Another totally offal day

It's no secret that I like offal - the internal organs of animals.  I find many of them absolutely delicious, and whenever they show up on a menu they are often the first things that catch my attention.  And I've gone around looking for some of these things in the past...

A Korean friend had brought Joon Ko House to our attention, and mentioned a particularly delectable dish.  I had called ahead last week, and confirmed that the item is usually available starting on Tuesdays until they run out.  So I made plans to go for lunch today.

After waiting for a table for a little while - and I rarely wait for tables at restaurants - I sat down and asked for soondaeguk (순대국).  It's a family-run restaurant and the service was excruciatingly slow, so I waited patiently for my food.  It took them a while just to bring out the banchan.

I did a double-take when my soondaeguk arrived.  It was red.  I had always had it as a milky broth without a trace of chili, so I was puzzled when my pot looked like kimchi jigae.  But there were plenty of goodies from a pig inside the bowl, though...  Delicious pieces of soondae (순대), liver, small intestine, stomach, large intestine...  It was a bit too spicy for my taste, but still good.

For dinner I met up with a couple of friends at Hakata Ichome Horumon (博多一丁目ホルモン).  I was pretty happy with my first time here a couple of months ago, so I jumped at the chance to come back.

We were greedy, and decided to order a whole bunch of stuff - almost the entire beef offal selection.  In fact, we ordered the entire digestive tract of the animal... For once, I was able to have all four chambers of a cow's stomach:

rumen (上ミノ) - stomach #1.  Pretty chewy, and we added some onion relish on top while grilling.

reticulum (千枚) - stomach #2, commonly known as manyplies.  Lovely as always, and marinated in miso.

omasum (ハチノス) - stomach #3, commonly known as honeycomb.  Deliciously marinated in miso.

abomasum (ギャラ) - supposedly unusual to find this as the fourth stomach is typically not eaten.  Pretty chewy, too.

large intestine

small intestine - our favorite, since it was oozing fat and other goodies during the grilling process.

skirt steak - actually the diaphram muscle.  I have to say that this wasn't the freshest beef... tasted like it's been around for a few days...

beef tongue

beef liver - noticeably tougher veins compared to calf's liver. 

We also enjoyed some pork belly from some Japanese pigs which fed on sweet potatoes.  My friend was very excited about seeing this on the menu, and made reference to the Japanese movie Tampopo (タンポポ).

Finally, we had the beef offal hotpot that I had last time.  It was really delicious, as the milky fat of the intestines slowly cooked into the broth.  It was also a welcome change as the pot was full of vegetables, something that was glaringly missing from the first part of our meal.  Once again the thinly sliced chili peppers made the dish by providing the spicy side of flavors.

The three of us were pretty stuffed... that was an impressive line-up of offal - one that isn't likely to be repeated in the near future.

Clueless and incompetent

I met up with two friends for dinner on short notice.  Although both of them are good friends whom I've known for years, dinner with the two of them together can be quite an affair.  SOP calls for Korean, and ordering way too much food so that we leave the restaurant totally stuffed.

We went to ChumChumMi, which was supposed to be Korean with a fusion bent.  The menu was extensive, and while there were many traditional-looking dishes, there were also a few which raised an eyebrow or two.  There were also a selection of "Korean Royal Cuisine" but honestly I didn't see anything special about the dishes.

This sorry excuse for a restaurant failed so badly right from the start, and the hole just kept getting deeper.  The whole restaurant was empty - we were the only table.  The staff decided that the three of us only needed 2 menus, so we had to ask for another one for me.

We spent some time choosing the dishes we wanted to order, and called over a waitress.  After listening to us ordering three dishes, she turned to leave us as she assumed that we were done with our ordering.  We informed her that we were not finished, and asked whether she needed to write down the names of the dishes.  No need, apparently.  A manager came over, and he also confirmed that they would be able to remember all the dishes we were going to order.  We pointed to the names of the dishes on the menu while placing our order.  Nothing was written down despite our repeated requests.

Minutes later the manager returned and asked us to confirm a dish that we had ordered.  We informed him that we did not order that particular dish, and proceeded to reconfirm each dish once again.  He went away.

While waiting for our food, I decided to pick up a bread roll and spread some butter on part of it.  I almost spat it out.  The butter was stale and racid - it probably had been sitting out in room temperature for who knows how long.  I asked my friends to stay away from the butter.  I've never had a restaurant serve me stale butter like this.  Ever.

