Mmmm... bingsu

Bingsu is a Korean hybrid consisting of Asian-style frozen yogurt (Pinkberry, Red Mango, etc. that you can get stateside) on top of shaved ice, with toppings. Shown below: strawberry, mixed fruit, and chocolate cereal versions.

Bingsu is actually quite genius because it's more refreshing than just fro-yo alone, and has fewer calories. I think US fro-yo places should look into this.

Seoul Wrap-up: My knowledge of Korean cuisine has been expanded dramatically. Thank you SO SO SO much to Kathy and Ron, for showing me your Seoul and being such thoughtful and unstintingly generous hosts! You guys are the best! Shack burgers on me next time you're in the City.

[unidentified Korean bbq place in Seoul]

Occasion: My last dinner in Seoul with Kathy and Ron.
Location: a Korean bbq place in Shinchon
Edibles: beef, more beef and all the fixins'

Musings: We went to this place on my insistence. As good as tofu and mandoo are, the meat-tooth must be satisfied!

Goes to show - even a seasoned foodie can be led astray by preconceived notions. The beef had a nice marinade and was generally tasty, but nothing you can't get in the US. Definitely not worth wasting a meal in Korea. Lesson learned: listen to your local hosts when you travel.

[unidentified noodle shop in Seoul]

Occasion: Lunch with Kathy
Location: this place

Edibles: Non-spicy noodles for me; spicy noodles for Kathy

Musings: This dish really is the perfect summer lunch - cool, tart and light. Cold soba vermicelli (an opaque grey-green color and chewier than regular Chinese vermicelli made with mung beans) in an iced broth, with a hardboiled egg. I gave it a generous squirt of white vinegar, a substance I had previously dismissed as only fit for glass-cleaning, but which provided the perfect unobtrustive acidity. Outstanding.

(There was some barbequed pork on the side but I barely paid any attention to it, so occupied was I by the noodles. Considering what a meat-tooth I am, that's saying something.)

I think I can replicate this at home.

Kathy had the spicy version. (Note: If you're not a spicy foods wimp like me, you will LOVE Korea. They appreciate a pepper here. And possibly also Red Dye #40.)

Tofu House

Occasion: Dinner with some of Kathy and Ron's friends
Location: Tofu House, somewhere in Shinchon (again, I can always appeal to Kathy and Ron if you're looking for an exact location)
Edibles: non-spicy tofu stew with red bean rice

Musings: I love this sort of peasant food (matter-of-fact, hearty, loaded with lots of carbs and cheap proteins). I ordered the only non-spicy tofu stew on the menu. It was lovely and mild, with a slight peanut-y taste. I can totally see why Kathy and Ron are regulars here. It was a yummy meal even in the steamy summer heat - I can only imagine how wonderful it is in the deep of winter.

For those of you who recoil at the thought of eating tofu, I ask you to reconsider your prejudices. I like tofu not because it's healthy, but because it's awesome and delicious. The silky wobble of it on your tongue can be almost sort of... sexy.

It's bland, you say? So are many other wonderful foods like eggplant, rice, polenta and even bread. They're usually meant to absorb the characteristics of the foods you cook them with, or provide a respite from other intensely flavored things you're eating in the meal.

Yes, some ungodly things have been done to tofu. Tofurkey, for example, just gives me the creeps. I personally think preparations that substitute tofu for meat don't do it justice. It's perfectly tasty in its natural state. We Asians know how to cook it right - give it a chance!

Old Tea Shop

Location: Old Tea Shop, 2F 2-2 Kwan Hun-dong, Chong Ro-gu in the Insadong neighborhood of Seoul (e-mail oldteashop@hanmail.net)

We stopped here for a spot of afternoon tea. The Old Tea Shop has a very charming décor. I don't know enough to say whether it was authentic, but I loved the colors and textures. There was also a strong natural element - we sat at a "table" that was a giant urn fishbowl covered with glass top.

