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!

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

This restaurant…

The plus: 1. their steamed dumplings, despite being stuffed with 95% tofu and 5% unidentifiable substance (probably also tofu, but Cheryl and Eric hoped it was pork, so let’s go with pork), were big and well seasoned; 2. their kimchi seems homemade and tastes fresh.

The minus: well… where should we start…

So, food-wise, things are pretty average (homemade level – neither in the “hole-in-the-wall heaven” kind of thing nor in the trendy meaning that restaurants advertise themselves as these days). We were disappointed, but this is not unusual – we’re so used to being disappointed with average food that we might just be disappointed (with ourselves) if we’re not disappointed. Now, the service is something else. They weren’t outwardly rude, they just maybe discriminated, a little bit.

We were the only non-Korean customers at the time. Cheryl asked for recommendation of a noodle dish, the lady said “we don’t have any noodle now, it’s a summer specialty only” (supposedly referring to the naeng myeon [냉면, cold noodle]). Okay. We ordered oxtail beef soup (꼬리곰탕, ggori gomtang), which came out as a few (I think 5?) pieces of oxtail helplessly drowning in an ocean of broth. Then we looked over at the neighboring tables to see cheerful Koreans (and some hard-to-please-looking old men, also Korean) slurping noodles from exactly the same type of hot stone bowls, containing most certainly also some kind of gomtang. We couldn’t help but wondering. Finally, when another hostess, a girl about our age, came to take our credit card, Cheryl asked what the other Koreans were having and included “so that one comes with noodle?”, the girl, somewhat reluctantly, replied:

– Well, you could have noodles too, if you had asked. We give them noodles so that they feel full.

Um… perhaps we like to feel full, too, don’t you think?

I won’t go over how they left us alone between the time the food arrived and the time we were ready for the check (and after we got the check), that would just be nitpicking. Actually, this isn’t the first time I feel a little discrepancy in service at Korean restaurants. One time at Kang Tong Degi, my non-Korean friend and I were completely ignored while the two Korean girls sitting across from us got all the attention. If you’re going to be nationalist or discriminative, or just have bad service in general, at least make sure that your food is so %^$&!#! good that I’d have to beg for it.

Address: Seoul Gomtang
3801 Telegraph Ave,
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 597-9989
Dinner for 3: $54.37
[Seoul Gomtang specializes in soups (탕, tang), and if you’re lucky (or Korean), you’ll get some noodles in the soup too, a type of white, round and thick wheat noodle (곰국수, gomguksu). Kimchi juice or pepper paste should be added to the soup to taste, or you can eat the soup like I do  – not adding anything at all – and just taste an ABSOLUTELY bland but fatty broth, the way Korean tangs always are. (I come to appreciate that blandness after some time.) The banchan are limited to napa cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi and cucumber kimchi, all of which taste milder than they look.]

Yangzhou fried rice, kimchi fried rice, chicken and salt cod fried rice, whatever-that’s-in-your-refrigerator fried rice…I love it all. Fried rice is the ultimate comfort food – it’s filling, healthy-ish (if you put in a lot of vegetables), and just hits the spot every time. Perhaps the best thing about fried rice is how easy it is to make at home!

As someone who is still really learning how to cook, trying out a new recipe usually means that I’ll be spending anywhere from 30min – 2 hours in the kitchen (actually sometimes it takes me 30min just to prep everything because of my lack of knife skills). So for me, when I want a quick meal because I need to get back to reading or studying, or just because I don’t feel like devoting that much time to cooking, my go-to is always making fried rice. It usually takes me 15-20 minutes to cook fried rice at the most and while it probably is not the healthiest meal to eat every day, I usually end up making some kind of stir fry or fried rice at least 3-4 times a week because of how easy it is. Also, since fried rice is by nature something that requires the usage of pantry ingredients, I never have to worry about buying fancy ingredients.

Here’s my very simple kimchi and spam fried rice recipe! It’s spicy, sweet, and salty and takes about 20 minutes altogether to make from prep to cooking (and probably 10 minutes for washing up afterwards or less if you eat straight from the pan, which I do sometimes when I’m lazy).

Spam and Kimchi Fried Rice Recipe – serves 2

I’ve made this recipe countless times and I’ve gotten to the point where I can probably do it in my sleep. I don’t have a source for this recipe since I’ve based the taste off of the kimchi fried rice from Kimchi Garden and then the more I made it the more I changed it to suit my taste. I tend to not follow recipes very well and work mostly from look and taste, so my measurements may not be entirely accurate and may not suit everyone’s taste, so some adjusting may be needed depending on how spicy, sweet, sesame oily, kimchi-y, etc. tasting you want it.