Food started to arrive and things started to calm down, sort of.  The chives mandu in small portion were OK, like Japanese gyoza. Samgeobsal kochoojang was pretty spicy, but I was a little disappointed in the three-layered pork - it was a little too shredded and there was not much fat.  Sea whelk in spicy sour sauce with noodles also came as a small portion, and was pretty decent.

So daechang gui was by far our favorite dish.  The ox intestine on the hotplate was just soooo yummy... I could have had the whole plate myself.  The fried spring onions worked well with the intestine. Mini kimchijuns were disappointing - doughy and flabby when they should be more dry and crispy.

Seafood ddeokbokgi was from the "Korean Royal Cuisine" section.  Now I'm no expert on Korean food, but my travels to Seoul tells me that ddeokbokgi is actually street food most popular on cold winter nights.  Calling street food "royal cuisine" is an oxymoron.  Instead of just rice cakes and simple fish cakes, the restaurant decided to make a "premium" version by using real seafood - like crab, mussels...etc. This was pretty spicy, too, as expected.

Pineapple bulgogi wasn't what I expected at all.  It was nothing more than simple slices of stir-fried beef (perhaps tenderized with pineapple juice) with a few chunks of pineapple on the side. I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out why this dish was created at all...

We were also brought a plate of spicy seafood noodles.  For some reason the restaurant thought we ordered this - yet another confusion thanks to their refusal to write down our orders.  We sent it back, but they decided to give it to us anyway on a complimentary basis.  After all, they had no other customers to give it to.  It was bland and uninteresting.

For dessert we chose the preserved persimmon stuffed with mixed nuts and dried fruits. This was pretty good - stuffed with walnuts, black sesame...etc and garnished with pine nuts and jujube.  The yuzu sauce was nice.

We were stuffed.  On average the food was OK, although there were only at most two dishes which we liked.  But what was up with the service?!  These people - and there were at least four of them - were just totally clueless!  If you don't know the names of the dishes, or can't remember the names beyond three dishes, use your pen and paper to write them down!  How can they not understand something so basic?!

And what's with the manager's uniform jacket?  The name of the restaurant was embroidered on the left sleeve of the guy's pin-stripe jacket, in the same spot where the mainland Chinese people used to show off the brand names of their jackets.  Dude, I don't care about how cool your uniform is...I care about how good your service can be...

Three months after opening, at 8pm on a Wednesday night, in a busy shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui, the restaurant served three customers out of a capacity of about 60.  The Japanese ramen shop next door is doing brisk business, so the restaurant is empty not for lack of traffic.  Frankly, there's absolutely no reason for me to go back - not with uninspiring food and clueless staff.  My friends and I give the place another three months...

Kimchi day

My friend Lambda had always talked about having a kimchi day at her home, where her Korean mother-in-law would teach us how kimchi is made in a traditional Korean household.  That day finally came when she made an emergency announcement that the family had run out of kimchi (quelle horreur!), and that they would be making a new batch today.

A small group of us were privileged to be invited to watch as grandma took us step-by-step through the process.  They bought 10 heads of Napa cabbage (大白菜), which honestly looked really impressive when sitting in a large pan.  Other ingredients such as Japanese daikon (大根), watercress, mustard green, carrots, squid, cutlassfish (帶魚), anchovies...etc were thrown in a bowl along with - what else - chili powder, anchovy sauce and makgeolli (막걸리, a Korean rice wine).

Once the "sauce" has been done, it's time to get our hands dirty and rub it on all the available surfaces on the cabbage, and also to stuff it in between the leaves to make sure that the flavors can really get into the cabbage.  I must admit that I had a little more trouble than expected with folding the cabbage into the right shape.  We placed the finished product into various jars and containers, and moved on to marinate the daikon, which has now been cut into cubes.

The next task was to make gochuchang, the ubiquitous chili paste essential in Korean cuisine.  We start with cooked sweet rice flour, then mixed in wheat germ, finely ground chili powder, salt...  The key here is to keep stirring until evenly mixed and the consistency becomes uniform.  It's then scooped into a ceramic pot, covered with a layer of sea salt on top, then sealed with cloth for the fermentation process.  It's amazing that in today's society, the women of some Korean households still spend the effort to make their own sauces and pastes, when it has become so easy to buy them off the shelf.  I'm glad to have been a part of this process, even if only as a witness.

