This was my first time to Tong Young (통영), a lovely port city on the south coast.  It was a quick day trip with an easy itinerary as I was still recovering from jetlag/fatigue/stomach-something, but I loved everything about the city and the food.

Anywhere from the top of Mireuk Mountain, you have amazing views of the coast with hundreds (…or so I hear) of small islands.  Although it doesn’t look it, it was a beautiful, sunny day only ruined by my photo skills as shown above.  You can walk all the way, but I liked that there was a cable car service then walk about 15 more minutes to finish off the trip up to the top.

For lunch, we went to a place that specializes in sea squirt (멍게 – meong ge) rice sets (10,000 won or about US$10 per person).  Freshest sea squirts transport you to the ocean with one bite, and this was it.  The side dishes were also flavorful and tasty, and showcase the fresh regional ingredients – kelp, fresh oysters, egg custard, spicy pickled squid, kimchi, lightly seasoned broccoli, fish cakes, and toasted & lightly seasoned anchovies (clockwise from top left).  Oh, and the lighty grilled and seasoned fish in the middle.

Sirakguk (시락국) in Seoho Shijang (시장 – market).  Shirakguk, known as shiraegi guk (시래기국) in Seoul, is a soup made with sun-dried radish stems and leaves usually seasoned with doenjang (된장 – fermented soybean paste).  It was a way of utilizing the radish stems and leaves after making a big batch of radish kimchi in late autumn, but it’s evolved to have its own identity.  This one in Tong Young was a pleasant surprise, partly because I didn’t expect much out of such a common dish.  A Tong Young native strongly recommended we try this soup, and we were all glad we did.  The soup is full of flavor in a subtle way – light yet deep, hearty and refreshing all in one, all for 4,000 won (~US$4) with self-serve side dishes of 10+ kinds.  I’ve never had shiraegi guk like this and never expected to develop such a strong opinion on this dish, but I’m still thinking about it….yum…

There must be 100,000 dried anchovies of all sizes in each store.  Tong Young is famous for its anchovies.

Back to Seoul, but I still found myself…

…in the back alley of Dongdaemun (동대문), known for grilled fish sets.

I got the gul bi (굴비 – yellow corvina) set (백반 – meal set), for 6,000 won (~US$6) because that’s something I can’t easily get at home.  The selection is limited to Spanish mackerel (삼치 – sam chi), Pacific saury (꽁치 – ggong chi) and hairtail (갈치 – gal chi) in addition to yellow corvina for fish meal sets, and that’s plenty.  It didn’t disappoint.  I got a small bonus piece of ggongchi (far left on the fish plate) once I started taking pictures, FYI. ^_^

 
I went to a traditional Korean fine dining for dinner.  Hmmm…I have to still think about this one.

I walked around in Insadong (인사동).  I have a thing for Korean clay pots.

A big lunch spread at Jirisan (지리산) with Professor Jo Hee Suk and a couple of friends.  Prof Jo is a well-known expert in traditional Korean food.  I was very lucky to meet with her and hear her wisdom and advice about cooking, food, my future, etc.  She has such a warm, comforting personality.

The food at Jirisan in Insadong seemed to be focused on bringing out the best side of traditional ingredients, and I was happy to indulge in Korean vegetables I missed so much.  My favorite was the roots of sseumbagui (씀바귀), a vegetable that belongs to the chrysanthemum family, on the bottom right.  Despite the color, spiciness is just one of many flavors in this side dish – spicy tangy seasoning supports fragrantly bitter sseumbagui roots.  The white milky kongbiji (콩비지 – soy pulp) soup in the middle was also amazing for its simplicity.  Usually, kongbiji is made into a stew with aged kimchi and pork.  This one is smoother, creamier – something closer to silken tofu.  It’s barely seasoned, which helped me actually taste kongbiji done right, as it’s supposed to be.  We finished most of the food on the table, were happy to be comfortably full and felt energized after such a big meal.