The tea shop also had finches (or some other little cheeping birds) flying around freely.

I had a refreshing and unusual citrus-y iced tea. Our beverages came with these oblong sticky rice pastries.

For first-time visitors to Seoul, I highly recommend Insadong and the Old Tea Shop. The little artists' shops along the main street were perfect for gift shopping - I picked up a nice pieced linen wall hanging for myself, and some little condiment dishes with a leaf design. And when you're shopped out, the Old Tea Shop provides the perfect zen oasis.

Sinpo Mandoo

Occasion: Pre-shopping lunch with Kathy
Location: Sinpo Mandoo (sinpomandoo.co.kr)
Edibles: fried mandoo; steamed black rice mandoo; kimchi mandoo

Musings: Sinpo's seating area was the epitome of bland mass-market eateries but I didn't have to worry that it was some shoddy Korean fast-food chain. One, I trusted that Kathy would never lead me astray like that. Two, on the way in we passed a window into the kitchen showing a little old man making mandoo by hand. (There's nothing worse than a chain restaurant where all the food is delivered pre-made and frozen, in bags. This is why I find Olive Garden and its ilk so offensive.)

The fried mandoo were my favorite of the three kinds we got. Unlike Chinese potstickers, which are generally pan-fried, these guys were breaded and deep-fried to create the great crunchy crust. The perfect combination of flavor and texture.

The black rice ones were novel and the flavor was good, but they were a touch soggy.

The kimchi mandoo were bold and spicy.... alas, a touch too spicy for me. I had two of these and my mouth started to go numb. I had beat an ignominious retreat but Kathy was able to finish them off.

If I were to come back, I'd probably be boring and get a double order of the fried mandoo. All in all, an excellent lunch - cheap, fast, fresh and tasty.

[unidentified bar in Seoul]

Occasion: My first adventure in Seoul!
Location: a bar in Shinchon - location upon request (my hosts Kathy and Ron will know exactly where it is)
Edibles: big plate o' fried things; Korean fried chicken

Musings: The big plate o' fried things included such diverse items as zucchini, fake crab, spam, sausage and tofu, with a zippy dipping sauce.

The chicken wings were excellent, as I've come to expect from the Korean + fried chicken combination. It was somewhat saucier than the New York version, but with that characteristic batter-less crust. Yum...

There was also a jug of some sort of murky rice wine. It was sweet and innocuous-tasting. I tried to watch my refills, as I was dealing with a bit of travel fatigue. Also, I've known some innocuous-tasting Asian liquors that will knock you flat on your ass without any warning signs. Drinker beware.

From my quick stroll around, I already love my friends' neighborhood. I understand it's close to a university and that probably explains the active nightlife and proliferation of cheap, casual eateries. I'm excited for the next few days. Kathy and Ron have been in town long enough to develop a restaurant repertoire and I get the benefit of their experience!

Shanghai Expo 2010 - France

French food can be incredibly fussy and artistic, or it can be good, hearty peasant food. I love both for what they are. The restaurant in the French Pavilion featured neither, instead taking a middle-of-the-road approach with the sort of food you'd expect at a nice wedding, or on a business class flight (trust me, I'm not fancy - Cathay occasionally bumps me up on crowded flights).

I had the shrimp starter....

....the steak main....

... and the peach cobbler dessert.

Does that look like a French dinner to you?

Expo Wrap-up: It's a pity we ended up spending so much time in the European pavilions. New York boasts stunning representatives of all the national cuisines we sampled, and I've traveled to most of the countries to boot. The timid, indifferent efforts on display at the pavilions couldn't hope to compare.

Nonetheless, it was fun to wander around the grounds and gawk at the fanciful architecture of the various pavilions. It was also nice to see so many people gathered together to broaden their cultural horizons. Heartfelt thanks go out to the Lee family and entourage for their incredible organization and hospitality.