Pretty soon it was dinner time, and we gathered around the table for our highly anticipated Korean feast. The first item on the menu was ogyeopsal (오겹살), or five-layered pork. Fatty pork always gets me going, and this was bacon that came from Jeju's famous ddong dweji (똥돼지) - pigs that used to feed on feces (but no longer, I hope...). The bacon slices were expertly fried at the table, then wrapped in cabbage leaves with a healthy clump of kimchi and marinated minced shrimp. The fat was caramelized and a bit chewy thanks to being marinated in salt. Absolutely wonderful stuff. The usual sounds of "mmmm...", "ooooh..." and other unintelligible grunts were once again heard around the table.

There was also a plate of large raw oysters, which we had been marinating in kimchi for the last couple of hours.  That was pretty nice, too.

To go along with our kimchi-dominated feast, it was appropriate that we would be drinking Korean wine. Bottles of makgeolli (막걸리) were served in little bowls. This fermented rice wine came from the bottom of the barrels, hence the large amount of sediment giving the wine its milky color. The wine was low in alcohol (6%), slightly effervescent with a light, sweet taste. This is a pretty good wine to drink with the spicy kimchi, as the cold, sweet wine helps put out the flames that are now dancing on my tongue.

I was already pretty full by this point, but the best was yet to come.  We would finish our meal with budae jjigae (부대 찌개) - the dish that developed with the use of leftover supplies from American GIs.  This is a dish that Lambda introduced to me, and my friends and I have come to love it.  It is sooo far from anything that would normally be considered gourmet, yet to me it's a bunch of comfort food ingredients thrown together.

First the diced pieces of smoked sausage (or hot dog) and SPAM are fried up in the pan.  Then kimchi juice is added, along with tofu, spinach and rice cakes.  Next we break open a pack of kimchi-flavored Shin Ramyun, and add water and the powder pack into the pot.  We cover the pot with the glass lid, allowing the instant noodles to soften via steaming.  Finally some udon is added for more carbo.  No baked beans today, though... I looove this stuff, and would have had a second bowl if I wasn't already so stuffed.

We sat around after dinner, trying to not to slip into the inevitable food coma.  To help with the digestion, I opened up the bottles of wine I had brought along.  The 2006 Grosset Piccadilly was a pretty typical Aussie Chardonnay - heavy oak, with lemon, minerals, flint and a ripe and honeyed nose.

The 2007 De Villaine Bouzeron was another lovely wine.  I opened a bottle of the 2006 vintage earlier this year and was very pleasantly surprised.  This humble Aligoté is made by the same winemaker who crafts the sought-after wines of DRC, and showed a nice nose of lemon, pear and honey, with a slightly acidic finish.

I am very grateful for Lambda's family for their hospitality, and for giving us a look into a Korean household tradition.  Now I just have to wait for my kimchi to age a little, and I'll be ready to pop the lid on the jar!

The best Japanese barbeque

I had dinner tonight with a group of current and former chefs, getting together for some Japanese yakiniku (焼肉) at Iroha (伊呂波). I normally don't write about barbeque dinners, because we end up cooking the food oureselves and the experience has nothing to do with the skills of restaurant chefs. But last night's experience was something else. First of all, Iroha's ingredients are of very high quality. We only ordered one plate of Japanese wagyu, and the rest were all US beef. The meat was as fresh as I've seen in any of these places in town. Funnily enough I didn't realize on my previous visit that this place is actually a Japanese adaptation of the Korean barbeque, which explains the Korean dishes on the menu... We had multiple orders of the incredible thick-cut ox tongue, which was fatty, tender and juicy. The short ribs with tendon and the marinated kalbi in a pot were also very, very good. The traditional Korean kalbi looked very interesting, as the strip of meat attached to the bone was cut to split into three strips. When this is spread out over the grill I was reminded of chicken feet... Apparently they ran out of most of the offal, so we had to make do with beef liver. I do have to say, though, that this was some of the best liver I've had in recent memory. We finished with a bowl of Korean cold buckwheat noodles. I'm normally not a big fan but this was not bad. Now, why am I writing about this dinner? Well, this was simply the best barbeque I've had because of the company. Here I was dining with a bunch of chefs - people who are both passionate about food and know exactly what they are doing. Instead of casually flipping the meat on the grill - and usually over-cooking it in the process - the professionals carefully lined up the pieces, making sure all sides are cooked evenly, and arranged the meats so that the proper pattern is seared onto the surface. Together with fresh, quality ingredients, the end result was just perfect. I've never had it so good. To top it all off, we were treated to a little slice of flourless chocolate cake made with gourmet 100% cacao, and served with quenelle of chocolate sauce on the side. Where did this wonderful treat come from? From one of the chefs, of course! I haven't been this happy with a chocolate dessert in a while... rich with flavor without being overpowering with sugar. Definitely tasted the fruity, raspberry flavor even though it was all chocolate. Wonderful acidity balance. The cake just crumbled as there was no flour. So...when are we doing the next barbeque dinner?

