Flavor Boulevard

Tag: ice cream

  • Eating in Seoul: Street Foods

      This past June, I spent 10 days in Seoul to do some research and to present my paper at a conference. But of course, I didn’t stop with my food exploration while abroad. I’ll be writing several posts over the next few weeks to document the food adventures that I had in Seoul!

      For this first Seoul post, I’ll cover the street foods that I ate! I regretted not trying as much street food as I could but I’ll profile the foods that I did try! Any suggestions for next time as well are welcome!

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      The first street food that I had in Seoul were these delicious chestnuts right outside of the Anguk Station (I think it was Exit #3). I love roasted chestnuts and these were flavorful and meaty – they have a texture similar to that of a baked potato and are deceptively filling.

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    • Andy Warhol, kokeshi dolls, and oden

        Togamis-dinner-portion-for-one

        In Europe the royalty and the aristocracy used to eat a lot better than the peasants – they weren’t eating the same things at all. It was either partridge or porridge, and each class stuck to its own food. But when Queen Elizabeth came here and President Eisenhower bought her a hot dog I’m sure he felt confident that she couldn’t have had delivered to Buckingham Palace a better hot dog than that one he bought for her for maybe twenty cents at the ballpark. Because there is no better hot dog than a ballpark hot dog. Not for a dollar, not for ten dollars, not for a hundred thousand dollars could she get a better hot dog. She could get one for twenty cents and so could anybody else.
        – Andy Warhol

        Why is that ballpark hot dog the best hot dog? Because the ballpark hot dog seller sells nothing but hot dogs. You can’t beat someone who does it day in and day out, a thousand times and another thousand times more often than you.

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      • One shot: Goma ice outside Ippuku

          ippuku-goma-ice
          The latest addition to my dream house: a wooden platform to put in the garden where we can sit cross-legged, eat, drink tea, lie down while listening to the birds and wind chime. That platform, we call it phảng |fang|, but I don’t know the Japanese or English word for it :-/

          It came about when Kristen and I sat on that wooden thing outside Ippuku tonight. It was outside outside, not a patio sitting, no chairs, no tables, just a platform like a wide bench. We came for their goma ice cream, and the wait for a table was super long so ordering at the bar was the best idea. You’d think it’d be cold, but there was the heater lamp hanging off the roof to warm us. My face was so warm I thought I was gonna get sunburn at 9 pm.

          It was so relaxing. Sit cross-legged, savor sesame ice cream, sesame cracker and a mochi, watch the street and the boys goofing off on it, and be watched by people waiting for a table. Come to think of it, we weren’t any less goofy than those boys. 😀

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        • December, 3 pm – Zut!

            Sometimes you just have to cast away all manners and enjoy a day in town like a tourist. After a few cups at Teance, Kristen and I were famished. As student I’ve gone lunch-less almost daily without problems, but drinking oolong without lunch is definitely the quickest way to wake up the hungry beast in you. We planned on gorging down pancakes at Bette’s across the street but we missed it by 6 minutes (why on earth do they close at 2:30 on a Friday?), so we dashed back to the other side of the street to Zut with exclamation mark and chose an appetizer and two entrees before the waitress could ask what kind of drinks we wanted. This, in our book, was record fast. However, despite our effort, the food didn’t come out fast enough. On a normal day, we would say the appetizer indeed got out in a really reasonable time, but one thumb-sized stuffed squid plus our extreme tea-induced hunger plus the lack of bread commonly served at Western restaurants really brought out the best of us: we stared longingly in the direction of the staff and the kitchen. The waitress caught our eyes.

            Chorizo-stuffed squid ($9) – too expensive, the spinach is good, the sauce is good, tender squid, but the pepperiness of chorizo offsets the savoriness for me.

            The first time she came back: “Do you need something?” Glances exchanged. “No…” *innocent smile* Longing stare continued… The second time she came back: “Would you like some bread with olive oi..” “Yes PLEASE!” *big wide grin* Four slices. Don’t know if they’re good because they’re good or because we were hungry, but they were gone after 2 minutes. More longing stare… This time our waitress intentionally avoided eye contact. We understand, but would we give up? No. Young as we were (we think), we were desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. We waved at another waiter, said, somewhat alarmed at our own temerity: “Could we have some more bread?”

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          • Seven flavors of mochi ice cream


              One very cold Saturday afternoon in Oakland.

              Darren: Normally I don’t like fruit flavored stuff, like watermelon candies you know?
              Mai: Yeah, like cherry candies…
              Darren: But this mango ice cream is really good!
              Mai: It is! I like the green tea the most though, it’s so refreshing. What about you, Kristen?
              Kristen: I usually don’t like strawberry flavors, but this strawberry one is so good…

              Good thing we each had a different favorite.

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            • Miso Omakase at Nojo


                Is it miso season? (Miso has a season?) Berkeley Bowl puts out about 10 different kinds of miso in their “international” aisle, and Nojo advertises a seasonal 5-course miso omakase menu on Black Board Eats. Usually the Black Board Eats emails go straight into the trash, which I kinda feel bad about because I signed up for their newsletter after all, but thank goodness I did read it that morning. That night I got the code, called my friend, and we went to Nojo.

