mildly sour pickled carrots. Pork liver pate is my favorite.

Although most scoffers stay at Saigon Express for no more than 10 minutes, just enough time to grab a quick sandwich or a phở to-go, I dined in just to sample more food. Seemingly everyone comes here knowing what they want, I wonder if some of the dishes are forever hidden in the multipaged menu. I dug one out from the clay pot section: tofu and prawn claypot, served on white rice. For only $7.75, I can’t complain that its quality isn’t up to par with Le Regal’s ca kho to. There’s plenty of thin, almost broth-like sauce to soak your soft fried bean curd and wet your rice. The shrimps are plump. Mushy onion slivers encase tiny, juicy, salty outbursts.

Having stationed here for fifteen years, Saigon Express weathers the ebbs and flows of the competitive eatery market by setting its price low. The most expensive items are $7.75, easily portioned into two meals unless you’re preparing for football practice or something of sort. It also takes credit card.

Address: Saigon Express
2045 Shattuck Avenue (at the corner with Addison St, and in the same block as Biryani House)
Berkeley, CA 94704

Older posts on banh mi:
– banh mi ba chi pate (pate pork belly sandwich)
– banh mi thit nuong (grilled pork sandwich): from Lee’s Sandwiches and Huong Sandwiches

It looks like one of those noodle houses on the roadside with plastic chairs, formica tables, laminated menu, and plain white neon lights. Actually, it is one, but with green cushion chairs. The atmosphere is so casual, the slurping scenes so familiar I could almost hear motorbike engines and vendors’ calls around Saigon. Everywhere I look, Berkeley brings back memories of Binh Thanh and Tan Binh Districts with its frameless mix of dashing modernity and forlorn architecture, damp narrow alleys separating discordantly colorful buildings, shoe mending stores tucked between pricey diners, Vespas, bicycles, cars, trucks, men in suit and men in rag, the only thing missing is a xich-lo. Like it or not, this world doesn’t stay outside noodle houses like Pho Hoa, you can eat while feeling life scurry on the pavement. The diners casually bring the commonest of life into their chatter. The kitchen brings the commonest of noodle soup onto the table.

But only they added a twist to it. Of course eighty percent of the menu is laminated with things every pho joint would have: pho. Pho of all varieties, Steak, Brisket, Chicken, Tendon, Flank, Tripe, Meatball.  Then at the very bottom of the page, estranged by all other pho’s, is Seafood Sour.

I first heard of sour pho a few months ago. The regional specialty of northern province Lạng Sơn sounds exciting: tamarind sauce, a ladle or two of chicken broth, a handful of chicken meat and innards, fried shallot and crushed peanuts, structurally somewhat like mỳ Quảng (Quảng Nam noodle) and cao lầu (Hội An noodle). So as soon as I saw “sour pho”, I leaped at the chance. Fifteen minutes later, the eight-dollar-and-ninety-five-cent chance looked me in the eye with fiery inquisition, “maybe it’s a little too much chili paste?” I sniffed and hawked, blew and gulped, a sip of water now and then between spoonfuls of the clear red broth. It is definitely not the sour pho of Lang Son. Not only copious amount of squid, shrimp and salmon replaces chicken gizzards, but the sourness comes from pineapple and tomato instead of tamarind, and your rice noodle gets lost in the sea. It is pho and canh chua entanglement, harmoniously with joy in crescendo.

But some part of me will forever crave meat. Big chunks. Marinated. Sauce dripping. A tad of fat to loosen the muscle. Bits of tendon to brighten the chew. Meat that is bold and brown. Like a beef stew.

We found it demoted to the menu’s bottom league with Seafood Sour.  Bò kho is Vietnamese beef stew with a complex wealth of tastes, a French-influenced Southerner’s display of abundance, and an ambrosial love of Mudpie. Star anise and cinnamon link bo kho with pho, annato seeds make it color-stricken like claypot fish, nuoc mam gives it the regional stamp. All for a mere $7.65. The quality doesn’t lie in the beef, but in every bite of baguette wholeheartedly dipped in that rich, peppery, daring juice. E V E R Y bite. Only found at:

Pho Hoa Noodle Soup
2272 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 540-9228

UPDATE: This location is now closed.