Thanks to Nanoomi, a group of English bloggers on Korea-related topics and tnm Media which supports a network of bloggers in Korea and to which Nanoomi belongs, I had a chance to attend a meeting with Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul, along with 30 or so other bloggers.  Living in New York and loving Korean food, I have to admit that my exposure to Korea has become pretty limited.  It’s rare to meet other Korean bloggers specializing in variety of topics, hearing their daily concerns and questions and the mayor’s personal response to those.  You can read about it here in Korean and see my face too. ^_^

That’s it for today.  Off I go again~

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

There are times I think the promoters of Korean food really have their heads firmly stuck in their posteriors when they promote makkolli as a rice wine. It shows an ignorance of makkolli, an ignorance of wine, and an ignorance of alcohol in general. The only reason I think that the promoters want to promote it as a wine is to make it sound high class and pretentious.

Which makkolli is anything but!

In fact, the English term “wine” is protected by law in many places around the world, and makkolli doesn’t fit in those laws. Yet all that aside, it doesn’t do justice to what is a phenomenal brew. It should be respected. It shouldn’t a round peg being forced into a square hole. Here is why makkolli is not a rice wine but is closer to being a rice beer.

Wine comes from fruit (mostly)

Wine is a process of natural fermentation from the yeast and sugars in fruit, particularly grapes. Rice beverages get their alcohol from starch that is then converted into sugars and mixed with water. In fact, rice is sometimes used in the making of barley and wheat beers because it’s a grain. You never hear of rice being used in making wine.

Alcohol content

“But wait,” you may say, “Sake is made from rice and is called a ‘rice wine.’ And what about barleywine?”

Good point. And experts have been working to change that too. It’s not appropriate to call sake a “rice wine” either. It’s a grain alcohol that is brewed and prepared more akin to beer than wine. I say more akin. Barley and wheat beers have a two-step fermentation process where sake has a one-step process.

Regarding barleywine, it’s called so because its alcohol content is close to wine, but to quote good ole Wikipedia, “Since it is made from grain rather than fruit, it is, in fact, a beer.”

Barleywine is a “wine” about as much as head cheese is a cheese. The closest argument anyone can give for saying sake and barleywine are wines is that they have a wine-like alcohol content, which makkolli has not. It’s between 6 and 8% alcohol, which is closer to an ale. So you can’t lump makkolli in with sake in this category and call it a wine.

Aging

Certain wines can improve with aging. That is why the vintage is printed on the bottle. You would never hear of anyone looking at the plastic makkolli bottle, saying, “Oh, this makkolli is from 2008. That was a good year.”

The reason is that makkolli, like beer, has an early peak time. Then it degrades–quickly. I’ve been told it has an even shorter shelf life than beer, even though makkolli producers are working on ways of extending it.

Seriously? Credit: Happy World

 Historical use

Also known as nongju because of its association with farmers (nongbu). It was a drink that could be gulped to quench a thirst from a day working in fields. It contained nutrients to give the farmers energy for a long day. Beer has a similar historical use. It was drunk on the farms in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and America as both a thirst quencher and, well, a source of food. “Liquid bread.” Even though wine can be best in European countrysides, it wasn’t drunk in the fields unless it was watered down heavily.

In short, wine you sip. Beer and makkolli you gulp.

So what is it?

Well, let’s see. It’s made from grain. It has a low alcohol content. It has a short shelf life. It was traditionally used as a nutritious thirst quencher for farmers. It’s carbonated. It’s gulped and not sipped. It’s basically a beer–or to be more precise, an ale. The one significance difference is its riceness. It doesn’t need to be malted like barley beer.

Technicalities aside, it’s all about perception. When one is told they are going to drink a wine, they have certain expectations. When told they are going to drink a beer, they have others. For people who have had makkolli, it fits in more with the properties of beer than of wine. To call it otherwise is at best ignorant and at worst deceptive.

“Who cares,” you may say. Well–why bother classifying anything in the first place? If you’re going to classify something then be as accurate as possible. Don’t take the lazy route and call everything made from rice “rice wine.” That’s more marketing speak from promoters and government officials who–again–are too ashamed of their own cultural products to call them for what they are. They have to elevate them. Remember that despite what this story says, the government promoters ignored makkolli as a low-class beverage until they noticed that young Japanese and Korean hipsters were drinking it. Then they took it over and put it in frilly clothes by tossing it into stemmed wine glasses and wine carafes.

