Flavor Boulevard

Two months ago, I went to Jeju Island for the annual Fulbright conference to present my research. I stayed a few extra days after the conference to explore the island. Which, of course, means trying different foods as well!

For our first meal after the conference, we decided to stop at a restaurant that specializes in the fish known as 갈치 (kalchi) in Korean, which literally translates to sword fish, but is not the same type of sword fish with the long nose that is more common in restaurant menus in the US. The official name of this fish is the largehead hairtail, and it is a small and long fish shaped like a sword, hence the name in Korean. This fish is a speciality of Jeju Island and this restaurant (which I unfortunately forgot the name of and I didn’t take photographs either of the name of the restaurant!!!) is located in Seogwipo, which is where we stayed.

We had just walked an incredibly long distance, following one of the beautiful Blue Pony trails (officially they are the Jeju Olle trails, but the mascot is a blue pony), which is also the same name of our fabulous AirBnB! The owners, a lovely couple, had walked every single trail, which traverses the entire island and its coasts and their love of walking gave birth to the idea of opening a guesthouse named after what brought them to Jeju Island in the first place. We actually walked from the Blue Pony Guesthouse to the KAL Seogwipo Hotel and were pretty much starving by the time we were ready to eat dinner.

We figured since we had essentially been receiving free food from the conference and since we were so hungry, we decided to splurge on the four-course kalchi meal, which came with kalchi prepared 4 different ways: raw, in soup, stewed, and grilled. This seems like a lot of food to commit too in case we didn’t like the fish, but it turned out to be a really great meal!

First up was raw kalchi (갈치회). I normally don’t like Korean-style sashimi because usually the fish tastes too frozen (as if it was just taken out of the freezer) or the flesh is too firm and chewy. (I generally prefer raw fish that tastes as if it almost melts in my mouth like butter…) While the kalchi was still chewier than I would prefer, the fish definitely tasted extremely fresh and dipping it into the vinegared gochujang (초고추장) made for a perfectly suitable bite.

Shortly after the sashimi arrived, we received the second course: stewed kalchi (갈치조림). The spicy sauce was perfect and the fish was so delicate. Despite thinking that the small long fish would be oily like mackerel, the flesh is more similar to a white fish – meaty and surprisingly substantial. And it also tastes just as good cooked as it does raw!

Third course was kalchi soup (갈치국). This is a traditional Jeju dish and the fish is boiled with some green vegetables and pumpkin (단호박). Compared to the 조림 (stewed dish), it was very bland, so we ended up not appreciating it as much. I would have preferred to have this dish come out second because then we would have eaten a lot more of it. The stewed kalchi and then the next course ended up completing stealing the soup’s thunder sadly…

This is the grilled kalchi (갈치구이). This was everything I could have ever wanted in a fish dish – salty (the kind of salty that is addictive so you go back for bite after bite), crispy (just look at that skin!), and meaty (the white flesh of the fish was just so good). Each bite was perfect and we unanimously agreed that this was the best of the four courses. Simple and delicious, this is fish and kalchi at its best.

I would definitely recommend giving kalchi a try; my partner’s mom in Seoul cooks the fish quite regularly as well! This fish tastes good in so many different preparations as well – raw, stewed, boiled, and grilled – so there is something for everyone! Hopefully I’ll be able to find this restaurant again!

It is finally spring in South Korea and the weather is beautiful – not too chilly and not too hot, just perfectly warm the way I like it. In other words, the weather is like Berkeley weather! After a long and cold winter, I definitely feel like I just awoke from hibernation.

So when I was watching TV with my partner’s family and we saw a spotlight on 꽃비빔밥 (flower bibimbap), my eyes lit up. On TV was a beautiful bowlful of flowers that looked so beautiful! Right away I turned to my partner and asked him to go together. So off we headed to the city of Asan to the Asan Botanical Garden (아산 세계 꼭식물관), a 40 minute drive from my partner’s home in Pyeongtaek.