Other pho houses in Berkeley: Le Petit Cheval (student-pocket-friendly), Le Regal (big-pocket-friendly)

Downtown Berkeley are these two-faced blocks between Shattuck Avenue and Fulton Street. Facing Shattuck, they are adorned with picturesque lamp posts, shops and pubs, neon signs casting shadows of hustling pedestrians and huddling homeless men. Facing Fulton, they quietly gaze at the lush green west end of campus through glass windows of modern apartments. The quiescence called for some gathering, and Gather burgeoned.

It gleams with efficiency and environmental awareness. All ingredients are bought from local farmers. Seats are made with used suede and leather belts, candle covers are rolled up wine menus, diners and waiters respect the intimate spacing between tables, and food was served within a few minutes of placing an order, but not without intricacy.

Starting with the vegan charcuterie:

Clockwise from top left:1. (Yellow, red, and purple) beet tartare on horseradish almond puree, topped with arugula flowers; 2.  Baby potato celeriac salad dressed with olive sauce, served on “marrow” bean puree; 3. Braised mushroom bruschetta on sunchoke puree, adorned with leek fondue; 4. Bread; 5. Roasted “graffiti” cauliflower on almond pepper puree and a vegan “aioli” touch; 6. Roasted purple haze carrots, pea tendrils, and Jerusalem artichokes on cashew ricotta.

Surely you can tell from the picture that 3 and 6 were my favorites. The cashew ricotta was best among the five bases. The cauliflower had an odd hint of Indian food, or Mexican according to Mudpie. The bread was airy, chewy, and crunchy. The finely chopped beet tartare was plain, refreshing and texturally amusing. The flowers were earthy like all flowers you ever chew.

As soon as we used up the last piece of bread to wipe clean those tasty purees, our large plate rushed to the table. They call it the seared fava leaf chickpea cake, one of the restaurant’s new and proud assemblies. We daintily shared two mushy, tofu-like wedges with hidden leaves, lots of vallarta beans, tender baby artichokes, and crunchy frisee bathed in caramelized funnel rosemary vinaigrette.

Then we washed it down with a scoop of saffron tangelo sorbet, a clever mix most resembling of citrus seeds or grape seeds. Doesn’t one scoop seem too few?

That might just have been my only complaint about Gather. Its careful measure in both the source and the product of taste makes it lovely and fashionable. Gather was gratifying. But was Gather amazing? It’s hard to strip meat off the meal, there’s something in the condensed texture of muscle and the fatty taste of skin that makes vegan dining similar to black and white food photography. Now, the aesthetically appeasing B&W photographs are regaining popularity.

Goodness quantified:
Vegan charcuterie (14.00) + braised lamb (12.00) + Chickpea cake (15.50) + saffron sorbet (3.00) + tax
= $48.84

Gather Restaurant in Berkeley
2200 Oxford St. (at the corner with Allston, where Fulton becomes Oxford)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 809-0400

Gather is right across the street from Azerbaijan Cuisine.
Another vegan restaurant in the area: Herbivore the Earthly Grill

The San Francisco airport is a great excuse to eat out on the other side of the bay. Catching a morning flight? Breakfast at Milbrae Pancake House. Picking up parents and wanting to show them around at mid day? Lunch at La Boheme in Burlingame. Arriving in a lazy afternoon after four hours confined in the airplane’s seat with a neck cramp and in the mood for something nice, light but hearty? A crepe at Cafe Grillades of San Bruno sounds just right.

It’s one of those homey places where you can nibble a panini while reading the chronicles, sit by the window and gaze at a quiet parking lot, or meet someone for a casual interview. It has the boureks and the Algerian couscous if you want to impress old friends with an interesting order, but it also serves classic ham and cheese on toast all day. It will satisfy both the burger hunger and the vegan healtheist. It has the West European facade, the Mediterranean sum up, the North Saharan novelty, the San Franciscan appeal. In plain view, Cafe Grillades has a pretty good all-inclusive menu.

But we came here for crepes, and get crepes we did. Somehow the herbivore in Mudpie and the carnivore in me switched place that day. Mudpie decidedly took on the Algiers Merguez, spicy lamb and beef sausage mingled with chunky potatoes,  mushy tomatoes, and slabs of onions in crème fraiche (first picture). I, feeling betrayed by the chicken burrito on the plane, went down the defiant path with a ratatouille flat square hot pocket.