I call bull. It’s pretentious posturing from a few insecure people still stuck in a colonial mentality of needing to impress whom they perceive as highly civilized.

Makkolli is a rice ale. And it’s awesome!

Guest post by Kelly Brock

I recently went to Jeju-do and took a chance on a street vendor that was at the base of Mt. Sanbang temple. They were selling hot chestnuts, so I bought some. After I purchased my chestnuts, I noticed in a basket these little balls covered in seeds. My interest was piqued first because I thought maybe it was a healthy snack and second by the price: it was only KRW 1,000!

As I looked at it closer, I noticed the packaging said it was only made in Jeju-do! I thought to myself, maybe it is a product of a cottage industry. Then I noticed the logo SAMSUNG on the packaging. I decided to buy one and try it.

As I opened the package and held the little ball in my hand, it felt heavier than it looked. To my surprise as I bit into it there was cake and a sweet red bean paste inside! I was in instant heaven. The sesame and sunflower seeds were in a sugary paste that held them to the cake ball. As I bit into it, some of the seeds came off but not many. As I savored every bit other Americans on my tour bus wanted to know what I was eating. I showed it to them, and they were like, “Wow! That is that good and only 1,000 KRW?!!”

Before I knew it, several of my tour mates were off the bus and buying them for themselves. I actually went back and bought a few more. My vegetarian friends were so grateful for snack that was meat free!!

As we trekked around Jeju-do, we found the same balls in baskets at every tourist shop for the same price. We started buying more and more of them because they were so transportable and filling. At the end of our trip we were at the Ferry Terminal and began to wish we had more of them to eat. Lo and behold, we saw some at a tourist shop!

YEA!

My vegetarian friend Dakota bought them out. I already had six stowed away, which I am now carefully saving to enjoy at spaced intervals.

I am so glad I took a chance and bought this little ball of deliciousness. I only wish I could buy them everyday-FRESH! (They do have a two week shelf life according to the package.)

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Ottogi’s Fresco, the general jarred spaghetti brand for Korea, recently introduced a Bulgogi flavor. As you can see, it’s “Beef 12%!”

I’m not a big fan of jarred spaghetti sauces, especially ones with meat, but I had to try this.

Yes, like most meat jarred spaghetti sauces, the actual meat appears as tiny specks. I honestly didn’t taste any unique bulgogi flavor. It was like the usual Meat Fresco. But hey, I bet you some hipster food truck or narrow-tabled restaurant will throw a Bulgogi Pasta on a menu and charge $30 for it.

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I received a box of Kikkoman Kara-Áge Soy-Ginger Seasoned Coating Mix courtesy of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program to review. I didn’t sign up for it the first time around because I couldn’t think of a Korean way to use this classic Japanese cooking technique. By the time the chance came around again, I knew I wanted to experiment with the Kara-Áge coating and find out if it could be a recipe-less way to make basic Korean fried chicken.

The box contains two mix pouches, each able to easily coat 1¹/₂ pounds of chicken or fish. Two pouches, so here are two versions.

The first version I simply made “straight up” with diced chicken thighs, following the directions on the packet without addition, elaboration or substitution. The coating was light and crisp. When fried according to the directions, the chicken bites weren’t greasy.

“This is what chicken nuggets should taste like,” Hubby said, referring to the crisp yet not lumpy crust.

The second version, I made with diced chicken breasts. To spice them up Korean fried chicken–style, I added spicy curry powder to the coating mix and a light layer of Korean hot sauce just before serving with a small bowl of fried rice.