Ingredients:

• Rice: 1 cup (My rice cooker makes 2 cups and I usually take half of that for 2 people. Also, I tend to use fresh rice more than refrigerated rice and never really noticed that much of a difference, but maybe it’s because I prefer my fried rice to still be a little sticky.)
• Kimchi: About 2 cups roughly chopped kimchi or enough to suit your taste.
• Spam: 1/3 of a block of Spam, diced
• 2 teaspoons toasted (or regular) sesame oil (1 for initial stir-frying, 1 for finishing)
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar or regular sugar (use less or more depending how much kimchi you use)
• 1 tablespoon gochujang (more or less depending on how spicy you like it – 1 tablespoon makes for a *pretty* spicy fried rice)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon olive oil (or any kind of oil, including sesame) for the eggs

Instructions:

1. Heat up 1 teaspoon of sesame oil over medium high in a relatively large frying pan or wok. I always prefer woks instead of pans because when I flip over the rice with my spatula, it doesn’t fall over the sides.
2. When oil starts to crackle a little, put 2 cups of kimchi and diced Spam into wok. Stir-fry, making sure that nothing is burning (adjust heat if necessary to medium).
3. When the kimchi begins to release some liquid and starts turning a little translucent, add in a teaspoon of brown sugar. A caramel-y thick sauce should start forming with the kimchi liquid. Stir-fry a bit longer (about 3-5 min) until Spam starts browning a bit.
4. When the kimchi and Spam look like they’re cooked enough to eat on its own, add the rice in. Break  up clumps of rice with spatula and mix thoroughly. Leave some of the rice at the button to get it a little burned or crispy if you like it (it’s my favorite!). If not, keep on stirring!
5. Add in tablespoon of gochujang and mix thoroughly so that it distributes evenly. It’s a thick sauce so it may take quite a bit of stirring before it’s fully incorporated. (Usually this process from when you add the rice to fully incorporating the gochujang takes about 5-7 min.)
6. The mixture will probably be looking a little dry, so add another teaspoon of sesame oil and mix thoroughly. Set burner to “warm” or remove from heat.
7. In another pan, add a teaspoon of sesame oil or regular olive oil. Crack 1 or 2 eggs and cook like you would normally to whatever level of doneness you prefer. (I make sunny-side-up fried eggs by cooking for about ~2 minutes on medium high heat and then ~2-3 minutes on medium low with a lid.)
8. Place egg on top of fried rice and you’re ready to eat!

Kimchi fried rice is the best~

When I wasn’t presenting at my conference in Seoul, we were eating, eating, eating! I learned that it is pretty typical to have a table covered entirely with food and drinks until there’s literally no space left so dishes started piling upon each other! It’s definitely the best way to eat in my opinion! Rather than writing a detailed post about each of the dishes I ate, I’ll showcase the food itself by displaying the photographs I took with little captions. Everyone was wondering why I was so intent on taking pictures of food, but when I’m in a new place and trying new foods, it’s just too hard to resist. This will probably be my last post on eating in Seoul, so I’ll end it with lots of pictures!

Day 1 – Dinner at the Seoul National University Hoam House

Our private room!

I ordered the top option: 한식 스페실 메뉴 [han shik special menu]. It comes with: “seasoned with shrimp, abalone, pear, chestnut,” “Today’s fried food,” “Grilled minced rib,” “Grilled dried yellowtail fish,” “Beef (brisket) and soy bean past stew and rice,” and “Fruits.”

Beautiful silverware! I found myself taking a lot of pictures of silverware.

First course: seasoned with shrimp, abalone, pear, and chestnut. Interesting combo of flavors and textures – chewy and crunchy and each bite had a hint of the ocean. It was interesting since I’ve never tasted these flavors together before!

“Today’s fried food.” This was one of the best pieces of fish I have eaten in Seoul AND in general. The flesh was so flaky and tasty and the skin was perfectly crunchy. There were a lot of bones, but I didn’t mind digging around because the meat was just that good. The highlight of the meal for me!

“Grilled minced rib.” I’m not sure why these burger-type patties are popular at 한식 [han shik] restaurants, which serve multi-course Korean food. I went out to dinner with some friends the weekend before the conference and was also served a beef patty as part of the set meal. This meat was super dry and lacking in flavor. Imagine an overcooked burger patty and this is unfortunately what this dish tasted like.

Grilled dried yellowtail fish. Oh boy…what the menu describes as “dried” is correct. This fish was DRY. Such a disappointment compared to the first fish course! It was cooked to death to the point that it was nearly inedible.

“Beef (brisket) and soy bean paste stew and rice.” It is customary to end these set course meals with stew and rice, rather than eating rice alongside the meal. This was an okay doenjang jjigae…not good, not too great.

Rice!