Turns out the restaurant that was featured is part of a botanical garden, so we enjoyed the beautiful display of flowers on the way to our final destination: FOOD.

Is it weird to feel so hungry while looking at flowers? We were very hungry when we arrived, so while looking at the beautiful flowers and enjoying the sights and smells, I was also simultaneously thinking about the flowers that I would get to munch on at the end of the garden!

Well…after about 5 greenhouses of lovely flowers, we finally reached our destination.

Behold…flower bibimbap (꽃비빔밥), priced at 8,000W (about ~$8).

The flowers were so pretty, but I thought that there would be more (the TV program that we watched showed what seemed to be an opposite ratio of flowers to lettuce). Underneath the flowers are typical bibimbap ingredients: lettuce, seasoned spinach, mushrooms, and roots. The rice came on the side as well as seaweed soup (미역국 miyeok guk) and radish kimchi (깍두기 kkakdugi). Gochujang (고추장) also came in the typical squeeze bottle.

Overall, the dish was delicious but tasted a bit too much like ordinary bibimbap. The flowers, on their own, however had a very unique taste. Citrusy, bitter, a little sweet, and crunchy, they were super delightful to eat on their own. However, when mixed with all of the other bibimbap ingredients, they were lost and it was difficult to really distinguish this dish from a bibimbap without flowers. Maybe because we weren’t TV hosts, we didn’t get the special treatment of having a ton of flowers! I think this dish would have been more unique and balanced if the amount of lettuce had been reduced by 50% and the amount of flowers increased by 50% so that the unique taste of the flowers would stand out a lot more, especially next to such assertive (and other deliciously crunchy) ingredients as spinach, roots, mushrooms, and of course, the spicy gochujang.

It was a great experience though trying flower bibimbap! The beautiful flowers and sitting and eating inside the greenhouse with all of the wonderful smells really marked the opening of spring for me.

And of course, the visual beauty of the bibimbap was worth the trip for me!

More information about the greenhouse can be found here.

The 63 Building (63빌딩) is an iconic landmark in Seoul and it is situated in Yeouido. A few months ago, when I first arrived to Seoul, I was lucky enough to have my partner treat me out to their buffet! The restaurant is located in the ground floor of the building and is simply called the Buffet Pavilion.

The restaurant definitely feels like luxury and we were seated right upon opening in a raised veranda. The view above us was gorgeous!

We could see directly up the 63 Building. This window made for some wonderful gazing while I inevitably went through multiple food comas.

As with any buffet, I tend to discard all notions of “classiness” – whatever that may mean – and just dig in! After all, the goal of buffets is to recoup the price of what you paid and try to make a “profit” – aka eating more than what you paid for. Regardless of whether this is Home Town Buffet or an upscale buffet like this, my goal is the same: to eat until I cannot possible eat anymore and then eat some more past that point.

My partner does not subscribe to this buffet-eating ideology and as a result, I ended up devouring double the amount of plates that he did.

Upon seating, we were given a glass of juice that tasted a little bit medicinal in its syrupy-ness. I have to be honest in that I completely forgot what this drink was, but that I did not like it that much. I believe that it may have been similar to the 5-type tea (omijacha/오미자차), but flavored to be syrupy sweet.

In retrospect, I realized I should have attempted to take more pictures of the buffet rather than my plates of food, but at the time I was just ready to eat eat eat and didn’t think about taking pictures of the wonderful spread. Plate #1 consisted of the appetizer/cold foods section. Sushi, seafood salad, etc. It was impressive, although I had to remind myself to not fill up completely.

I have to admit, looking back at this picture, it does not look too impressive. However, since it was uni, I had to grab the plate! (Yes, this buffet had platefuls of uni.)

The buffet also had a special section set up, which during the summer, was all about healing foods! I am not sure if these foods truly were for healing purposes, but they definitely made my stomach happy. Clockwise from top right: Lobster cream soup, puff pastry, salmon in broth, and abalone and mushroom soup.