Korean Fried Chicken Nuggets (양념닭 Yangnyeomdak)

 

Chicken ingredients

1 pouch Kikkoman Kara-Áge Soy-Ginger Seasoned Coating Mix
1¹/₂ pound chicken, either breast or thigh meat
1 tablespoon Korean curry powder

Instructions

1. Pour coating mix into a one-gallon plastic locking bag
2. Dice 1¹/₂ pounds chicken breast into 1¹/₂-inch, bite-sized pieces.
3. Rinse chicken pieces with water and allow most of the water to drain away from the chicken.
4. Put the chicken into the bag and shake the chicken in the mix until the chicken pieces are completely coated.
5. Add sunflower oil into a large cast-iron skillet until there’s 1/4 inch of oil in the skillet. Heat it up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit over medium heat.
6. Put in one handful of chicken pieces at a time to the heated oil. (The coating mix box says add a dozen pieces at a time. Every handful ended up being about a dozen pieces without tedious counting.)
7. Set timer for four minutes (for diced chicken thigh) or three minutes (for diced chicken breast). Turn over the chicken chunks frequently in the hot oil until they are golden brown.
8. Put the cooked chicken pieces onto a towel-draped towel to drain, and repeat steps 6-8 until all the chicken is cooked. Set aside.
9. Discard the unused coating mix in the bag. I found that there was very little coating mix left, so I didn’t feel wasteful to throw the unused coating away.

 

 

Sauce (양념 Yangnyeom) ingredients

2 tablespoons chives, finely minced
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
2 tablespoons 고추장 gochujang (spicy Korean red pepper paste)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon garlic
¹/₂ tablespoon 고추가루 gochugaru (spicy Korean red pepper powder) or Hungarian hot paprika
¹/₂ tablespoon sesame oil

Directions

1. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a bowl. Heat in microwave for about 30 seconds to one minute to dissolve the sugar.
2. Brush a light coating of sauce on the chicken pieces. You don’t want to marinate the chicken in the sauce, else they won’t be as crisp.

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a box of Kikkoman® Kara-Áge Soy-Ginger Seasoned Coating Mix to test out and review. I received no other compensation for this post.

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Yeongeun 연근 (lotus root) jorim 조림 (reduced) is one of the basic, everyday banchan 반찬 (side dishes) found at home tables and restaurants.  It is a simple dish of sliced lotus roots boiled then reduced in soy sauce and corn syrup.  That’s also how a Korean mother will describe it to you if you asked about a recipe of this dish.

It is true to some extent, that there isn’t much to this side dish.  Aside from the basic ingredients of lotus root, water, soy sauce, and some kind of sweetener such as sugar or corn syrup 물엿 (mulyeot), the rest are bells and whistles that add a deeper dimension to the flavor and affect its texture, but you could certainly do without kelp, shitake mushroom or Korean rice malt syrup 조청 (jocheong).

What stumped me was that, although the name yeongeun jorim is shared by both home and restaurant versions, the home version tends to have crunchy bites with light seasoning of sweet-salty flavor, whereas a sticky, sweet, chewy yeongeun jorim seems to be more common in restaurants (oh and they look so shiny and sexy).  In fact, the restaurant version comes closer to candied snack 정과 (jeonggwa) with added soy sauce.  Just to be clear, I didn’t get this from any restaurant informant, but the recipe below is what I had to do to get something similar.  You can also use a mix of regular corn syrup and Korean rice malt syrup, a.k.a. brown corn syrup, grain syrup, or rice syrup.  Although rice malt syrup tastes sweeter with a hint of malty-earthy back note on its own, the end result of yeongeun jorim is not too noticeably different in color, taste, or texture (ones cooked in jocheong are slightly chewier) from using just regular corn syrup. This might have to do with how traditional jocheong is produced these days, but I’ll leave that for another day.

Also, speaking of candied snacks, I’ve seen from a few places on the world wide web out there that named this side dish as yeongeun jeonggwa.  Jeonggwa is a generic term referring to traditional candied snack in Korea and is not used for savory dishes.  Traditionally, many root vegetables as well as fruits were cooked in syrup to have the sweet flavor infused and alter the texture to sticky-soft, which were then enjoyed as snack or used as garnish with altered shapes.  Radish 무우 (mu-u), balloon flower root 도라지 (doraji), ginseng 인삼 (insam), and lotus root are some common ingredients made into jeonggwa.

