Posted by Steve Ward

Steve Ward has been living in Seoul for nearly five years now and has dabbled in many different hobbies and types of work in that time. SteveWard.TV is the homepage of his official online presence.

My experimenting with Google maps continues to grow! This time it’s an interactive map of Korea’s ethnic restaurants with an emphasis on good Mexican food.

Mexican food in Seoul has seen a recent explosion. I remember a few years ago when the best Seoulites could do is get their hands on some salsa and tortillas at Costco and improvise their own taco nights at home. Well, my oh my, how things have changed.

I tried several times to embed the map here but for some reason the code for the map isn’t playing nice with the Zenkimchi code, so you’ll have to go to my personal blog, or go directly to the map.

Posted by Grace Meng

Flushing, New York is easily disorienting.  It may not be the most ethnically diverse town in the borough of Queens, but it’s definitely one of them.  The sidewalks of downtown Flushing are nearly as packed as in Times Square, with people shopping for durian fruit and eating $1 Peking duck buns.  The dominant Asian ethnicities are obviously Chinese and Korean, except that doesn’t begin to describe who is actually living, working, and cooking in Flushing.  Within blocks, sometimes within a few feet, you can move from Taipei to Chengdu to Hong Kong.

And this past weekend, I ate food from the border between China and North Korea.  Some of what I ate reminded me of Korean food.  Some of what I ate reminded me of Chinese food.  None of it was like anything I had tasted before.

명찬동, pronounced “Myung Chan Dong,” can be found at 36-24 Union St., just south of Northern Boulevard.  The name of the restaurant is written in Korean and Chinese; it’s been written up elsewhere in English as “Ming Chan Dong.”  The outside of the restaurant is plastered with Korean letters advertising things like chive dumplings and boiled dumplings.  The windows are filled with giant buns stuffed with kimchi.  The dough is similar to the kind in Korean “wang mandu” or “giant dumplings,” but with pleating more intense than anything I’ve ever seen in Korea.  (One food writer says it’s like a Klingon forehead.)

Inside, the signs on the walls sport mainly Korean writing—you can get sundubu or spicy soft tofu stew, or sundae, Korean blood sausage stuffed with vermicelli.  At least that’s what I know those words to mean, but since I didn’t order these dishes, I’m not sure that’s exactly what I would get.  The menu is entirely in Chinese and Korean, no English, but not every Chinese dish is translated into Korean.  The waitress greeted us in Chinese, but when I said I was Korean, she switched easily and smoothly into Korean.  Then when she realized my friend Jerome speaks Chinese, she alternated between the two, looking back and forth at us.  (Alex and Salley, who are ethnically half-Chinese and Korean, respectively, understood nothing but ate everything.)  The only other people who came into the restaurant that day were obviously Korean.  I heard one of them order cheonggukjang, which is an especially smelly and intense version of doenjang or Korean soybean paste, that has fermented to the point it tastes like cheese.

And yet, nothing we ate that day was Korean.  Actually, we were served four side dishes of spicy pickles that were very, very, very similar to kimchi.  But otherwise, nothing we ate was remotely Korean or even Korean-Chinese, that sub-cuisine that Koreans love and own as much as Americans love and own pizza.

The first dish to arrive was pork in a sauce similar to jjajiang or black bean sauce, on a bed of freshly shredded scallions, that we were supposed to eat wrapped in paper-thin slices of warm tofu.

Judging from the translation of the menu provided by Lau on Chowhound, I think it was the “jing jiang rou shi,” which Lau describes as “shredded meat in Beijing sauce.”  I don’t know what “Beijing sauce” means.  I only know that it was absolutely delicious.  The sauce was slightly sweet, just enough to notice but not enough to be cloying.  The tofu was firm but flexible, and wrapping it around the meat was almost as much fun as eating it.

Because we were planning to eat at two more places that day, I asked her to recommend a vegetable dish.  She suggested eggplant sauteed in garlic, but what we got was so much more.  The eggplant was cut into thick, long pieces, almost like French fries.  It was coated in egg then fried, so that the inside was creamy and the outside crisp, even when tossed in garlic sauce.  The texture, especially with the crunchy-tender wood ear mushrooms, was as surprising and exciting as any dish created by a molecular gastronomist.  We found out from the waitress that the dish was “yuhsiang” (translated by Chowhound Lau as “yu xiang qie zi”).  Jerome said it’s a very common style of cooking, just one step up from “bulletproof Chinese,” but like us, he had never eaten anything like this before.