Also from the healing foods section. From top right: Bulgogi terrine with chives, chicken meatball, foie gras (with the consistency of flan…not sure how I felt about that), steak with onion, chicken salad, and the poached chicken, perhaps the best thing I ate that day!

Aside from the regular buffet, diners can put in an order for either salmon or filet mignon, cooked individually per order. We received a little card with our table number, and all you need to do is hand in the number to the chef and the waiters will bring the food to you when it is ready. We got one of each. The salmon was a little dry for my taste and while the beef was cooked to medium (we weren’t given an option to specify our meat temperature), it was pretty tasty!

The buffet also featured a cafe/bar, and I ordered a latte.

The remaining sections of the buffet included three sections: Korean, Chinese, and Western. As is self-evident, each counter featured foods from those cuisines.

At this point, I was getting full and skipped many of the fried/sweetly-battered foods, which were especially prevalent in the Chinese food section. I did grab various types of meat, including a strange-looking duck on the bottom right and a cup of curry, which was in the Western food section. I did appreciate the roasted veggies in the top left – tomato and eggplants. The Chinese section also featured kumquats (right below the tomato) that were really addicting to eat.

For my final three rounds, I hit up the salad bar, the cheese bar, and of course, the dessert bar. My partner had stopped eating long before at this point and while I was beginning to feel stuffed, I had to sample every part of the buffet at least once!

I have an obsessive craving for Caesar salads…this time was no exception. Plus, there were anchovies available; I am always slightly unhappy when restaurants offer Caesar salads but don’t include actual anchovies on the salad.

At this point, I think I was beginning to hit my limit – you can see how my portions slowly start shrinking. I tried the cheese section, which wasn’t that big – I took all three cheeses that were available. I cannot remember what type of cheeses these were now, but the second from the left was particularly delicious because this cheese was blended with apricots and kumquats, making for a very nice and citrusy combination.

A cup of “mojito.” Sadly it was nonalcoholic and tasted like syrup. I was not a fan, but it definitely put me in the mood for moving onto the dessert!

I went a little crazy at the dessert table, but aside from the fresh peaches, nothing really stood out. The chocolates (above the peaches) were nice but nothing special, the citrus jelly was refreshing, and the cheesecake bar was satisfying. The cookie (the swirly shaped time on the bottom right) and the heart-shaped chocolate were forgettable. The green tea macaroon and the strawberry roll cake were pretty terrible though. I am generally not a dessert person, however, although I have a soft spot for ice cream and sorbets. For those who really love desserts, especially with the sweetness dialed up, the dessert table would not disappoint. (I am also going to point out that I generally do not like cake, so I did not pick up any of the cake options.)

The Buffet Pavilion at the 63 Building is definitely worth at least a one-time experience. The Healing Foods special menu, especially, made for a really interesting experience and I would definitely be interested in going back to try more of their rotating menus. Since the restaurant is also quite expensive and is a great spot for dating, apparently the restaurant is popular for celebrities as well. I cannot remember the names of the people we saw, but my partner quite excitedly pointed out some famous entertainers that he saw dining out behind us! My attention was caught briefly, but I was already eyeing what I wanted to eat next.

I was seeing stars not just from overeating but literally on the beautiful skylight as well.

Chuseok (추석) is a major holiday in South Korea; this year the holiday fell on September 8th. Chuseok celebrates the harvest and is referred to as “Korean Thanksgiving” and is similar to other harvest festivals that follow the lunar calendar, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, zhongqie jie). It is seen as a time to spend with family and so people usually leave the major cities (such as Seoul) to go back to their hometowns to spend time with their families. This Chuseok, I had the pleasure of spending time with my partner’s family.