Now, back to today’s topic – yeongeun jorim.  A common recipe, home or restaurant version, calls for drops of vinegar in the beginning to prevent the lotus root from oxidizing, i.e., browning, and for the initial boiling to remove the tannic/puckering bitterness, I generally skip vinegar.  I am okay with letting the vegetable turn a little brown which will be soon doused in brown sauce anyway.  As far as the bitterness goes, maybe it’s the kind I get (the kind that’s available near me), but I haven’t found the lotus roots too bitter in any sense.

One more thing about the lotus roots–although lotus roots are available year-round in dried and packaged forms, they remain seasonal ingredients to me.  I bought packaged sliced lotus roots a long time ago, lacking other options.  They looked sickly pale (I wonder, bleached?) and tasted like crumbled recycled paper (and somehow I know the taste of crumbled recycled paper).  I might have picked a wrong package, but, lotus roots as seasonal ingredients are much more enjoyable to me.

So here you go – hope you enjoy the variety of yeongeun jorim styles.  And thank you Alice for requesting this recipe and for your infinite patience.

Sweet Soy Glazed Lotus Roots (home style)

About 300g or 3 C fresh lotus root, peeled and sliced thinly
water to boil
water to rinse

Optional) A piece of dried kelp about the size of your palm (다시마 - dashima)
Optional) 1 dried shitake mushroom
2 C water
1/4 C soy sauce
1 T brown sugar
Optional) 2 T honey
2 t sesame oil
Optional) toasted sesame seeds for garnish

Optional) Add dried kelp and dried shitake in 2 C water.  Set aside.

Add peeled and sliced lotus roots in a pot and add enough water to submerge them.  Bring it up to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Strain and rinse lotus roots in cold water.

In a clean pot, add lotus root slices.  Add soy sauce, brown sugar, and kelp & shitake water.  Bring it up to a boil then simmer until the outside of lotus root slices becomes slightly soft with a nice crunchy bite, about 40 minutes over moderate heat.  Stir occasionally in order to cook evenly.  Once lotus root slices reach your desired texture, increase the heat to reduce the liquid, stirring often to keep coating all the lotus root slices evenly.  Taste and adjust seasoning by adding more soy sauce and try honey for added sweetness.  When the liquid is coating the bottom of the pot, remove from heat.  Finish with sesame oil. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds.

Cool to room temperature then keep in the refrigerator.

Sweet, Sticky Lotus Roots (restaurant style)

Lotus roots cooked in corn syrup (left) vs. cooked in jo cheong, Korean rice malt syrup (right)

About 300g or 3 C fresh lotus root, peeled and sliced thinly
water to boil
water to rinse

Optional) A piece of dried kelp about the size of your palm (다시마; dashima)
Optional) 1 dried shitake mushroom
2 C+ water
1/4 C soy sauce
1 C corn syrup (물엿 – mul yeot) or rice malt syrup (조청 – jo cheong)
2 t sesame oil
Optional) toasted sesame seeds

Optional) Add dried kelp and dried shitake in 2 C water.  Set aside.

Add peeled and sliced lotus roots in a pot and add enough water to submerge them.  Bring it up to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Strain and rinse lotus roots in cold water.

In a clean pot, add lotus root slices.  Add soy sauce, corn syrup (or rice-malt syrup) and kelp & shitake water.  Bring it up to a boil then reduce heat to barely simmer lotus root slices for 2 hours or longer, until the slices become soft and glistening.  You may need to add 1/2C to 1 C water to keep the lotus roots submerged in liquid to allow them enough time to soften.  Once they become soft, meaning, no crunchy bite yet with slight resistence, increase heat to reduce the remaining liquid and thicken it to a syrupy consistency.  Remove from heat and finish with sesame oil.  Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds.

Cool to room temperature then keep in the refrigerator.

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KOREAN WORDS
sugar             설탕        (seol tang)
brown sugar   흑설탕    (heuk seol tang)
honey            꿀            (ggul)

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Real Korean Bossam | Credit: Pixelgrapher from Flickr (cc)

The New York Times has a scrumptious piece showcasing David Chang’s recipe for bo ssam (“The Bo Ssam Miracle”). It’s gorgeous. I’ve heard it tastes great. And I would love to try it myself.