Wine and Korean food

Last night I was invited to have dinner at an ex-colleague's house. There were a number of us dining with the family, and I was encouraged to arrive early in the afternoon to play with my colleague's daughter.

I brought along a few bottles of wine to share, including two bottles which were featured in Les Gouttes de Dieu (神の雫) - the popular Japanese comic book series on wine. These two wines from the same Italian producer are said to be able to match spicy Korean food, which we would have for dinner. I decided to try and see if this were true. I arrived early and started opening bottles with my colleague's husband.

The 2000 Chateau Musar blanc - a favorite of the hosts - is always easy to drink. The wine has had a few years of aging and now appears to be light orange in color, with a bit of honey in the nose.

I brought along the 2002 Hugel Riesling Jubilee, which showed a big, plasticky nose with lots of petrol. There was only a bit of sweetness on the palate, as Hugel's Rieslings are fermented drier compared to their Gewürztraminers.

The last bottle opened before dinner was something that I have been saving up for quite a few years. The 1997 Napanook was a real pleasure to drink, with a hint of mint and classic red fruits on the nose. It was very ripe and sweet on the palate - not surprising considering the vintage - and the tannins were silky smooth. Considering the price I paid for the second wine from Dominus - the Napa outpost of Chateau Petrus' Christian Moueix - I couldn't have asked for anything more.

As dinner was served, we opened up a few more bottles to go with the food, including the two bottles from Librandi. The 2005 Librandi Duca Sanfelice, made purely from the local varietal Gaglioppo, would have easily passed for a New World wine. The nose was ripe and sweet, full of tropical fruits and vanilla, and eventually saw chili and spice emerge. The wine was smooth on the palate, almost a bit bland. It actually worked reasonably well with the homemade kimchi we had.

The 2005 Librandi Gravello was a different wine, with 40% Cabernet Sauvignon blended in with the Gaglioppo. The nose here wasn't as New World and sweet, but it did have the mint from the Cab and only a hint of sweetness. With a bit of kimchi aftertaste in my mouth, the wine tasted hot and spicy on the tongue.

The 2001 Cantenac Brown was a classic Bordeaux from a vintage that is great to drink now. Typical farmy nose with grilled meats. No surprises here but a solid wine.

I only got to the 2005 Clos du Mont Olivet Cuvée du Papet after dinner, but this was such a good wine! The nose was really sweet with caramel notes, plus the classic grilled meat that comes from the Rhone. I kept drinking this wine instead of whisky after dinner, so I guess I'm showing my true colors...

Of course, we did have more than just homemade kimchi for dinner. There was the green salad; the very nice marinated bean sprouts; and the salad of jellyfish, crab meat spiked with wasabi.  But what I really liked was the chapchae - vermicelli stir-fried with veggies and beef. The vermicelli was so al dente, unlike what you would normally find in Korean restaurants around town.

The huge piece of kalbi - beef spare rib - was marinated perfectly and wonderfully delicious. Of course, the best bit was the tendon that wraps around the bone, and I managed to slice it off using the knife so I didn't have to use my hands while I gnawed on the bone... And one must not forget the delicious slices of sautéed eringi mushrooms on the side.

It was truly a wonderful dinner, and we had plenty of good wines to go with it. Now I'm looking forward to the next gathering...next week!

Silk Road III Day 2: Flying to Tashkent

Got up this morning and went out to check out the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Seoul. After arriving at Changdeokgong Palace (昌德宮), I realized that I had to join a scheduled tour, and the next available one (in Chinese) was an hour away.

I quickly hop into a taxi and asked the driver to head to Jongmyo Shrine (宗廟), even though it looked adjacent to the Palace. The driver drove around the block and dropped me off at the entrance. As I walked through the small park towards the gate, I realized that the ticketing counters were all shuttered. Jongmyo doesn't open on Tuesdays! Arrrgh!!!!! I had no choice but to drag my sorry ass back to Changdeokgong Palace in time for the tour.

