Flavor Boulevard

We were looking for a get-together location on New Year’s Eve, when we decided that since both of our families like Korean food, it’d be good to let Ms Baker try it for the first time too. Houston’s West side houses many a place for a good bulgogi, concentrating on the section of Long Point that’s sandwiched between Gessner and Blalock, but we set our mind on Korea Garden. Half of us had been here several times, and we didn’t want any adventure on Ms Baker’s first impression, she’s a conservative. 🙂

It turned out her very first impression was curiosity: how did they manage to section 7 equal slices of the haemul pajeon (해물 바전)? It was a good jeon, however lay on the soggy side if compared to pancakes at Secret Garden and Casserole House. The banchan selection included some of our favorites: potato, seaweed, and sliced eomuk (어묵), although none appealed to the Americans at the table. The kimchis had quite a bit of chili, though.

So did the dak bokgeum (닭 볶 음 stir-fried chicken) that my dad fell for. That sneaky heat wouldn’t hit you right away.  Only half way through the heap of bird and veggie did he  turn to my mom and me with a tilted smile and a slight head shake: too spicy.

My mom and I knew better than ordering something with a chili pepper sign. So for soups we went. Her a gook bab (국밥 rice and sliced beef in warm beef broth), that was almost too bland.

And me a mandoo gook (만두국 dumpling soup), sweet and delicate but not really a tongue catcher.

The other side of the table ordered their regular bulgogi (불고기) and bulgalbi (불갈비), something that would never go wrong,

and a side of fried mandoo (만두), which looked irresistibly crunchy.

The staff was sweet, like this lady who mixed bibimbap (비빔밥) at amazing speed. Her wrist spun like a cotton candy machine. I don’t know how Ms Baker knew that dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비뱜밥) is what a first timer should get, of if she knew, but I took it as a good sign that she scooped every last grain of rice.

So here we sat in a room sectioned off from the others by shoji screens and chatted from 7:15 to 9:30 about all things from Jerry Brown to TiVo. We must have been the second to last to leave Korea Garden that night. Ms Baker’s first impression of Korean food was heartily filled with laughters. The price was hefty, as most Korean dinners are, but the family bonding between friends is priceless.

Address: Korea Garden Restaurant
9501 Long Point Rd, Ste. Z
Houston, TX 77055
(713) 468-2800
www.koreagardenhouston.com

Dinner for seven: $157.88

The one thing you can be certain about when you go to Korean restaurants, regardless of their size and price and menu, is that you will always get full. I’ve never been to a Korean restaurant where I think “hmm, maybe I have room for some more” when I leave. Korean restaurants always give you big portions, and on top of that, there is the banchan (반찬).  When you sit down all starving because of the steaming broth or the grilled meat smoke from nearby tables, the banchan is the first thing to nibble on and ebb the hunger. You can either get a lot of coleslaw and dongchimi (동치미, pickled white radish in this case), or an array of little bitty plates that look too colorfully appetizing to disturb. Naturally, the size of your bill corresponds to the variety you can sample. And the biggest sample of banchan I’ve had so far is at Sura.

Here’s what to prepare your tummy for when you’re at Sura: 1 starter, 18 side dishes,  whatever you actually order (which comes with either brown rice or white rice), 1 dessert. If you order gogi gui (고기구 이barbecue), then you also get a heap of lettuce to wrap. If that’s not enough, you can ask for more side dishes. So let us begin.

Starter: gaeran jim (계란찜 steamed egg) in a dolsot (돌솥), still bubbly when brought out. It’s really mild, bland even, with dots of green onions and an airy texture.

Starter: a small ladle of thin juk (죽 rice porridge) with vegetable bits. Also very mild.

And here comes the banchan. There’s the usual stuff: tomato, broccoli, bok choy kimchi, oisobakki (오이소빅이 cucumber kimchi), ggakdugi (깍두기 radish kimchi), kongnamul (콩나물 boiled and seasoned soybean sprouts), pajeon (바전green onion pancake)…

… odaeng (오뎅 stir fried sweet fish cake), japchae (삽채 stir fried cellophane noodles), baechu kimchi (napa cabbage), sliced kohlrabi (the pink thing) and cabbage (the purple thing)…

… tofu, cauliflower, spinach, kongjaban (콩자반 sweet black beans), kaji kimchi (가지 김치 eggplant kimchi), and chwinamul (취나물 a crunchy stir fried leaf vegetable)…

… potato,  sweet potato, fried chicken bits, and muk (묵 jelly). (Mudpie *really* liked the chicken and the potatoes.) Now, most of these side dishes didn’t set off any fireworks for me, the japchae was even a bit dull, but there were some BIG exceptions:

This is Carrot. AMAZING. AMAZING. AMAZING. Somehow it is sweet like honey and chewy like dried apricot. If I could have carrots like this everyday, I’d love carrots a lot more than I do now.