I also see why some of my friends hate David Chang. I thought it was that they were just being stubborn Korean food purists, if there is such a thing. The fear, though, is that people will start thinking that David Chang’s interpretations of Korean food are traditional Korean food. It brings to mind when New Yorkers come to Korea and expect Korean fried chicken to be like Kyochon and not like Two-Two and BBQ when Kyochon is really the only major chain to make chicken that way. Or when Koreans think that real Italian pizza comes with canned corn, sweet potato mousse, and sweet pickles on the side.

In essence, David Chang’s bo ssam is to Korean food as the California roll is to Japanese. It’s inspired by Korean cuisine and could later be considered part of the edges of Korean cuisine, but it’s not Bossam 보쌈 that you’d find in Korea.

Let’s get through the similarities. David Chang’s bo ssam is a pork shoulder. Korean Bossam comes from moksal 목살, which is from the back of the neck. So they’re close together in porcine geography. Both are highly flavored and served with kimchi and condiments to be wrapped in lettuce leaves.

Then they diverge. David Chang’s bo ssam is roasted, which actually sounds good. Korean Bossam is boiled. Ovens are about as common in Korean households as rice cookers are in American. Roasting and baking are not common Korean cooking methods. The mention of boiled pork may turn a lot of people off, but Korean Bossam is highly flavored and delicious. Chang’s bo ssam comes with raw oysters (YUM!). Korean Bossam may come with marinated oysters or with oysters in the kimchi, but usually not. It has ssamjang and tiny pickled shrimpies. Kimchi for Bossam is markedly fresher and fruitier than most kimchi.

To clarify, I tend to defend David Chang amongst Korean food purists. I’ve eaten at one of his restaurants, and I loved the food, and I love what he’s doing. I consider a lot of his dishes to be Korean food–or rather–Korean-American food. The NYT article, though, opened by implying that traditional Korean Bossam is roasted pork shoulder.

Another misnomer I’m hearing bandied about is the use of ssam as a dish, as in, “Let’s go out for some ssam!”

Ssam 쌈 is from the verb ssada 싸다, which means “to wrap” in this sense. When you wrap your morsels in leaves, that bundle is ssam. But you don’t hear people talking about eating ssam like it’s a food category. You eat Bossam or SsamBap. You don’t eat ssam. Like you go out for pizza, not “slices.” It’s prissy semantics, but it sounds as awkward to me as “french fried potatoes,” and “hamburger sandwich” and, in Korea, the tendency to call sandwiches “sand.”

So to clear up, in the Korean cuisine you’ll find in Korea, Bossam is boiled pork, not roasted (and it’s sometimes other things like smoked duck). And ssam are the little wrapped bundles, but not a food you go out to eat.

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Many assume the territory between San Francisco and Sonoma County wine country an hour’s drive north is bereft of Korean cuisine. I did, too, until I discovered one long-disguised as a coffee shop.

Java Hub Cafe is Marin County’s only noted venue for Korean victuals. It’s a simple coffee shop in San Anselmo, Calif., a suburb of San Rafael located about 10 minutes north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. And it is well off the beaten tourism path of Highway 101, the Marin-Sonoma thoroughfare.

On entering the little cafe, I noticed the subtle sounds of acoustic modern folk and alternative music playing subtly from speakers. The large counter has a big posted menu from which to order.

Indoor seating is on barstools with a long table facing a large window. That’s nice natural lighting for food photography, but it offers an unimpressive view of the regular stream of traffic.

Outside there are more than half-dozen tables. It would be nice to enjoy coffee and a meal alfresco in the summertime. However, it’s now winter in California. Even though our winter days are mild compared to Korea’s, I still didn’t want to eat outside.

Tucked behind the coffee shop edifice is a restaurant serving all sorts of North Asian cuisine, including 갈비 kalbi, 비빔면 bibimmyun and miso udon.

After waffling between ordering bibimmyun or bibimbap, I initially ordered the spicy bibim noodles (called bibimmyun in Korean, $7.25 USD). But owner Joyce Jung immediately advised me it would take about 20 minutes to make it. I asked if the bibimbap ($6.50 USD) would arrive more quickly, and she said “yes.” So I opted for the popular Korean dish.