At first glance, Changdeokgong Palace was nothing special to someone who had lots of exposure to Chinese and Japanese palaces and shrines. The architecture was relatively simple, and not particularly ornate. However, the beauty of this palace was in its layout and its beautiful gardens. As the palace is quite old, there were plenty of old trees on the grounds. It reminded me of a stroll through Meiji Shrine (明治神宮) or the temples at Nikko (日光). At the end of the tour, we passed a cypress tree that was around 750 years old. That's not something you find in a capital city very often...

Went back to the hotel and decided to have sangyetang (篸雞湯) for lunch. Couldn't find a nice little hole-in-the-wall around the Westin, so I ended up on top of Lotte Department Store...it's just sangyetang and pretty much the same at most places.

After checking in for my flight at Incheon Airport, my friends and I decided to have a little bit to eat before boarding. Yes, I am still stuffed from the sangyetang, but I felt like having a bowl of kalbitang from Byeok-Je (碧帝). The soup was clear and really nice with spring onions, but the beef...well, what was attached to the bones was nice. But the loose strands were a bit overcooked. However, I still really enjoyed the soup.

Now about the 7-hour flight from Seoul to Tashkent... I had decided to be cheap and fly Economy instead of Business, even though the premium for Business Class was only 100% more than Economy, or roughly USD 1,300 extra. I began to regret my decision the minute I sat down in my cattle-class seat.

On my left was a gentleman (I hardly think he qualifies for this description) of Central Asian descent. Despite wearing some nice cologne, his body odor was clearly detectable. He chose to invade my space with his arms and legs, having decided that his seat was too small for him. On top of it all, he took his shoes off and soon I began to enjoy an odor not unlike some of the strong cheeses I've encountered. It got to be unbearable pretty quickly, and as we were taking off, I decided to put my baseball cap over my face to insulate myself from the air around me. I am seriously considering upgrading myself to Business for the return leg. Fortunately, the nice Korean flight attendant found me a seat nearer the front of the plane, and I finally could breathe again.

All was well for the remainder of the flight. The service was excellent, with Ms. Kim continuously bringing water to rehydrate me. The plane, an A330-300, was relatively new and fitted with AVOD entertainment system in all seats. Time passes quickly when you have movies, TV shows...etc to watch.

After touching down at Tashkent airport, I noticed that the small terminal building didn't have any planes parked at any of the gates. In fact I thought I only saw one other plane parked on the tarmac. Nevermind.

We go through the inefficient and not-so-foreigner-friendly system of passport control (didn't know which lines were for locals or foreigners, no one at the visa counter for about 1 hour...), and collected our bags. Lined up at customs while every bag went through a scanner and the officer checked to ensure our forms were filled correctly. We finally all passed through customs and met up with our local guide Batir 1 1/2 hours after landing (I think some of the passengers were still waiting for their luggage at this time). A short ride later we arrived at our hotel, a very clean-looking Dedeman Silk Road Tashkent.

Silk Road III Day 1: Seoul Stopover

Today I embarked on my long-awaited trip to Central Asia with a few friends. We are flying from Taipei, with an overnight in Seoul since we are flying Asiana Airlines. The flight was short and relatively smooth, and we were picked up by the driver for my friends' colleague.

We went to dinner first, at a nice Korean restaurant in the mall attached to the 63 Building. I was really looking forward to this meal, as I haven't had good Korean beef for more than 2 years.

Honestly, the beef was disappointing. The sirloin that they brought out didn't look very fresh, as the color was starting to darken and wasn't bright red as it should be. And the waitress overcooked the beef (maybe to cover up the fact that the beef wasn't fresh) so the pieces were tough and chewy.

The other problem was that the grill they used was a hybrid. They used real charcoal, but there was a fan mechanism to increase/decrease the airflow to control the temperature. At one point the temperature was so high that as a bit of fat dripped onto the charcoal, flames shot out over the grill. That should have never happened.  Anyway, the kalbi ws not bad, and the side dishes were delicious. I enjoyed a very nice bowl of cold noodles (冷麵), and a very, very ripe persimmon that was totally delish.

After checking into the hotel, walked around Myong Dong (明洞) and found some of the worst-tasting donuts I've had in recent memory at the New York Donut Plant. This really wasn't my day in terms of dining...