Flavor Boulevard

Mom posed a question and I can’t conjure up any adequate answer for her: why does Korean fried chicken only appear in holes in the wall?

Not just a simple hole-in-the-wall thing in a busy strip mall, it has to either stand alone in an empty lot or sit at a shady street corner with iron folding doors and a few rowdy-looking guys smoking outside. Granted that those guys look Korean and the signs are in Korean, which confirms the authenticity of the place, and these are Korean drinking establishments after all. But does it have to be so shady? I want to walk down the street and eat fried chicken late at night sometimes…

The fried chicken bits with green onions at Kang Tong Degi (강통 돼지, which should be pronounced |Kang Tong Twe Jee|) might be good enough to risk it though. Frankly there’s less chicken on that plate than fried batter and green onion, but since when did fried chicken become so refreshing? A squeeze of lemon makes all the difference.

Thanks to Kristen’s mom, we three shared 8 dishes that covered tofu, seafood, chicken, pork and beef, one of them was a portion for two; the guy’s look of concern was funny, he even asked if we were sure. (We had plenty of leftovers of course. Nothing beats eating with moms. ;-)) Although “twe jee” (돼지) means pig or pork, this shack has good but not the best pork dishes. Kwen chan thah, their haemul soondubu (해물 순두부, soft tofu soup with seafood) and haemul pajeon (해물 파전, seafood onion pancake) are top of the game.

The wallpaper and the table arrangement are just too cute.

Address: Kang Tong Degi (강통 돼지)
3702 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 658-2998

Soft tofu soup with shrimp, squid and clam. It looks fierce but tastes just slightly spiky. It was a good warm-up.

Banchan (side dishes). The only place I’ve seen that serves little crunchy shrimps. Yum yum.

Kimchi fried rice. In a moment of joy I dropped my camera head first onto the sunny-side-up, breaking the yolk and clouding my lens. Hence the dreamy look.

Lately I think I’ve reached a wall in terms of Korean food. To be precise, the Korean food that I can get my hands on, i.e., in the Bay and in Houston. Every Korean restaurant here, in strikingly similar manner to Vietnamese restaurants, has the same menu as every other Korean restaurant. The menu may contain a hundred things, but it boils down to maybe ten, with tiny variations.

To be blunt, I’m bragging that I can name practically every dish on a Korean menu in the States. The novelty is gone. Little knowledge is left to obtain. But just as I don’t stop going to Vietnamese eateries altogether, I still like to share a big Korean meal with Mom and Dad. A bubbling jeongol, rice and banchan always give the familiarity that a Western meal cannot.

That said, there are a few things that I’m still not used to, such as the scissors. The lady was cutting up the crabs and octopus with big black scissors. I admit their convenience, but I get the weird feeling that she is cutting flowers. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t eat the crabs because I don’t care for crabs, but I like the octopus. I think I might prefer octopus to squid. The broth is also just right.

The banchan is standard, but they include two fried fish for every order of jeongol. Little Mom likes fried fish. 🙂

The soondubu with tripe and intestine is also nice: soft tofu in contrast with crunchy tripe and chewy intestine. Well, Tofu Village would not live up to its name if its soondubu wasn’t good.

The jajangmyeon is a slight disappointment, compared to the one at Daddy and Daughter‘s in the H-Mart food court. The sauce is not sweet enough. Being served in an inox bowl makes it lose its heat too quickly. The noodles are also too thick.

One thing that I try here without having tried before is the “nutrition rice”, which is blackish purple rice (nếp than) with walnuts, dried jujubes, peanuts, and two yellow nuts whose name I don’t know. I like white rice because like water, white rice keeps your palates clean for the other dishes, but not only is this nut-mixed rice fun to eat, it also deems the mackerel and the kimchi unnecessary.