This is Clueless. On the left is something similar to the carrots, but a lot more dried-fruity, like a dried persimmon. The texture is denser and crispier, but it could just have been an older batch of carrots, who knows. On the right is some dried leafy thing dried kelp (dashima (다시마) in Korean, or kombu in Japanese), which was crunchy like Pringle’s chips, dusted with crystals of sugar and salt. When microwaved, it gets soggy and similar to chwinamul but I have no idea what kind of leaf it is.

Get on with the main course.

Doenjang samgyeopsal (삼겹살) – grilled pork belly with soybean paste ~ $18. Mudpie felt uneasy with the fatty layer, but really it wasn’t fatty fat, it’s crunchy fat, just like skin. The doenjang (된장 fermented soybean paste) has a distinctive flavor, and is most like the Vietnamese chao.

Jogi gui (조기구이) – grilled “king fish” on the menu ~ $18, Google says it can be either yellow corvina or yellow croaker, and I’m no ichthyologist to tell the difference. Look at those teeth. The head was hard and not so fun to eat (very little brain, and I suppose grilling drained all the liquid away), but the body was well seasoned and perfectly crisp. Have fun picking out the bones.

Bulgogi (불고기) – good old barbecue ~ $25 each. The one on the left is marinated in a sweet mushroom-onion sauce, while that on the right is green tea bulgogi with, naturally, a delicate herbal, grassy taste. The meat came with doenjang, chilipepper, and garlic, but I didn’t include any of those in my lettuce wraps.

And finally, complimentary dessert of the house is either green tea ice cream or shikhye (식혜) (sweet rice punch):

Lovely both.

I should add that this place has a huge menu, with inviting names like ginseng chicken soup (samgyetang (삼계탕)) and crab stew (kkotge jiggae (꽃계찌개)). The bill is wholesome too, of course, but it feels all better when the friendly staff smiles at you with the most soothing, genuine smile in their single-lidded eyes.

Address: Sura (Nulbom Korean Cuisine) (수라)
4869 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 654-9292

The cold weather kicked in. When wind and rain hit your window panes, jackets start dominating your closet, and colorful scarves make their presence at every clothing store, what is the first thing in your mind? A cozy snug-up with a book, maybe dreamy smoke rising up from a mug of hot chocolate, or early Christmas shopping? Ever since a friend took me to this Korean dine-in, it has become the Call of the Wild Tummy on wintry days.

Telegraph avenue is a busy street. Tents set up on both sides with multitudes of youngster jewelries, flashy windows with vintage clothes, beggars with voice stronger than a football coach… But there is one wooden door that looks so humble it stood out amidst the restless noise.

I like Berkel Berkel because of its wooden doors, its dimly lit interior, its young customers gathering quietly around small tables, the unadorned facileness, and the affable host (dressed in white in the picture below). No matter how cold it is outside, once you’re in here, you’re warmed up by the familiarity. Wrapping my hands around a cup of oksusu cha, I felt at home.

The menu is simple and basic. Barbecue meat (bulgogi), rice with eggs and mixed veggies (bibimbap), soups; if my memory serves me right, everything comes with a choice of beef, pork, chicken, or vegetarian. I’ve only tried bulgogi and dolsot bibimbap here. (It was the first dolsot bibimbap I had since reading about it in Noodlepie. The other two Korean restaurants near campus don’t serve bibimbap in a sizzling stone bowl, a dolsot, hence deprive both the rice and the rice eater half the fun.)

Although I’m not a big fan of veggies, their beautiful assortment makes a dainty remark on my prejudice, and thankfully the pickled sourness and gochujang’s subtle triggering were anything but plain. Gochujang (chili paste), except for being crimson red and spicy, tastes a lot like the Vietnamese chao; naturally, since they are both made from aged fermented soybean paste, or tofu.

