May 2006 Archives

Surrounded by all this delicious looking food, we were starting to get very hungry. I began looking to see what the vendors were eating themselves. I felt a bit self conscious taking pictures of them eating and I thought it might be considered somewhat rude, so I snapped off a few pictures on the run.

You can buy your groceries here. You can buy a snack from a roaming food vendor cart. If that's not enough food you can have a seat in the restaurant section of the market. Each establishment has giant steel bowls of hearty stews cooking out front, tended to by the proprietor while he or she invites you in for a meal.

I really wanted to try this, but we were on our way to the Busan cooperative fish market.

Greens. To go with that beef heart you were planning to cook for dinner. In the lower left is a very large collection of kkaennip, otherwise known as perilla (more information here).

I've never seen such a mass of greenery assembled in one place. Enormous bags full of chives, herbs, and wild mountain plants. It makes any New York market look like a parched dessert in comparison. When you see this much food, you just want to buy it all and find a kitchen to cook it in.

Beef hearts, tripe, and blood sausage. I wonder what's in the white bag?

Garlic. A storefront devoted to selling nothing but garlic. Pre-peeled or still in the skin, you decide.

Another storefront selling nothing but different types of kelp.

The aisles of Bujeon market are narrow. Here we see a delivery cart and a mobile food vendor. These vendors will probably sell to anyone who walks by, but I believe the primary audience is the market workers.

Oh, and avoid the scooters. Especially when they're bearing down on you from both directions at once.

Freshly made doughnuts and savory breads.

Dduk, rice cakes. We should have bought some for later, but we were trying to make a "quick" run through the market before heading to our meal at the next destination. In the end, we spent a lot of time in the market and didn't buy any dduk. You win some, you lose some.

In the foreground are clams. A mountain of baby shrimp rises behind them (used for adding flavor and salt to any number of dishes including kimchi). A variety of spicy pickled vegetables is off to the left.

Myulchi, dried anchovies, in every conceivable size.

Different preparations of beans, more brined baby shrimp, marinated kelp, dried pish, pickled heads of garlic, lotus root.

At this point I was ready to pick up a bowl of rice and start eating directly from the steel bowls. A selection of kimchi, kochujang (chili pepper paste), and a bewildering array of pickled vegetables.

Bujeon market, in Busan, is an old school type of market filled with vendors selling a staggering array of meats, offal, seafood (dried and fresh), vegetables, and mountain greens, kelp, garlic, and everything a Korean kitchen needs. This was one of the most exciting stops in the entire trip. We're on the outer edge of the market. The bricks are starters for making daen jang, a fermented bean paste that's a staple in many meals. Blocks of fermenting soybeans that are quite pungent if you're in a warm room full of them.

You can even buy pillows for sitting on the floor.

It's hard to tell at this resolution but you're looking at a table full of octopus. Amusingly enough, not long after we returned from our trip I began reading Jeffrey Steingarten's "It Must Have Been Something I Ate," which started off by describing the Calamari Index.

Fish and... that looks like offal of some sort on the left.

Some real hard core women here. They could probably kick my ass. They're selling salt. You don't often see salt sold that way anymore, and that seems like a shame to me. We're making our way deeper into the market and it's getting more crowded.

Gop chang jeon gol is a casserole of small intestine. Gop chang, small intestine. Jeon gol, casserole.

We were assured that the quality of the gop chang was outstanding. "Not like the foreign stuff." This was only the second time I've had the dish but it was quite outstanding. The gop chang had a wonderful texture. Chewy but not tough, and a wonderful beefy aroma. It was so good I forgot to take a picture of the dish until we had finished most of it.

I had to do some research for this entry in eGullet forums.

Located in a quiet corner of the Bulguksa templte is a collection of what look like small rock sculptures. These represent hopes and dreams of people who come to pray here. You're welcome to make your own, but unless it's blessed by the temple it won't mean anything. To receive a blessing you have to make a contribution. The larger your contribution ... well, nevermind. Pretty rocks, yes?

The Seoul train station. There's more than one train terminal in the city. We took a high-speed KTX train from here to Gyeongju. Gyeongju was the capital of the Shilla Kingdom, and today contains a dense concentration of historical sites.

I love breakfast street food in Seoul. It's good, fast, and cheap. Kimbap, hodduk, and toast for a dollar each. What's not to love? Kimbap is... well, think futomaki but in a size in between futomaki and maki, and a lot of it. It's one of those home-style foods that's nearly impossible to find for sale in New York. Granted, for $1 you're not going to get kim bap that's as good as what's made in someone's home, but the fact that you can buy it on the street for that cheap is what strikes me.

Toast is a grilled sandwich of eggs, ham, peanut butter, and jelly. It sounds bizarre, almost Elvis-like, but I was hooked. For more examples of street food and a description of hodduk check out the hotok (sic) thread in eGullet forums.

As a general rule, street food is much better in Korea than it is in New York. There's more places to eat, a wider selection of food, and it's generally all quite good.

This particular stand had a selection of odaeng, fish cakes on skewers, and a wok full of duk bokee, a spicy rice cake dish. You would never walk past a large, bubbling wok full of food on the street here and we're that much worse off for it. I've been disappointed enough by the uniquitous chicken skewer cart guys with their leathery wares and I have come to loathe the acrid smell that inevitably accompanies every pretzel cart.

I'm told that things are being torn down and rebuilt all the time in Seoul. Ten years ago, Yongsan train station was nothing much to look at. Today it's got a very modern look. Okay, so it looks a little bit like the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but wouldn't you rather walk into this than New York Penn?