Day 2 – Lunch at the top of Seoul National University

Walking up a giant hill and so many stairs in Seoul’s hot and humid weather while wearing conference clothes was quite the challenge, but the food at the top was worth it!

I don’t remember the name of the restaurant we ended up at, but I took a picture through the doors. It seemed like it was at the highest spot on the SNU campus!

Banquet hall! (And air conditioning as well.)

I didn’t go for a multi-course menu, but looks like no matter what there are always banchan and appetizers! I love it! One of the banchan was this salad…nothing fancy, just a salad.

More banchan! On the top (from left to right): shellfish (abalone? clam? not sure…), kimchi, and pickled beansprouts. On the front left, tuna – delicious. On the right right, jap chae (noodles), also delicious.

I was debating whether or not I should get kalbi or bulgogi, but I realized that I haven’t yet had bibimbap in Seoul yet! So when I saw the doenjang bibimbap on the menu, I couldn’t resist! This is quite possibly the best bibimbap I’ve ever tasted – the greens were so fresh and delicate and light! But what really made this great was the doenjang paste…

The doenjang bibimbap came with miso soup too (doenjang is made from soybean paste and it tastes similar to miso). This doenjang paste had little pieces of abalone in it, which gave it a more complex salty flavor than regular doenjang. I could have probably eaten an entire tub of this, but I just cleaned my plate instead. It was the perfect entree to eat before a presentation: filling yet didn’t make me feel so grossly stuffed that I’ll feel lethargic.

I think this was a type of 수정과 [su jong gwa] since the predominant taste was that of cinnamon. I’m not sure why or how it got so pink! It was a nice and refreshing palate cleanser and end to the meal though!

Unfortunately I do not remember the name of the restaurant that we ended up eating it, but after a long day of conference presentations, I was definitely excited for food! And there ended up being so much food, I could barely keep track of it all. Literally, dishes were piled on top of dishes because there wasn’t enough space for everything!

The table…we ended up moving to a different room because this one wasn’t big enough, but the table settings and table looked similar enough!

And then the food began and never stopped coming. Jap chae – delicious!

I intended to only take a picture of the salad, but didn’t want to reach across the table since I was already getting funny looks for snapping photos of food! I didn’t end up eating this salad but I can’t imagine that I would have missed anything.

I didn’t get a chance to ask about a lot of the food, so unfortunately I can’t identify everything accurate. The foreground was some type of seafood – oysters maybe? The background is a kimchi!

One of my favorites!!! Pumpkin with jujubes…so sweet and perfectly cooked. I think I ate more of my share of these…I couldn’t get enough of the pumpkins/squashes that I ate while in Seoul!

Broccoli with a gochujang dipping sauce

Fermented skate (홍어 hong uh) with pork belly (삼겹살 samgyeopsal) and kimchi. I had no idea what this was at the time so I just ate it without any hesitation! A few of the other Korean graduate students from UC Berkeley told us that fermented skate is one of the dishes where your family either eats it or is repulsed by it. Since I was coming in with a clean slate, I have to say that it didn’t taste so bad. I’ve never had fermented fish before and with the pork belly and super old kimchi, the taste isn’t quite as strong as I would have thought it to be. On its own though…it’s not that bad either but the aftertaste becomes super pronounced. My mouth became numb (not in a bad way but like I ate an entire stick of mint candy) and that sensation of cooling numbness stuck in my mouth for a while. I definitely would eat it again though!

A close-up of the unidentified seafood dish. Anyone have any idea what this is?

Fried mushrooms. A little oily but super delicious!

Black sesame porridge – more savory than sweet. We each got our own individual bowl. I love black sesame so I enjoyed this a lot!

Sweet sticky rice! As for what’s in the bowl in front, it’s soju!

Anchovies! These are so addicting and yummy…another one of my favorites. I’ve had some chefs describe them as “fries with eyes.”

Another variety of kimchi!

Bulgogi soup. I also ate way more than my fair share of this dish also! The beef itself was delicious, but the broth was so rich and flavorful that I kept on going back for more of the broth! It was meaty, sweet, and savory – the perfect combination of flavors! Definitely one of the best-tasting dishes at this restaurant!

Another type of soup…but I can’t really recall what specifically this is.

Another one of my favorites! Potatoes – sweet and starchy, the best. I did restrain myself with this and only took one, but I wanted to eat all of them and more!

More kimchi! You can never have enough kimchi!

I don’t know what type of fish this was, but it was dry (in a good way) and bony (in a not so good way). I’ve gotten pretty good at eating bony fish while I was in Korea, but I think I ended up eating more bones than meat with this fish…The few pieces of meat that I was able to successfully extract though were delicious!

So much food on the table~

Sashimi

Octopi (the tentacles were not still moving!)

