About Korean Food

 

Korean food5These photos are a few years old, taken when Daniel and I visited my home town, Seoul. He has already been to Korea six times, wow 6 already! We catch up with my family and friends and most importantly eat Korean foods. I don’t know how much of you know or are interested in Korean food. I don’t cook much Korean food at home myself, so thought it would be a good idea posting some real photos to show you how they look like (and make you hungry 🙂 ).

The first photo is me with a cafe mascot called Ms. Lee. Same name, though there are thousands of Ms. Lees out there in Korea. Second photo (top right) is a seaweed soup with rice and side dishes, which I had for hotel breakfast. Third photo is barbequed duck with ssam (wrap in Korean). So how to eat? Take a variety of the greens, layered for flavour (choose from bitter, crunchy, sweet or spicy leaves), and spoon on some rice and ssamjang (a dressing made of fermented soybeans), then somehow fit in your mouth. You need to make sure not filling too much in the wrap 🙂 Focusing on fermented soy, vegetables and grains with minimal meat is a big tick for the healthy Korean cuisine. It is also fun to make ssam at the table. I find it definitely makes Daniel eat slower. The last food is Daniel’s favorite street foods, Korean black pudding and veggie tempura.

Korean food1We went to this Korean restaurant in Insadong and had Deonjang braised pork ssam with spicy radish Kimchi and soybean soup, and a giant seafood-scallion pancake (even bigger than a plate, can you see?). Yum!
Korean food2These photos are taken from last year when we went to Busan for the weekend. From the top left, kelp noodle salad with pork, veggies and wasabi dressing, cold noodles, Korean style dumplings called Mandu, and raw beef tartar with raw egg york and nasi pear.

Korean food4Time for desserts? Koreans love frozen desserts such as shaved ice, ice creams, ice blended drinks and scoops of ice cream pressed between waffles in Summer (or all year around?). My favorite, Patbingsu, has sweetened tender red beans, fruits, cereals and syrup on shaved ice. Truly light and bright, the taste of summer! We also have a lot of green tea desserts, too.
Korean food3Lastly, some deadly drinks that Daniel and my cousins had. They drop a shot of whiskey or soju in a glass of beer to make this cocktail. I cannot imagine the taste >.< When you say “yes” to going out on Friday night or weekend, it means you are likely getting into these bad boys and maybe some silly karaoke session. Ah the last photo is a night view from Seoul Namsan tower, showing a small part of Seoul. Yes, it is a big busy city. Oh well..good memories.. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at the taste of Korea and feel free to ask me anything if you happen to go traveling there. I’m happy to help x

The Wang’s Treasure House

Chinese Dinner

Daniel and I got invited to the CNY celebration dinner last weekend. We’ve been to their restaurant for CNY for a couple of times now. Thanks to William and Kim, we were so spoilt having a Yusheng and lobster noodles and watching a lion dance. Yusheng is a raw fish salad consisted of raw salmon and mixed vegetables and a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor. I love the freshness of salmon sashimi, crisp vegetables and grated ginger. Downside of the dish is that it gets so messy around the plate while you are mixing up the salad. It literally goes everywhere. For the lobster noodles, Daniel got his hands dirty and peeled off the shell for me. There is something about this kind of act that I find sexy in men. Not opening the car door or pulling your chair out at the restaurant, but peeling off shell-fish or setting up barbeques or cutting up a steak for women. You know we don’t want our hands dirty when we are all nicely dressed up. Is it just me? :p

With regards to lobster, the best ones I’ve ever had are the humongous steamed lobster at Chelsea market in NY (one jumbo size can easily feed 3-4 people) and the lobster sashimi in Korea. I went to this lobster specialised restaurant with mum near her apartment. Their lunch course consists of a small bowl of lobster-rice porridge for start, lobster sashimi, grilled lobster in two flavours (sweet chilli, butter and cheese), clear lobster soup to finish. What I like about that restaurant is that you can taste different types of dishes with one lobster, they respect the ingredient and don’t waste a thing. They also gave us a complimentary drink when we sat at the table just because two women were on a lunch date. I must go back there with mum and take some photos next time. So good!

After three hours of eating and chatting, they even gave us a take-away sweets to take home. So nice of them. If you would like to try, book a table since it is a very busy restaurant near Morley Galleria shopping centre. They are open for lunch and dinner except Tuesdays.

The Wang’s Treasure House
4 Wellington Road, Morley
08 9275 4020

Kofoo in Sydney

Lunch14

Our accommodation was only 5-10 minutes to China town when we stayed in Sydney. I think it might have been New Year’s day when we went to this Korean restaurant for brunch.  The reason why we were looking for Korean food was that we eat a rice cake and dumpling soup on New Year’s day in Korea. Since I cannot cook one myself in hotel, we headed out to China town to find a restaurant that does it for us.

We found a cool looking one called ‘Kofoo’, which is shortened form of ‘Korean food’. I loved a modern pub style interior and friendly staff. Sitting there looking at Korean posters and listening to Korean songs made me feel I was in Korea for a bit. Sydney is definitely more multicultural city and you see so many tourists from all over the world on the streets. So I felt like I was in different country.