In theory, lunch at the COEX food court (there are two) is intriguing.

Imagine your standard Korean restaurant in America. The menu has section sfor grilled meats, stews, casseroles, hot pots, hot and cold noodle dishes, etc. Each station in the food court here specializes in one of those sections, or perhaps even just an individual dish. You don't have to stand around waiting for your food. You can sit at your table and wait for your number to show up on the "now serving" display.

I walked up and down the long row of counters at least twice. And unlike the sullen staff in the food court in Washington DC's Union Station, the staff will call out to you to buy their food. It's sort of like walking down Little Italy or Little India in New York, but less obnoxious.

This is a $5 lunch. Blood sausage soup, a bowl of rice, and an array of ban chan. The sausage had too many noodles, so much as to make the texture unpleasant. Kimchee for lunch? No problem! Does the water cup look familiar? I suppose my insane tendency for consistency is genetic.

Another $5 lunch. It's some sort of pan-Asian fusion fried rice thing, rather forgettable.

When you're done with your meal you're expected to return your tray and dishes back to the counter from which you purchased it. Notice that the utensils here are metal. There's surprisingly very little disposable waste in comparison to an American food court.

I guess it's not surprising to find that mall food, even half a world away, is still disappointing.

Depressing as it is to see American food chains in abroad, it's always interesting to see what changes are made to suit the local palate. Seafood stuffed pizza? I'll pass... but bulgogi stuffed pizza? Man, I should have gotten that instead of the omurice.

It's not just a mall, it's the COEX Mall. According to Wikipedia it's the largest underground mall in Asia and a ten story department store standing above ground. What really amazed me was the 500 won Initial D Version 3 machine, but that's another story.

Omurice (a combination of the words omelette and rice) is a relatively recent food fad import from Japan. On one level, this is nothing new. I'm sure every Korean guy has subsisted on a diet of fried eggs and rice at some period in his life. However, the omurice takes this basic dish and adds various fillings, toppings, and sauces. How many variations? Well look below...

Perhaps you'd like yours with a seafood medley? How about a hamburger patty? Curry? Or perhaps a heart shaped "Couples Omurice?"

We split a hamburger omurice, though not at this restaurant. In short, it was oversauced, too sweet, and generally a disappointment. I like my version better - fried eggs with American cheese and a few slices of Spam. Lots of rice (preferably cold for me), and no sauce.

Nolboo Myoungga is a restaurant near Central City specializing in Chosun Dynasty cuisine. Embarrassingly, I don't really know what that means except that the meal you'll find here provides a bewildering array of ban chan surrounding a central dish. In this case, it's bulgogi. If you visit the restaurant's web site and click around the Flash navigation menu you'll see its location, different meal types, and the live entertainment.

If you observe closely you'll see that there are actually 2 sets of ban chan, one for each half of the table. The serving of bulgogi seems small for a party of four but by the time you pick through all the ban chan you really can't eat much more.

Diners sit on the floor of raised platforms. Wear your good socks because your shoes will be left far behind. You sit on floor cushions with no table in front of you. Your entire meal is arranged on a table in the kitchen and then brought out by the staff and set before you.

This is a close-up of gae ran chim, kind of like a savory egg custard.

Mmmm, fried silkworm larvae. This generous cup was a mere 1,000 won! They taste a bit like dried shrimp. I'm not a fan of dried shrimp and I couldn't really get over the notion that I was eating bugs. But hey, not long ago I couldn't stand offal, either. I had a few for posterity (with pictures that will remain unposted). We told our friends about it afterward, who all seemed to recall this snack but couldn't remember the last time they had it.

We stayed near the Seoul National University stop (which, ironically, is quite a distance from the school itself). There are many food vendors, both in stores and on the street, at this location. We stopped in this little restaurant for a $4 breakfast of chim bbang and kimchee mandoo. No tip. The beef broth soup is complimentary. Note how light in color the dahk wahng (daikon radish) is compared to what's available in the US.

Water is self-serve out of a stand-alone water filter and small metal cups. The prices are in won. It's easiest to assume that 1,000 won is approximately 1 dollar US. Why aren't there places like this in the US? It would become a recurring theme throughout the trip.

In Insadong, turn onto a side street and then veer off into an alley.

In Insadong you'll find Cha ee ya gi, a homey little restaurant with eastern and western style seating options. Open kitchen? If the place is busy you're practically standing in it while you're waiting for them to clear your table.

The table is barely big enough to hold the ban chan, the plate of various greens, the tea cups, and rice cups.

The other half of the table. Note the assortment of greens for wrapping the grilled meat. A small white dish of salt, for the sam gyeop sal, is visible in the foreground. Above it are some marinated mountain vegetables (slightly bitter, quite tasty), and above that is a small pot of daeng jang. There are large pieces of whole soybean in it, and it is quite delicious. Korean-Americans are known to go crazy for homemade daeng jang. If someone is making it, word will spread and people will flock from miles around to buy some. I have some daeng jang at home that's over 15 years old that I have to guard with my life. It'll be a family heirloom, for sure.

Rice served in a section of real bamboo cooked with beans and Korean dates. It is sealed with rice paper when delivered to your table. A piece of charcol, seen to the left, is placed on top before serving. I really don't know what it's for but I guess it's for a cleansing effect.

Three preparations of grilled Japanese eggplant (spinach, sweet red, eggyolk).