We also tried one of the giant kimchi buns, which to me tasted dry and not very memorable, but was at least really fun to look at.

My initial reason for wanting to go to this restaurant had been to try the Korean-style jjajiangmyeon and the Chinese-style side by side.  Like taking a slice of American pizza and lining it up next to its Neopolitan ancestor.  The Korean-style, though, looked nothing like I expected.  The sauce was black and there were the requisite shredded cucumbers, but there was no pork or seafood or onions in the sauce.  The sauce had good flavor but the noodles were poor, too mushy to support anything.

To our surprise, the “Chinese-style” turned out to be noodle soup!  Jerome and Salley, who have had “zha jiang mian” said that what they had in mind were noodles with meat and a bit of sauce.  This may have been a mistake in communication, though this blog post on a Dongbei restaurant in Kuala Lumpur makes me think that she was serving us dao shao mian in the way that blogger expected it, “floating around with greens and porky pieces in a rich broth.” The broth was good, as was the pork and greens, but the noodles again fell down.

At the end of our meal, the waitress asked us what we had liked best.  When we told her we loved the pork wrapped in tofu and the eggplant, she said in Korean, “There are dishes that are yummier here, but I thought since you are new to our restaurant, you should try these.  They are cheap.”  She then turned to Jerome and told him in Chinese that the lamb dish was “the bomb.”  For a minute, we considered ordering the lamb right then and there, but we decided instead to push on for Xi’an liang pi noodles and Szechuan wontons in chili oil at the Golden Mall.  (These are famous, especially as Anthony Bourdain is a big fan of the Xi’an food stall, so you can find out more about them elsewhere.)

In any case, I resolved to come back with a bigger crowd and eat whatever she told us to eat.

I think much of the menu is typical of “Dongbei cuisine,” which encompasses three provinces in northeastern China.  From what I’ve read, the cuisine shows the marks of Korean influence—they eat a lot of pickles and food spiked with hot chiles and vinegar.  They are also masters of dough, with wheat taking a more central place than rice.  One of the most intriguing menu items to me was “옥수수냉면“ or corn cold noodles.  Naengmyeon, or cold Korean noodles, are from North Korea, so it would make sense that the Chinese provinces would eat something similar.  I’m dying to know if the noodles are made with corn or if corn is incorporated into the dish in some other way.  Judging from what people have eaten at a self-identified Dongbei restaurant, corn as well as potatoes are staples, which would coincide with what I know about North Korean regional cuisines as well.

Yet it’s clearly not just a Dongbei restaurant.  I’d wondered if it was owned by ethnically Korean people from China, or ethnically Chinese people from Korea.  But it turns out the bilingual waitress is Chinese, has never lived in Korea, and speaks Korean because she was taught it in school.  It doesn’t really matter what we call the food Myung Chan Dong makes.  The restaurant reflects the people who cook and eat there.  No more, no less.  I can’t wait to go back.

Grace Meng is a nonprofit consultant and writer living in Brooklyn, NY.  She was an immigration lawyer until a few years ago, when she ran away to Mexico to learn how to make mole negro and started blogging at One Fork, One Spoon.  She is now writing a cookbook on Korean food with her good friend Diane Choo, which has given them the best excuse ever to take road trips around Korea eating all the way.

Sorabol's optional "salad plate," with (clockwise from top left) sliced kimchi radish, dry spicy kimchi radish, marinated spinach and fresh carrots. The well-known cabbage kimchi in the middle. (Tamar1973 photo)

Posted by Tammy

My husband, in-laws and I recently drove into San Francisco for a jaunt to the Asian Art Museum. After a docent-led tour of the Korean collection and walk-through of the remainder, we were very hungry. A Sorabol Korean restaurant was just down the road.

This Sorabol location is in a below-ground food court in the Westfield Mall  at 101 Spear St. near Union Square. There are six other locations around the San Francisco Bay.

The restaurant serves Korean barbecued meat, including bulgogi (beef), dakgui (chicken) and dwejigui (pork). They also serve fried rice, japchae (clear noodles with garlicy sesame-soy sauce) and steamed vegetables. There’s also a vegetarian bibimbap (mixed ingredients over rice, often with a lot of gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) on the menu as well. At the end of the line, you can pick a complementary cup of mildly spicy traditional cabbage kimchi.