My reasoning was simple: I like meat, so if I like something sans meat then that vegan thing must be really good. And it was. In fact, it was better than the Merguez sausage crepe. Eggplant was one of those healthy veggies my mom had to funnel down my throat, but here it fit in so well with zucchini, bell pepper, and more onion. Feta cheese clumped a few tangy notes. The crepe innards were definitive of satisfaction.

Gratified, we charged onto dessert. A mango crepe brulee with brown sugar, creme fraiche, and caramelized top. This mix between a tart freshness and a fixating sweetness, some chewy underripe fruit and a thin malleable encasing,  is, my friends, the best any sweet crepe can be.

Cafe Grillades
851 Cherry Ave #16
San Bruno, CA 94066
(650) 589-3778

Pocket thinning:
Ratatouille (8.95)
+ Spicy Algiers (9.50)
+ Mango crepe brulee (7.95) = $28.84

If you go to Nihonmachi Mall during Christmas season, visit the Kinokuniya bookstore for some soothingly aesthetic greeting cards and folding snow globes, then walk around the bench and feed your gaze on the delicious window display of Sophie’s Crepes. Then glance to your right, oh… what is this? Winter Toy Land? No, it’s this teeny beehive resto called Izumiya with their frontal lit up like a runway for Santa’s helicopter, reminding me of Prep and Landing.

Intrigued, we snugged in. Believe me, even if the weather outside were in the negatives, it couldn’t get any warmer in this packed place. The waitresses skillfully whizzed back and forth and sidestepped through single-person-wide aisles, heat radiated from the grill, the platters and the chatters, faces glowed under the reddish hue of dim light. Paper signs on the sliding door said “Karaoke 9 pm – 2 am”. How would they arrange enough room? Where did they hide the screen? I couldn’t imagine a larger crowd within those walls. Ever since college days I usually feel a bit tighten up if I have to practice my munching three feet away from some strangers, but what the heck, if it’s busy it must be good, the flies wouldn’t call people here otherwise (*).

There were the bentos and the sushis like usual, but the house focus was strings and strands. Yakisoba (fried noodle – $8.50) with squid, beef, shrimp, egg, and a pinch of ruby pickled radish (that I’ve had at Anzu but have no idea what it’s called or what it is. Help, anyone?). There was hardly any remnant of oil. Tonkatsu sauce lent the bundle a sour and salty whiff, which subtly forced you to take one small twirl at a time to fully savor its hidden strength.

Yaki ($8.25), short for okonomiyaki, or “cooked [pancake] with anything you want”. It’s been a while and I can’t remember what I wanted then, but that scrumptious mixture of buttery batter, crunchy crust and cabbage, soft sweet potato, and lush squirts of mayonnaise is unforgettable.

The pancake looked small, I wanted two, but a second one would doom me unfit to sidestep through the body-wide aisle. At the end we left the table with content, a fairly healthy lunch, and twenty dollars fewer in our wallet.

I know I’m such a turtle for delaying this post nearly three months after chowing, but the food is seasonless, and does seasonal look matter after all? Surely Izumiya has long taken down their Christmas decor, but  the  attraction doesn’t come from flashing light bulbs and puffy toys. Now the name sign stands out, and the colorful plastic yet realistic plates behind the window look more splendid than ever.

Address: Izumiya (inside Nihonmachi Mall, Japan Town)
1581 Webster Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 441-6867

* Vietnamese people would jokingly say someone is “called by the flies” if they somehow show up just in time for food without planning ahead. It’s not a demeaning, belittling, or any kind of negative remark.

I have discovered another great soup. My fingers trembled with anticipation over the sweet aroma, the shining aurulent broth, those fragile fatty bubbles that form a thin film on the surface, the promising dapple of fried shallot,… and the pictures got all blurry. So just squint your eyes and pretend for the moment that you’re hunching over a bowl of piping hot succulence and the steam makes your eyes hazy. Can you smell that sweet aroma? No? Grab a chair at Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ #9 in North Oakland, ask for a bowl of bún mộc, and find out for yourself.