                We were seated at the counter, but not the one facing the chefs, that would have been nice, this was a small counter facing the wall near the door. The wall looks pretty cool but we felt kinda weird at first, what with the other customers crowding the tables and here the three of us facing a wall next to a middle-aged man. We felt outcast. But Nojo doesn’t take reservation for party under 6, only a phone call an hour before you arrive to put your name on the waiting list, guess I should have called more than an hour earlier, what was I thinking following the rules? But the servers, inked and all, are really nice, the water was clear and sweet, the sunflowers smelled good, and the middle-aged man left minutes after we sat down.

                And the food.

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              • Revival in Berkeley with fruit jellies

                  Thank you, Kristen Sun, my dear friend who has shared many great meals with me in Berkeley and definitely many more in the future, for sharing a post here with us today 🙂


                  Halfway through our meal, Mai and I turned to each other and we agreed, “I’m not that full yet” and “I can still eat more.” This was after a small plate of charcuterie (which wasn’t that small) and two small plates, which again, were not that small. It solved, however, the main question that had been bugging us since we arrived at the restaurant: which entrees should we get? And if we get more than one entree, could we still do dessert? Turns out indecision works very well at this restaurant; sampling the diverse offerings of the menu is definitely the way to go! Eating with Mai is always a treat – for the mind and for the stomach! Thank you Mai for the great honor of being a guest blogger for Flavor Bouvelard!

                  Simply put, Revival Bar & Kitchen, located right in the middle of Downtown Berkeley, is gorgeous. The tall ceiling, the rustic decor, the feeling of open space, and best of all, a bookshelf tucked away in the corner, give Revival a unique feel. The tables were just the appropriate width apart when it comes to having good conversation with two women who bonded with Mai over their travels to Vietnam, and perhaps a tad bit too close when we overheard a man speaking unkindly about his (absent) girlfriend to another friend. But let’s speak of the food…


                  When we received our menus, right away our eyes landed on the charcuterie section, which consisted of fresh ham, duck liver mousse, coppa di testa (headcheese), and smoked duck breast ($8 for an individual plate, $18 for a small plate of all charcuterie, and $26 for a large plate of all charcuterie). The fresh ham and the smoked duck, while delicious, were not particularly unique in any way. The coppa di testa… now this is something interesting. It was my first taste of headcheese, so I went in without any expectations. It’s sour and leaves a slight fizzy aftertaste like a soda. It also is very fragile; it is not quite a cold cut but not quite a pate either… it had a very weird “saucy” consistency, which Mai found to be weird as well compared to the headcheese that she is accustomed to! The duck liver mousse was our favorite meat on the plate; the texture is rich and smooth and the taste just strong enough without being overpowering. This plate was definitely fun, as we could combine all the different meats with the sides (raspberry jelly, pickles, and mustard) in as many different combinations as we wished, each bite yielding a new combination of flavors. We both agreed that the real standout on the plate, however, was the raspberry marmalade. In fact, as we would soon discover, the one thing that Revival really excels
                  at are its fruit jellies.

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                • Ice cream friendly


                    Aside from opening a little bit late on Sunday (11:30 am), the Tokyo One at Westchase is a lovely place. Three things that I have now associated with Tokyo One, although I probably shouldn’t, since they kinda belong to the ukiyo (floating world) more than to the permanents:
                    1. A beautiful peach-colored water lily in the mini pond creek artificial water thing surrounding the building
                    2. Perfect silky chawanmushi (pictured)
                    3. The gentle (the gentlest I’ve ever heard) but persistent recommendation of Sean, our server, for ice cream. We were full to the brim, but I gave in after he asked us for the second time if we would like some ice cream (as if I could ever turn down icecream 8)). I’m happy that he insisted, the plum ice cream with plum bits was great, and green tea ice cream is always good. We finished two scoops, Sean came back and asked if we’d like some more. Honest to goodness, I wanted to say yes.

                    Address: Tokyo One at Westchase
                    2938 W Sam Houston Pkwy South
                    Houston, TX 77042
                    (713) 785-8899
                    Buffet lunch for three: $51.93
                    Ah, food-wise? Good tempura, good gyoza, good fish, good rice, etc.

                  • Ice cream and potato chips


                      – 2 scoops Dreyer’s Double Fudge Brownie ice cream
                      – 1 scoop Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia froyo
                      – A handful of potato chips
                      Use the potato chips to scoop the ice cream. They may break, in which case lick your finger and get a spoon.

                    • one bite: Miyuki sweet


                        Who goes to a sushi and donburi house to get dessert? Me. It got it all. Tropical, fried, icecreamy, salty, nutty, fruity. It’s the dessert of Miyuki.

                        Miyuki sweet: eggroll filled with banana and pine nut to pair with vanilla and mango ice cream. Ah, and a dash of chocolate syrup, of course.

                        Address: Miyuki
                        1695 Solano Avenue
                        Berkeley, CA 94707
                        (510) 524-1286

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