There are a few reasons you should not mistake this for home-style Korean food:

1. The well-known cabbage kimchi is optional. For many Koreans, it’s not an optional for a meal. Rather, it’s a ubiquitous part of the banchan (side dishes) traditionally eaten along with the meals. However, Sorabol doesn’t charge for this kimchi, unlike the other banchan we ordered.
2. Banchan items are sold separately as part of what’s called a “salad plate.” Imagine being charged for your utensils at a restaurant, and you’ll understand how odd a la carte banchan is in Korean cuisine.
3. The portions are huge, much larger than are commonly served or eaten in South Korea. This is Korean food made for non-Korean appetites.

I ordered bulgogi (called “sliced beef”) and dakbulgogi (“spicy BBQ chicken”). My husband ordered kalbi and grilled mackerel.

Sorabol two-item plate with kalbi (beef short ribs) and grilled mackrel, served with fried rice and lightly steamed broccoli. (Tamar1973 photo)

He and I agreed that guardian of the grill at this location did a good job with the kalbi. It had the right balance of the sweet, salty, umami goodness people have come to expect from Korean barbecue.

The bulgogi, however, lacked the dish’s renowned subtle sweetness, which usually comes from the “secret ingredient,” the Korean pear, a.k.a. Asian pear or apple-pear. The marinade tasted heavy on the soy sauce and light on even another common Korean ingredient, sesame oil.

That said, both dishes did pay good respect for the cow that gave its life for the food.

The grilled mackerel retained the nice fishy flavor common for the dish when served in Korea. Yet unlike the common preparation in the Land of the Morning Calm, Sorabol cooks the fish as a fillet and not as a whole fish — internal organs, skin, fins, eyes, bones. The dish was seasoned well and thoroughly cooked but still moist.

My one disappointment was the “spicy chicken BBQ.” It was a little spicy, but there was way too much sauce — it was a bit goopey. The sauce had the vinegar-heavy tang of Buffalo wing sauce, rather than the sesame, garlic flavor that’s the trademark of Chuncheon dakgalbi sauce. (With Super Bowl fast approaching, check out my recipe for Chuncheon wings, the more savory, zippier alternative to Buffalo wings.)

And unlike the Chuncheon dakgalbi experience, the pieces of chicken were not chopped — or snipped to bits with shears, Korean style — small enough to eat comfortably with chokarak (chopsticks). It was enough to consider kimchi and the rest of the banchan as optional, but the thought of a knife and fork as required for Korean cuisine was baffling.

Granted, many Americans aren’t comfortable using chokarak. While in the Land of the Morning Calm, I knew one adult Korean who wasn’t adept with them either. But consider an analogous situation: Some people don’t like to grab slices of pizza with their hands, so should the many who do eat pizza hand to mouth be forced to eat with fork and knife?

I’m not going to argue too much with this Sorabol food stall though. It had the longest line in the food court, competing against Mexican, Italian, Thai, Chinese and Japanese menus.

Next time you’re in San Francisco and need a refill after hard-core shopping or museum hopping, check out Sorabol for “hot and a lot” Korean food.

On the Web: www.sorabolrestaurants.com

Tammy Quackenbush lives in San Francisco.  Her love of Korean food started when she taught ESL in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do back in 1996-1997. However, she didn’t become “famous” for my Korean cooking style until she started making cooking videos on YouTube as Koreanfornian Cooking two years ago (had to put her college degree to use somehow).  Her recipes (mostly in video form) have been featured on Slice/Seriouseats.com, Foodbuzz, Korea.net and iFoodTV.com.

Posted by Chubbo Chubbington

I am sitting at a small wooden table in a wooden chair, my bags, coat, scarf, and hat all hanging carelessly over its back, offending fine diners everywhere, I’m sure. Please, oh  please ignore me as I dump 2 packets of organic sugar into this latte. I usually don’t embarrass easily, but I was sharing a morning coffee with Jeong Geum-Sook 정 금숙, the owner of Acozza, a restaurant, café, and art gallery on a tiny backstreet in Heungeop 흥업, a small town in Wonju 원주.