An all-mixed-up bowl looks like this. Spinach, bean sprout, carrots, cucumber, lettuce, egg, sesame oil, stir-fried beef, chili paste, my mouth is watering as I’m writing this. Korean spiciness goes with a piquant sourness, distinguishing itself from Mexican’s forward plainness, Thai’s fruity sweetness, or Indian’s peppery pungency.

Forget about manners, I made a tower consisting of a square of beef, a piece of baechu (Chinese cabbage) kimchi, and a slice of pickled cucumber on a spoonful of rice. Korean rice is noticeably moister than Vietnamese rice, so stuffing that monstrous pile into my mouth wasn’t too hard, the rice didn’t fall apart. The hand can only write of so many poetic remarks before the brain is flooded with images and tastes relived, too fast to be organized, so I will now simply list other good things here: excellent salad dressing, lingering corn tea, free unlimited banchan (kimchi, cucumber, and sweet black beans), and most importantly, student’s-pocket-friendly price (under $10/dish, confirmed by my students).

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

Also read: Second visit at Berkel Berkel

Note to self: next time grocery shopping, look for corn tea. Do they sell those at stores, though?

Korean movie series are my soju. It’s for celebration, depression, even seeking motivation. I got motivated to learn Korean and to try Korean food. I made a couple of attempts in College Station, but it’s not a good idea to judge Korean cuisine from a local Chinese restaurant. The urge to understand why their food looks so appealing in movies overtook the resistance against chili pepper. So we went to Bellaire the first weekend I got home, to a Korean buffet.

Korean Garden Grille has a spacious feel (again, something of Texas that I will miss). I made a point to sample everything, and I almost accomplished my goal. I tried “beef seaweed soup” (no beef was visible, so I assume it was beef flavored seaweed soup?), 11 kinds of kimchi (not knowing most of the Korean names nor the veggie names), bulgogi, japchae (stirfried cellophane noodle), 7 kinds of fried egg/veggie (again, not knowing either the Korean names or the veggie names). The kimchi was mostly sour (a little more sour than pickled daikon and carrots, not as salty as pickles, much less aggressive on the back of the throat than the French pickled cornichon).

Above image: From left to right, first row: napa cabbage (wombok/baechu/cải bách thảo), don’t-know, don’t-know radish, bean sprouts; second row: not-sure seaweed, daikon-maybe? kohlrabi, no-idea. I tried a couple of angry-looking-red-peppered kimchi the angry-looking red-peppered odeng (first thing in the image below), but they weren’t too spicy (well, at least not in small quantities), the fried octopus (red, bottom right) was quite tongue-catching actually.

I finished a half mini-bowl of rice with just one piece of those. Now I’ve never been to a Korean restaurant before nor have I any Korean friends, so I’m just judging from the Korean movies I’ve watched: this place is typical Korean, rice is plentiful and brought out at the beginning (just like water), since (again, movie trivia) Koreans consider good eats cannot be without rice.

It’s also nice that the place has a grill at the table, and we can sizzle as much meat and shrimp as we want. Spicy smoke, fatty sound, savory emanation. Right next to a plate of fresh green-leaf lettuce (that’s right, not iceberg lettuce).

The meat is a little sweet, which is perfect. I am never a fan of eating uncooked veggie with cooked food. I think putting fresh bean sprouts into a bowl of hot phở is hideous, the textures just don’t cooperate. But nothing beats a lettuce wrap with beautifully-browned, well-cooked, well-seasoned meat inside. It’s marvelous. Although busy gorging I was, I also watched the Korean hostess got herself a plate: she wrapped a spoonful of rice and a piece of meat inside a lettuce leaf, making it the size of a tennis ball, and put the whole thing in her mouth at once. Now that is skill.

Fried veggie and egg. Beside the obviously must-be egg, I could pick out squash, but that was about it. Barely seasoned. No oil streaming out as I took a bite. They were all tasty appetizers.

The seaweed soup is warm and slender, almost like refreshment. Little mom preferred the daikon soup. Many thumbs up. I will definitely try more Korean food. Now, for spice-inclined diners, the taste might be a little too plain (except the kimchi) compared to other Asian cuisines, and it seems like not much salt was used. Cost: about $60 for 3 people. Sure, this is much higher than Chinese buffet, a notch above Kim Son Vietnamese buffet, but the quality is well worth it. I have proof.

UPDATE (July 2010): This restaurant is now closed, replaced by Saigon Buffet (opened May 2011).