Before diving thy chopsticks into the noodle soup, let us start with the name. It can be spelled either bún mọc or bún mộc, the hat on the “o” changes the word’s meaning and thus the name’s origin, but nobody is certain which one is correct. “Mộc” means “simple”, the broth is simply boiling water savorized by salt, pepper, nuoc mam, pork, shiitake, and wood ear mushroom.  “Mộc” also means pork paste (twice-ground or pounded pork, seasoned, known as “giò sống” in Vietnamese), which is the central ingredient in the original soup but not in the rendition at Tay Ho #9. I like gio song, but sliced meatballs and cha lua (silk sausage) make a trustworthy substitution. The cook here also threw in some shredded chicken breast as a reassurance of familiar fixings. Now if you drop the hat on the “o”, “Mọc” is the nickname of the former village Nhân Mục, a part of west Hanoi today. This village can very well be the hometown of the meat-laden rice noodle soup, hence the noodle soup’s name. However the spelling goes, all we southerners know is bun moc comes from the north and is less than popular in Saigon. Most Vietnamese immigrants in the Star Flag States are southerners, so bun moc is even harder to find on the menus here. But as long as there’s a kitchen somewhere churning out these mouth-warming, bellicious bowls, there will be my pair of chopsticks eager for a hearty winter fling.

In the mood for something a little more adventurous?

If bun moc might seem on the mild side, you know, ground pork and white meat, and healthy mushroom for crying out loud, then bun bo Hue would spice up the buds. Bun bo Hue is synonymous with chili paste and satay, there’s just no way out of the heat. There’s no way out of the brutal assortment either, beef chunks, gelatinous cubes of congealed pork blood, some hasty slanted cuts of pig trotter. The blood cube doesn’t taste bloody though, it’s rather bland (naturally, it’s cooked and unseasoned) and only for textural purposes. I’ve sampled this beef noodle soup at Kim Son and Bun Bo Hue Co Do, but third time is indeed a charm, I enjoyed it at Tay Ho. Either that or the hostess’s friendliness, a rare delight to diners in Vietnamese restaurants, which alone makes me want to go back to this place.

1 bún bò Huế + 1 bún mọc + 1 large bánh cuốn to-go for lunch the next day: $22.67

Address: Tây Hồ Restaurant – Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ #9
344B 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 836-6388

More on Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ: Tây Hồ #8 in San Jose and Tây Hồ #18 in Bellaire, Houston.

Also check out Bánh Cuốn Hoa II in Houston, they have nice duck noodle soup (bún măng vịt).

In Vietnam, the first month-old birthday of a baby marks an important celebration. So today is the day, Flavor Boulevard is a month old! Considering FB‘s birth month is also the month of passion and chilly winter, what’s better than a hot plate of “Omu-rice – Perfect for sharing between a couple in love,” said the menu at our local Korean fave on Telegraph Avenue?

So I ate it, and here I share it with my FB. Fried rice with ham, green beans, and peas wouldn’t normally rank high on my list, but the saucy, creamy running egg yolk does wonders. The omelet tasted unseasoned, but its natural plainness was a great base for the rice. Given the fact that I always prefer my French fries sans ketchup, I didn’t find ketchup a well-matched condiment here, perhaps something more buttery would be nice. But perhaps a sour brush was a healthy contrast. Omu-rice is lovely still.

As usual, Berkel Berkel has unlimited spicy kimchi, nonspicy pickled cucumber, and sweet black beans to accompany your main course. Firm and nutty, the black beans (kongjaban) are a pleasant delectable if eaten individually. Of course it’s not easy to eat one by one with chopsticks, but it may be well worth the effort: black bean sweetened with honey and soy sauce “is good for your head,” so I was told by the kind-hearted host of Berkel Berkel. I’ll sure take any chance I get to be smarter, so I ate a bunch of these.

Being in the starchy mood, we also went for a steaming plate of japchae (glass noodle) on rice. I never thought about noodle on rice as a real meal, although as a kid I did find ramen a savory substitution for meat when it came to rice’s aids. The lustrous sesame oil is profound, but there’s a whole package of sweet and salty in every chewy bite of glass noodle.  Once again the chefs show that texture harmony and flavoring are more essential than substance, I’d be a vegetarian everyday if I could eat this japchae and rice everyday.

Although we haven’t tried the whole menu (*glance over other tables* the soups look smoking good), I have faith that everything at this joint scores at least 8 out 10 points for Korean comfort food. The atmosphere helps.

Want to know a little more about Berkel Berkel? Take a look at our first visit.  The place usually gets crowded around 8pm. Do Korean folks tend to eat dinner late?

Address: Berkel Berkel
2428 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704

For those who like to play in the kitchen: a recipe of kongjaban from Simply Senz and Steamy Kitchen’s personal touch on japchae.