Acozza has been humbly sitting on a small hill at the top of a natural stone stairway since 2008, when the project that Jeong started in 2007 finally materialized. Jeong had a vision of a place that made art accessible to the people, served Italian-inspired dishes, and poured perfect cups of coffee. After spending time in Italy and studying at an Italian cooking school in Seoul, she dreamed up Acozza’s modest but satisfying menu. It features fresh in-house coffee (hard to ignore the Probat solid drum roaster in the corner), pizzas, pastas, and a variety of wines.

Not only does Jeong bring quality organic products and local meats (never imported) to the table, she also brings art into the lives of her diners. Each time I’ve visited Acozza, the atmosphere has been wildly different. The first time I tasted (read gorged on) the Ham Pizza 헴 피자, I chewed in the glow of Mix and Media 믹스맨 믹스미디아, a multimedia art presentation including multi-screen installations, prints, and video. The second time, I didn’t even pretend to share as I devoured an entire pizza on my own under the wide eyes of the work of artist Kim Ji Young, with the paint & textile patterns of Kim Young Mi over my shoulder. They were only two of the several artists exhibiting in Propose 프로포즈.

On my third visit and the opening for exhibition Imago Dei 이마고 데이, I chomped on a variety of complimentary dishes and discovered The Calzone surrounded by artists’ impressions of God. (Yes capitalized because after this one all other calzones will cease to exist for you.) I’m pretty sure that the Lord himself ordained this master of all turnovers. It is filled with fresh mozzarella, grana padano, and ricotta cheeses. I mean, grana padano was created by Cisterian monks, so I’m pretty sure it’s holy.

This day, our chatter is supervised by photographs of Beautiful Wonju 악_어_꿈- 아름다운 거리를 꿈꾸다. Jeong is reserved, but her passion is apparent in the way she speaks about her experiences, how they’ve shaped her, and how she’s brought the best of them all together here, in Acozza. She says that her faith inspires her to keep working, to keep putting on exhibitions, to keep making good food. And I say, Amen sister! because it’s one of my favorite places here in Wonju. And y’all. That Ham Pizza is not a joke. It is Jeju ham, handmade, perfectly sliced, and layered over fresh mozzarella cheese, a simple but beautiful sauce, and finished with crushed black pepper. And if you ask real nice, they’ll throw some fresh basil on top.

Also, Seoulites, have no fear! You too can experience the holiness of The Calzone. Wonju is a mere hour and a half by bus and terribly convenient for a day trip. Acozza is worth an out-of-town lunch date, for sure. If you decide to come, look me up. I’ll join you for some art, coffee, and pizza. But don’t expect me to share.

ChubbO Chubbington has lived in Korea for about 2 years. She has been gifted with the ability to eat spicy food and not complain about it or sweat while doing so. She leaves the cooking to her Korean husband and focuses mainly on consumption. She knows Krispy Kreme is not one of the main food groups, but hopes to rectify this injustice in the future. She is currently living in Wonju and writes at Wonju Wife when she’s not stuffing her face.

Posted by Steve Ward

It’s the weekend! Why not branch out and visit a new area of Seoul this time around?
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It seems like everyone has been to Shincheon once or twice to meet someone that lives near there. It’s a nice little area with some great places to enjoy.

Best places in Shincheon

Realized a map would probably be beneficial. I also found:

• a Korean blog with some nice pics of Aladdin
• an older blog post about Pao Pao (seriously, the Jjinbang there is my favorite wintertime comfort food in the world)
• the Naver Cafe for Burn
• pics of the awesome liquor at Mr. Saimon (also a favorite gathering place of the Korea scotch Malt Whiskey Society).

Then my browser crashed and I gave up

Power to the peeps, man.

A nice bundle of reader reviews have come into ZenKimchi Dining.  Here are the latest reviews.

• Gecko’s Terrace
• Taco Family Mexican Restaurant
• Meatrang
• Tandoori Restaurant
• Persian Palace
• Jeongseon Chamsutgol
• Hwanggeo Japanese Restaurant
• Bubblecats

Make sure to go on there and give your own ratings to these establishments.  If you want to add one yourself, fill out a full review or a mini review form.

Edward passed along this blog post by gas•tron•o•my about Gyenari (owned by William Shin), which serves Korean food that seems to appeal to Americans.  It also has American prices ($12 for Kimchi Jjigae, whew!).  But a lot of the foods look clever and tasty.