The bibimbap arrived in a regular ceramic bowl — not the oven-heated stone bowls of dolsot bibimbap — with steamed white rice, raw shredded carrot, sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, a sunny-side-up fried egg and a couple of tablespoons of 고추장 gochujang.

After thoroughly mixing items together with the supplied fork. The raw carrots and lack of marination of the ingredients made the Java Hub version not as sweet and garlicy as the dish often is in traditional Korean restaurants.

Non-Korean vegetables such as broccoli may surprise some, but as a big fan of broccoli I enjoyed it very much.

Jung told me Java Hub has been open at this location for 10 years. Originally she only served coffee, tea and typical coffee shop fare like bagels and sandwiches. However, she soon found she needed to offer something more to keep the doors open.

“I noticed that business dropped off in the winter, and I started offering hot meal options to draw winter business,” she said.

So she began offering familiar Korean and Japanese dishes to her menu as well as other hot items like hamburgers.

The mix of coffee joint and Korean restaurant may seem eclectic. Yet while I was talking to Jung after my meal, one of her customers, waiting for his “usual order” of a bacon cheeseburger, opined, “Her burgers are the best anywhere.”

If 빨리 빨리 bbali bbali (“Hurry, hurry!”) is your battlecry and you just want a quick coffee to go, you can place your order from the drive-through window. Jung makes the coffee herself and will bring your order to your car.

Java Hub Cafe

60 Greenfield Ave.
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 451-4928

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• where to buy kimchi in san rafael

Soo-jung always introduces me to things I’ve never tried before. You may remember her from the Korea episode of “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.” She was the one who was with him at the doenjang farm, the kimchi factory, and famously at the fermented skate restaurant. She introduced me to fermented skate many years ago, too. She admits, though, that she hates it herself.

I hadn’t seen her in a long time, so she, Chef Colin, and I went out for some dinner and drinks. After some lamb galbi, we went looking for some more food. It occurred to her to get some Gwamegi 과메기. She hailed a taxi, and we rode a few blocks over into Pyeongchon to this hui restaurant. She ordered up some Gwamegi and soju. Out came these semi-dried mackerel chunks with the usual leaves, garlic and sauce for wrapping.

I had seen these a lot over the years, and I may have had one or two in banchan, but I never paid them much attention. As a drinking food, they’re awesome. They’re in season in mid-winter, and the place that specializes in them is Pohang, off the southeast coast near Gyeongju. Actually, that’s where my sister-in-law lives.

Gwamegi is for people who like their oily fish and who like their fish oily. Sardines, herring, any Spanish fish tapas that come in a can. Not really date food unless you’re dating a mermaid. The taste stays with you for a couple of days. But I am craving these little fishy chunks again.

You know that they’re packed with all those Omega-3 fatty acids–so it’s healthy drinking food!

Photos taken with my Galaxy S. I need to clean that lens.

This is another one of my favorite episodes. We did most of this with the new crew, and they were very efficient. This is a good food episode. We travel down the Nakdong River and hit Andong and Busan, two of my favorite towns. Here are some highlights and commentary.