Another type of fish!

Steamed egg…another one of my favorites! So good – I kept on eating more of my fair share of this dish too…

…And more fish! I love fish so I was definitely having the time of my life during this meal. And maybe the raspberry wine and soju and makgeolli helped with that too…

So. Much. Food.

The meal always ends with soup and rice. This is doenjang jjigae (bean paste soup).

…and the accompanying rice. (With raspberry wine in the background)

Of course there is still dessert! 식계 (shikkye) Rice punch! I’m not really a fan of this and I was so stuffed so I only had a little bit.

…And some sujeonggwa (cinnamon punch 수정과). Yum – the perfect refreshing end to the meal!

Overall, I had an amazing time in Seoul and I definitely took advantage of eating as much as I could! The conference eating was super nice and I definitely hope that I get a chance to go back to South Korea soon not only for research/academic purposes, but to eat!

The day before my conference I met up with a friend from college and he suggested we eat at 달식탁 [Dal SSik Tak] since he heard many good things about the restaurant. We agreed to meet at the Sinsa station, which is a short walk away from the restaurant. Sinsa is located south of the Han River, which made it convenient for me because I had a pre-conference dinner at attend by the Seoul National University campus. I also haven’t eaten that much at the more upscale Korean cuisine restaurants because I’ve been mostly traveling on my own, so this was a great opportunity to try more traditional Korean cuisine.

We met up for lunch and the restaurant was completely empty, which was very nice and a little surprising! The interior of the restaurant has some really interesting decor (for outside decor, here are some pictures). There’s nothing like eating next to a giant horse statue in the middle of the room.

I love the chandeliers – they look like little bubbles of caviar! Yum~

The walls also functioned as a art exhibit for Lee Jae-Hyo, who created these awesome canvases from bolts, nails, and wood. Even though the sign said “do not touch,” it is so hard to resist especially when a neat design is sitting right in front of your face!

But now onto the food…we ordered the set meal which came with a soup/stew course, a shared entree course, and tea. I don’t remember the price, but I think it was around 48000 won for two people (~$48 USD) including dessert, which we also ordered.

My friend ordered Doenjang Jjigae, soybean paste stew. (And he’s also taking a picture of it too.)

I don’t remember the name of the soup, but it wasn’t a kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew). I think it was a gochu (spicy pepper) stew.

The stew that I had was one of the best stews I’ve tasted! My friend said that he heard that all of their gochujang and doenjang are freshly made and shipped from the southern part of Korea to this restaurant every morning, which is probably why this stew tasted so good.

For our banchan, we received a lot of fresh vegetables and my favorite, honey potatoes.

We also received (from clockwise) kimchi, kelp chips, dried anchovies, and dollops of those fresh doenjang and gochujang. I was almost tempted to eat both of those sauces on those own – once I dipped and tried a little, I wanted to continue eating them all! The gochujang especially had a great depth of flavor and I could just imagine eating it out of one of those traditional jars…I wish I could find out more about how they make their sauces, but that would have to be for a time when I learn more Korean.

As for the meat, it doesn’t really look that impressive, but this was the best beef I have ever tasted. The delicate little strips were sliced sashimi-thin and eaten together with the chives and lettuce, there was a perfect melding of flavors and textures. The beef also had an intensely smoky, charred, and grilled flavor that I wasn’t expecting just from looking at it. Dipping the beef into the doenjang and gochujang sauces was heavenly as well. When I think back on my trip, this dish is one that I can still remember as a “perfect bite.”

Our tea course – I had the green tea. It wasn’t anything special but it was comforting and soothing to drink after eating a lot of meat!

We debated whether or not to get dessert here or elsewhere, but we decided to try the dessert here. I’m so glad we did because this dish is probably the best dessert I have ever eaten in my life and I am not exaggerating – as good as the beef was, this persimmon sorbet is what makes 달식탁 [Dal Ssik Tak] the best restaurant I’ve been to in Seoul.

The sorbet is thick and tasted almost like a persimmon puree. I’ve never had this strong of a persimmon flavor before and it tasted so fresh! The sorbet is sprinkled with walnuts and pecans and topped with some candied persimmon. Even though I was sharing with someone, I was super tempted to wrestle this bowl away and eat it all myself. Good thing the portion is pretty big! I like to think that I had a Ratatouille moment with this dessert – it was the perfect evocation of summer in Seoul and it reminded me of eating persimmon with my grandparents in their kitchen. I could continue to swoon on and on…

Big thanks to my friend for introducing me to 달식탁 [Dal Ssik Tak]! I definitely have to come back to try this restaurant again! And if I have time, I definitely want to go shopping here as well – there are so many cute stores on the main stretch of road and there’s also a Forever 21 here as well!