The biggest identifier of Tofu Village must be the celebrity posters on the wall. At least that’s how Aaron and I knew that we were talking about the same Korean restaurant when he mentioned that his group has a new place to frequent. Would I frequent it myself? The name “Tofu Village” does sound a little Americanized, and I can’t say that everything I ordered was stellar, but to be fair, what I ordered were not the common dishes that people order at a Korean restaurant here. Naturally, the chefs would be more comfortable with what they expect the customers to get. So next time I’ll get something more standard, with tofu. 😉

Address: Tofu Village (두부 촌)
9889 Bellaire Blvd #303
Houston, TX 77036

Nothing beats mom’s cooking. Things may come close, or they may be enchantingly as good as mom’s cooking albeit in some different way, but nothing can top a familiar taste that you grew up with, when you’re fed with love. Remember how Ego dropped his pen and dived into Remy’s ratatouille dish upon recalling the aromatic smell of his mother’s boiling pot? In episode 5 of Gourmet, tears of joy wet the eyes of a renowned food critic as he savored a bowl of  boodae jjigae (부대 찌개), the kind his mother used to make for all poor children in the village and the taste he has longed for in several decades. The concept is universal: mom’s cooking is the best. Lately I’ve been steering away from Vietnamese restaurants, not because they aren’t good, but because  my mom makes better. So I seek out to the food my mom has never made, yet a part in me still wants a sense of home.  And what’s more home-like than the thin, ruffled floral cotton cushion pads loosely tied to some wooden chairs?

Korean food always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I’m not talking about the chili heat and the bubbling sizzling dolsot and the oksusu cha (옥수수 차), even if that’s part of the reason. If you take off the tongue-torching taste, Korean food is actually very similar to some Northern Vietnamese food, especially the soups and the stir fries. Neither cuisines go down the slippery slope of lard overdose or drown the plates in curry sauces and coconut milk, and both embrace a sweet-savory harmony topping a lot of rice.

But above all, it’s the feel of a Korean restaurant that charms me. It always feels slow. Even if it’s like OB Chicken Town, where the lone waiter has to rush between tables, love songs blast all around, basketball players run across the big TV screen, time still goes by slowly at that wooden table where you’re sitting.  Time swirls around in the tea cup. Time lingers like the steam above your dark stone bowl. Time precipitates in each little morsel of banchan that you get served a few minutes after placing your order. Maybe it feels slow because you don’t have to rush shoving food into your mouth, or clearing the table so that the later course can come. It feels slow just like eating at home, when each dinner would take hours because I talked to my mom instead of eating.

So I feel happy at every Korean restaurant I’ve been to, with every Korean dish I’ve tried. I feel happy at Sahn Maru (산 마루) in Oakland. This chulpan bulgogi (출판 불고기) is another pleasant find. I like my choice of mild sauce because the lack of chili paste lets other flavors flourish, but you can choose spicy. The ddeokbokki (떡볶기) is a playful texture that could be done without, while the cellophane noodle buried under a mountain of beef and soaked in marinade is just too great.

On the hot side we have bubbling soondubu jjigae (순도부 찌개). The soft tofu is creamy like scrambled eggs. Pour a few spoons on top of rice, mix it up. You won’t notice the meat, and the meat is totally dispensable. This stew is good because of the fish sauce, the heat, and the creamy tofu.

At the end, the bill gets served with a cup of  cold sujeonggwa (수정과). I’m not a fan of  cinnamon, but anything sweet and cold just cleanses the throat so nicely. There was no dried persimmon, though.

And I would have said that Sahn Maru was another pleasant experience. But something among the banchan (반찬) makes me change my mind.

The dried anchovies. I’ve had the other things before, odeng bokkeum (오뎅볶음 fried fish cake), buchu jeon (부추전 chive pancake), kimchis, nokdumuk (녹두묵 mungbean jelly), but this is the first time I have myulchi bokkeum (멸치 볶음), stir fried dried anchovies with heads intact. Whatever little flesh the fish used to have has crystallized into tiny perfections of salty sweetness. The fish taste like candied orange peel. I just can’t get enough of it.

Because of the anchovies, Sahn Maru is not just another pleasant experience. Sahn Maru is a place I will visit and revisit, even if it costs a notch above all other Korean diners I’ve come to like.

Those little fish provoke memories of my mom’s ca kho tieu.

See more pictures of Sahn Maru’s dishes at my web album Photon Flavors.
Address: Sahn Maru Korean BBQ
4315 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 653-3366

Dining dollars: chulpan bulgogi ($20.95) + soft tofu soup ($11.95) + tax = $36.10
UPDATE: We have also tried a variety of other dishes here, from the usual dolsot bibimbap, japchae, seafood pancake and kalbi tang to the less-known bibimnaengmyun (비빔 냉면, cold buckwheat noodle), joki gui (조기 구이, fried king fish), and duehji kamjajim (돼지 감자찜, braised pork in mild chili sauce with dates and sweet potato). So far, all of them are the best of their kind. 🙂