• The shots of me on the train were the last ones we did.
• I don’t know what “Korean Smiles Along 500 Kilometers” means
• We shot the train opening for this episode the same time we shot parts of the Han River episode. We set everything up and waited for a train to show up. While it was transferring passengers, I quickly got on the train, waited for the director to yell, “Cue,” and did my opening bit (lotsa memorization). We did it three times. The one that was kept included my only flub, but it was minor.
• At Hwangji Pond, even though we were supervised by a park official, there were still old men who took it upon themselves to tell us we couldn’t film at the pond. We filmed a lot there, and very little ended up in the final cut. We were also fighting sporadic showers.
• Anyone who follows this blog knows how much I love Andong and Hahoe Village. I was so happy to return there.
• I think this is why the second crew took over in the middle of this episode. The opening and Hwangji Pond were shot by the original crew. But there was a lot of talk about their inefficiency. Or rather, issues with time management. The Hwangji Pond bit took the whole afternoon, shooting a lot of stuff that was really unnecessary. Only two shots made it into the final cut. What really bugged us was that we traveled all the way down there by bus one day to meet the crew and shoot a scene in the mask museum near Hahoe Village. We then went to a place to go fish for catfish. Now, all of us knew that the weather was bad that weekend, but the director insisted. When we got there, the catfish fishing organizers said that they couldn’t do any fishing that weekend, so we cancelled the shoot for that whole weekend and went all the way back up to Seoul. Also I should note that the director was so hardcore in getting all this done that we couldn’t eat the whole time. Just one meal a day and maybe some kimbap. In the end, that entire weekend was a bust. The entire mask museum scene was cut out. I just assumed that was the way that productions worked. But when we worked with the second crew, it was much different. Locations were organized well and shot quickly. And only one scene the entire time I worked with them didn’t make a show.
• It was HOT the day we went to Hahoe Village. I rode the ferry a few times, and we got footage. Then the director and camera guy decided to go up the mountain to get some more shots of Byeongsan Seowon. That was dedication. I stayed behind with the others and got hooked on orange slushies.
• We shot a lot of nice little scenes in the mazelike walkways of Hahoe Village. Since I had just been there a few months ago, I knew some good places to film.
• The mask dance was very cool. Though, yeah, since I was a foreigner and a foreigner on TV, I was the center of every gag and embarrassing bit. Look closely, and you see the bull pee in my face. They had a French guy (who briefly appears) and me go up there and dance. I would do it again, though–without the peeing-in-the-face part.
• Next–FOOD! And we ate most all the stars of Andong cuisine–JjimDalk (braised chicken), Shikhye (red rice punch), Gan Godeung-eo (salted mackerel), Heot Jesatbap (fake ceremonial food), and Andong-style Bibimbap. The cook let me film the entire process for making JjimDalk, which I will edit and post in the future.
• Miryang–home of the scariest love motel room I’ve ever seen. The scene that was cut was one where I made some buckwheat jelly with school kids. It was a dull scene anyway. But the fish catching scene was amusing. As always, we used a stunt fish. The bottom of the pond was made up of slippery round stones, so it was almost impossible to get your footing, and it was very possible to twist an ankle. So I was trying to be careful despite my new friends’ carefree attitude. But those guys said they had been doing this since they were kids. After the fishing scene, we went to the riverbank, where a bunch of families were camped out. One tent had some roasted dog meat, where I got my second taste of this–nah, I wouldn’t call it a delicacy. But the ginger salad was good. My friends cleaned the catfish in the river and skewered them on bamboo spears. They cooked them over a campfire like hot dogs, and they were seriously the best fish I’ve ever tasted in my life. The muddy catfish meat was the perfect sponge for the wood smoke. That was up there in my best meals of 2011 list.
• That night they had me go into this mushroom looking house-slash-hotel-slash-restaurant. It was surreal looking. They had me say some lines after opening the window in just the right way. We had to do that bit a few times because I couldn’t always open the window perfectly.
• We went straight down to Busan, got out on the beach a bit, checked into our motel, and went out for  a few beers. Fun crew.
• I was originally supposed to do some jet skiing. Then I was supposed to swim in an aquarium tank with some sharks. That all got changed. Instead I just wandered around the film festival area eating street food. A crazy old man kept dancing in front of the camera. He then went up and stole my hoddeok. The director chased him off and told us to hide in this building until they were finished filming.
• We went to Jagalchi Fish Market. Stinkier than Noryangjin but still cool. I had a great time there. Check out the surprise on my face when that octopus started clinging to my arm.
• The seafood feast was the other great meal of the trip. I had my fill of raw fish for a long, long time. This was the scene where everyone really scratched their heads on what the writer was thinking. Obviously she had never spent any time outside of Korea, and her concepts of foreigners were based on stereotypes, what is called a “frog in the well” perception of the world. The script called for me to eat the sashimi and mention something like how it tasted like my mom’s food. That was a fun line to rewrite.
• The rest of the trip was a blur. We woke up early, and the camera guy went to the top of a tower to film me on a beach. That was some good coordination in cueing. We then went to some ecological areas and monuments. I just remember how beautiful the Busan cityscape was and the heat.

Photos from the episode are here.