We ended up eating out on Chuseok day itself and to an amazing restaurant, both in taste and in the amount of food! The restaurant is large and spacious. The name is 황도 바지락 칼국수 (Huangdo pajirak kalguksu…I’m not sure if this is the right romanization, so please correct me if I’m wrong…I’m still terrible at translating Korean sounds ㅠㅠ).

Once we got inside and ordered our main dish (칼국수, kalguksu), we headed over to the self-serve bar, which consisted of do-it-yourself “barley meal” (보리밥 boribap). I haven’t have known how to assemble the dish on my own, but turns out it’s pretty simple! Take a scoop of barley, a dabbling of gochujang, and a dash of sesame oil. Add in some 열무김치 (young radish kimchi) and mix a la bibimbap!

This proved to be a great starter to whet our appetites, but if I had known the size of the main dish, I would have been a little more careful about the amount of boribap I ate!

It’s extremely difficult to really see the scale of this bowl from the picture, but it was the size of a small tub. In fact, it is probably the same size as my laundry bucket! I was informed that this is the 3-person-sized bowl (we had 4 people with us) so I am a little nervous to even think about how big this soup can get. Eating noodles from a tub was definitely an interesting experience…

Here is a picture of my (normal-sized) bowl. I was amazed by this dish…the broth is so light and tasted wonderfully of clam broth. It brought me right back to my New England roots! The clams weren’t super exciting, but they were addicting to eat, although I have to admit that I liked the broth more than the actual clams. The noodles were wonderfully cooked and had a nice chew to it and did not get soggy even after I went back for thirds! I got full fast though because I ended up gulping so much of the broth! This was an amazingly delicious restaurant and spending the holiday with my partner’s family was very nice, especially since I don’t have my own family here in Seoul with me.

There are so many Korean dishes that I have never heard of and I look forward to continuing to blog about my eating experiences!

I am obsessed with these doughnuts (or is it spelled donuts?).

I have a mild obsession with doughnuts…as in, once in a while, I will crave them but it’s usually pretty rare. However, after having a bite of this doughnut during a conference at Korea University this summer, I instantly became obsessed and have been craving them ever since. These doughnuts are “mochi doughnuts” and have the same chewy consistency as mochi but a little doughier. It’s like eating super fluffy, chewy, light-as-air dough. The texture kills me. And the chocolate frosting…yum!

I did try a coffee flavored doughnut but it wasn’t as tasty and there is another flavor that is labeled as “olive,” which I have yet to try.

These doughnuts resemble the popular Mister Donut doughnuts and because of their commercials with the little lion that eats its own mane, I call them “moinchy donuts.”

This Dunkin’ Donuts is located in the Pyeongtaek train station, so while waiting to take the train back to Seoul, I usually end up eating one because I just can’t resist the “moinchy” texture.

It has been a little over 2 weeks since I have arrived in Seoul, although it feels alternatively like I’ve only just arrived here and like I have been here for ages! I have to be honest in writing that I still feel homesick at times and that adjusting is a little more difficult when I realize that I’ll be staying in Seoul for a longer time period than just a vacation. I just began Korean language classes and may potentially audit a course with my faculty advisor at Ewha so I think the routine of being a student will help me to feel more settled. Of course, my partner and his family have been so supportive as well and I feel so lucky to have them because otherwise I would be even more of a nervous wreck than I already am! I supposed I should move on to the food though…this time, I am profiling a restaurant that I ate at over the summer with a friend. The restaurant’s name is PLANT and it is located in Itaewon, an area of Seoul that is particularly known for being foreigner-friendly. I knew of the restaurant through the owner’s food blog, Alien’s Day Out, which I had been following for a while! The restaurant is entirely vegan and while I normally am not drawn to vegan restaurants, the food porn on the blog has had me hooked. After a year of being tortured by those amazing photographs, I finally had the opportunity to go to the restaurant and try it. The restaurant is super cute with comfortable cushions on the back wall and despite its small size, it is super cozy and just the embodiment of cute. The chef and blogger’s specialty is desserts, but I found myself drawn more to the savory dishes, but that is solely because I am just now a cake or heavy dessert person. Which is not to say that these desserts weren’t amazing, because they definitely were! It’s just that I would always pick amazing savory foods over amazing desserts! In any case, the food here was simply amazing and definitely lived up to my expectations! We began with some drinks:

Soy milk tea (right) and strawberry lemonade (right)

My lactose-intolerant body was very happy for the soy milk tea. The strawberry lemonade was perfect for a hot and humid Seoul summer. As for the food, this is where I was really blown away. Between my friend and I, we ordered as much of the menu as possible and seeing that there are two savory choices that rotate every day, we got both:

Vegan burrito

Lentil burger salad

I have to admit that my mind is a little fuzzy and I cannot remember what was inside the burrito, but I did manage to take a photograph of the innards: I was blown away by both the burrito and the salad, but between the two, I think the salad stole the day for me. The lentil burger was smothered with a sauce that tasted very similar to a barbecue sauce and it was so rich that I felt as if I was eating a meat burger. I wanted more burgers despite being stuffed. The dressing was amazing as well: it tasted like a Caesar dressing and the little pieces of tofu(?) had the texture of foie gras terrine – smooth, rich, buttery, and just melts in the mouth. YUM. And on top of that, crusty bread. The non-vegan in me craved some butter and salt on top of the bread, but I was happy noshing on the bread on its own. Even though I was full after the feast, we could not skip out on desserts, especially since I have been tantalized by so many photographs of delicious desserts. We had two slices of cake: dark chocolate peanut butter cake and hummingbird cake, which consists of pineapple, banana, and coconut. YUM YUM YUM. I am not a chocolate cake person but I enjoyed this cake, especially that peanut butter frosting. If I could, I would eat an entire jar of it. As for the hummingbird cake, the fruitiness fit my style more and I love the dried bits of fruit inside.

Dark chocolate peanut butter cake

Hummingbird cake

The food was so good that we got some little snacks to take out! We ended up noshing on them a few hours later while lounging on the top of Namsan Tower! My favorite were the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles – it ended up being the most popular among me, my friend, and my partner. The coconut chews were a close second and they tasted like coconut macaroons. The pomegranate cranberry cookie bites received mix reviews, but I liked the tartness of the little cookie. The gluten free lemon drops were not liked by my friend and partner – the taste was described as “weird,” but I still enjoyed them, although I would agree that the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles stole the show. They were perfect though to sustain us after our trek to Namsan through the rain.

High-fiving the Seoul mascot!

Rainy day view

SO much rain

Dear Flavor Boulevard Readers,

It has been a LONG time since I’ve written for FB and I feel terrible! Although I suppose I am lucky just to share space here with the beautiful Mai and her equally gorgeous photography, and I can only hope that my posts contribute to the overall site. Long story short, the main reason why I have been away from the blog is because I was studying for my QEs (qualifying exams) and have been traveling in/around Seoul.

I am finally writing this short post to announce a new segment: Flavor Abroad: Boulevard-ing in Seoul. This announcement goes hand-in-hand with my upcoming move to Seoul, South Korea where I will be spending at least the next 10 months beginning in mid-August for my dissertation research. While I will hopefully explore outside of Seoul, this little space will explore the foods that I ate/have eaten while primarily traveling/living in Seoul! I was also in Seoul this summer for a little over a month, so I have quite a few posts already planned! I am also hoping that the “boulevard-ing” part of this title would also give me an opportunity to share some photographs and stories that are not 100% related to food but will perhaps reflect more generally on the theme of travel. I still will continue to post on restaurants in Berkeley and in my hometown of Connecticut/New York area since I am currently home on break but I will mostly devote my energy and writing on my adventures in Seoul and South Korea.

I am looking forward to beginning this new chapter in my life and while I miss Mai so much in Berkeley, I think that blogging across continents would bring us closer together.

See you all in South Korea!

~ Kristen