Gyenari – Los Angeles (Culver City)

Gyenari (official site)

I’m getting the reputation as a curmudgeon when it comes to Korean efforts to promote Korean food abroad.  But that’s only because the economics guy heading up the Ag Ministry who thinks he knows about food and what non-Koreans like has come up with embarrassingly boneheaded ideas and has poured ungodly amounts of money into them.

Topoki?

Yet one restaurant is showing some promise.  Cafe Sobahn, a high concept bibimbap/coffeeshop, was created to update the Korean classic and internationalize it.  Of course, I was highly skeptical.

The interior looks like actual interior designers were involved with the design.  The lighting is subdued and warm.  The walls give a stony mountain hideaway appearance.

The main gimmick for Cafe Sobahn’s layout is the interior greenhouse.  A hydroponic sprout garden sits in a glass-lined room next to the customer queue.  And these aren’t just for show.  I’ve actually seen employees harvest the sprouts and put them in the bibimbap.

I’ve always said one of the dominant chromosomes of Korean cuisine is its extremes, and this case it’s extreme freshness.  From garden to bowl in front of your eyes–can’t get any fresher than that.

The menu is plentiful but not exhaustive.  It has the classic bibimbap and some fun variations.  For sizzling stone pot fans, though, there is no dolsot bibimbap available.

The set up is cafeteria style, and the system may be it’s one drawback.  It’s a bit intimidating for first timers.  You grab a tray and utensils, and you can pick from an array of hot and cold side dishes that showcase a little bit of East and West.  You then order your bibimbap, and they give you a bill and a number.  You go to your seat, and they deliver your meal to your table.  You can see here that the dishes have that classic Korean rustic pottery finish.  A welcome detail.

Eun Jeong and I have gone down the menu and have tried a good many of the dishes.  Here are the opinions.  Let’s start with the sides.

The Tofu and Salmon Roll is one of the stars.  It comes with capers, sprouts, soft tofu, and a vinaigrette, garnished with sesame seeds.  Surprisingly, smoked salmon and tofu work well together.  I could have just eaten this and have been happy.  Eun Jeong inhaled it.

Little beef nuggets wrapped in eggplant with a light dipping sauce.  I liked them.  If you need some more meat for your sides, it’s a good choice.  Not much to say about them.  They’re meaty and pretty good.

Eun Jeong went ga-ga over the balsamic tomato salad.  They drizzled on a balsamic reduction that has a slightly syrupy consistency.

The sweet potato sticks were my biggest surprise.  Fried sweet potatoes in Korea tend to be to hard or too starchy.  Somehow they perfect it here.  The outside is perfectly crisp, and the interior is like mashed potatoes.  They also included a few steamed sweet potato slices and drizzled it in a sweet glaze with some almond slivers.  It’s also the most architectural of the side dishes.

And now for the bibimbap.

These are the sprouts that are grown in the store, right in the Saessak Bibimbap.  It’s my favorite springtime food, and they young vegetables are bright and full of life.  It’s purely the taste of freshness.

Next.

This one is based on the royal court dish, Gujeolpan, which is nine toppings that are wrapped in little delicate pancakes.  This had the toppings and the pancakes.  It was a fun one to eat and a clever concept.  I wish there were more pancakes.

This coming one is their top seller.

Chicken Teriyaki Bibimbap.  It doesn’t need gochujang.  The sauce is already in the teriyaki.  This is a good one for people who are sensitive to spicy heat but still want full flavor.  As of this writing there are only two locations of Cafe Sobahn, one in Gwanghwamun and one at Seoul National University.  The students love this one.  For the record, EJ loved it too.

For those of us who do like the spicy, the Stir-fried Octopus Bibimbap satisfies.  I’ve had this at other places, and it’s fine.  But Cafe Sobahn doesn’t lean on the octopus as a crutch.  It continues to add hearty and bright vegetables to stand up to the overpowering pepper sauce.  Those meaty mushrooms in the back truly make the dish.

As I said, there are two locations.  The SNU one is deep in the campus on the main road that lines the western edge of the campus, next to the running brook.  The downtown Seoul one is best reached from Gwanghwamun Station.  Head west, and it’s on your left past a Mister Donut.

Cafe Sobahn website

ZenKimchi Dining review with directions

More photos