By the time we got a table, it was almost 11am..11:30am.. Starving! Menu didn’t have a rice cake soup though other dishes sounded pretty good to us. We ended up ordering 4 dishes between two of us, thinking we were starving, first of all, and dishes would be small. We ordered dumplings for entree, bibimbap for me, soybean soup for Daniel and beef tartar to share. It turned out to be a lot more than we thought it would be, though we managed to finish all. It tasted more westernised Korean food than traditional as I expected. For business, yes – you need to make changes for the locals, though I have to admit it is quite disappointing to me every time I go to Korean restaurants here. Staff was pretty attentive and friendly overall. This restaurant apparently started in Brisbane as a little food stall, then opened up this restaurant in Sydney almost a year ago, and now expanding further to franchise business – good on them.

I read in the Western Australian news paper a couple of weeks ago what Matt Preston, a famous food critic in Australia, said that Korean food would get more attention in 2014. I cannot agree more. Being a healthy tasty cuisine among Asian foods, it offers a variety of fermented vegetable dishes, like Kimchi, using lots of chilli, garlic, ginger and all good stuff. If you struggle with Western diet due to too much gluten, oil, sugar, etc, definitely Korean food is a way to go. I really hope Korean cuisine shines more this year,which means there will be more improvements in the quality of food and service in restaurants as well. And I dream…I could be one of them:)

The Punch Lane in Melbourne

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It was my birthday yesterday. Well it was my mother-in-law’s big 60th a day before, so it was kind of a continuation of that celebration I guess. We went out to this nice restaurant for dinner with in-laws last night. This restaurant is located at the end of China town in Melbourne. You can see a big sign of Wine Bar, Punch Lane on the street. Size of the dinning area was just right, not too big nor small. Antique furniture, wine bottles at the back of the wall, jazz music, very attentive waiter, good atmosphere. Food was good too. Freshly baked bread with e.v.o.o and sea salt to start with. I couldn’t have bread though everyone said it was really nice. For main, I had a barramundi and clams in ‘crazy water’. Daniel had a duck breast with pickled cumquats with green bean salads on the side. Fish was cooked perfectly melting in my mouth though sauce was a little salty for my taste. Green bean salad was crunchy and refreshing compliment very well with mains. Dessert was watermelon, meringue and rose sorbet with ‘happy birthday’ writing on the plate to cleanse the palate before we left. Sweet of my hubby, booking a nice restaurant and organising a birthday dessert for me. Big thanks to him! I enjoyed a nice food and company last night.

Seriously Melbourne is in my heart. I’ve visited probably about 6 times over the years. I never get sick of this city full of culture and fashion. I cannot explain exactly what it is, but there is something that makes me come back again and again. Well..I am very excited and looking forward to moving to Melbourne as soon as things get organised quick enough. People complain of unpredictable Melbourne weather. Well while we were staying for 3 days, yes we had a cold rainy morning, sunny afternoon, windy and cold evening. However, I reckon I can deal with a little crappy weather for all the other good things about Melbourne:) My heart is pounding already just thinking about living there!

NYC

2013-05-04 19.52.54 0014 New York

Earlier this year Daniel and I had a two week holiday in NYC. It was the first time we go on holiday overseas together so it was pretty exciting!!!
We arrived in NY late afternoon. Finding a hotel was a bit of a challenge, then we both looked absolutely knackered like a photo below:p Anyways we had a nice Korean meal that night with my friend and her husband.

2013-05-05 17.28.58 0058 New York  I think it was a following day when we went to Chelsea market to have a jumbo lobster lol Gosh that little (?) guy was so huge! it was enough for three of us to share and feel very full. I couldn’t believe how fresh and cheap they were. We went back there another time with her husband as well. Nom nom nom:)

2013-05-06 12.53.14 0095 New York 2013-05-06 13.16.21 0096 New York We had a lunch at one of the restaurants which a friend of mine recommended in Soho. We were pretty hungry after hours of shopping in Soho. This restaurant was a little hidden in the alley ways and full of antique style furniture. Service was good and food was divine:)

2013-05-07 08.31.03 0135 New York 2013-05-07 08.50.51 0151 New York 2013-05-07 09.06.10 0161 New York 2013-05-07 09.22.41 0165 New York  We did so much walking while staying in NYC. Such a shame the weather wasn’t that great. Walking around central park was nice though my legs kind of gave up after about 2/3 of it >.< We saw so many squirrels, not afraid of human lol So nice to have a park like that in the middle of the city:) 2013-05-07 19.48.21 0207 New York A view from Rockefeller building. We went up there after dinner just in time for sunset. C’est juste belle!  2013-05-08 11.15.25 0245 New York Burger that didn’t live up to the expectation…everyone (well on the internet) said you must try this burger in NYC! well you were wrong. It was small, salty and average according to Daniel 🙁 We can say we tried though please..there are so much better foods in New York. 2013-05-10 19.12.41 0377 New York 2013-05-14 19.38.39 0623 New York