Shanghai Expo 2010 - Italy

Italian is my favorite absolute cuisine. I don't think anyone else has mastered the carbohydrate quite like the Italians. For breads, you've got pizza crust, ciabatta, focaccia, panettone, etc. For rice, risotto. And pasta..... ah, pasta - a staggering array of shapes and sizes, in preparations limited only by the imagination.

New York certainly has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fantastic Italian restaurants. Batali alone accounts for eight outstanding establishments.

The food I had when I was in Italy itself was fairly mediocre - didn't know where to go, I expect. (Though the tomatoes blew me away. You can really taste the difference when a tomato is naturally ripened in the sun. Pure bliss.)

The Italian Pavilion was, sadly, closer to my actual Italian experience than my New York Italian experience. We started with a ho-hum salad and a cured salmon dish with olive oil, orange segments, olives and capers.

We also had a potato and salt cod (baccalà in Italian) dish that confused me because I associate it so strongly with Spanish cuisine.

The lasagne was gummy and goopy. Mine is leagues better.

Very poor form, Italy.

Xinkaiyuan Hotel

Occasion: Dinner before the Zhang Yimou West Lake show

Location: Xinkaiyuan Hotel in Hangzhou, China (newkaiyuan.com)

Edibles: Our second Chinese feast of the day! Drunken chicken; marinated jellyfish; stewed bamboo and pork; spicy cauliflower; black wood ear (a type of edible fungus); raw crab; a sort of Chinese chowder; baby shrimp with vinegar; chopped spinach; baby peas; braised pumpkin

(click to enlarge - isn't Picasa Collage Creator great?)

Musings: A place clearly targeting tourists. Instead of a menu, they have photos or display versions of all their dishes. Just point and give them your money.

Dinner was a bit of a food flurry but a couple of things stood out. I thought the below dish deserved special mention. Yes, it is a dish consisting entirely of cured pork belly or as I call it, Chinese bacon. I could subsist on this dish and white rice (and maybe a vitamin supplement to ward off scurvy) for months.

Honorable mention goes to the spicy cauliflower stir-fry, garnished with chives and julienned Chinese bacon - it's the one in the silver wok. I can't think of the last time I was suprised by a cauliflower dish. It's a pretty boring vegetable but this recipe really makes it shine. (I think it's doable at home. Stay tuned for my recipe-testing shenanigans.)

[Postscript: Zhang Yimou's "Impression West Lake" is AMAZING. They built some crazy infrastructure into the lake so the performers all look like they're walking on water. A tragic love story, really interesting lighting effects, great costumes, great music. If you find yourself in that part of China, I highly recommend you check it out.]

Grandma's Kitchen

Occasion: Lunch after touring West Lake Park
Location: Grandma's Kitchen in Hangzhou (it looks like there's multiple locations on the business card, but they're all in Chinese so I can't make out any specifics)
Edibles: (from left to right, top down) sautéed baby shrimp; spicy marinated tripe; fish stew with a tomato broth; chicken gizzards; sliced pork; bean sprouts; marinated eggplant; fried tofu rolls with sweet and sour dipping sauce; spinach with dried shrimp; teriyaki beef with an egg

Musings: A 12-course feast, for about $15 USD per person. Can't beat that. The clay pot chicken (not pictured) was the highlight. We saw one on just about every table we passed, and for good reason. The chicken was moist and flavorful and had a great crispy skin - yeah, don't know how they managed that in the clay pot.

This is the kind of meal I wish I could feed to people who say they don't like Chinese food. I think what they're really saying they don't like the dreck that's served in those crappy Chinese takeout places.... which is about as far from Chinese cuisine as Taco Bell is from real Mexican. Yes, there are some challenging items - tofu products, offal - but they're prepared with skill and confidence, and taste pretty darn good. All you have to do is keep an open mind.

Mmmm... Yangcheng hairy crab

As if the almost psychotic level of hospitality he'd already shown us wasn't enough, my uncle produced a massive platter of these suckers at dinner. The Chinese mitten crab, a.k.a. the Shanghai hairy crab. Although they can be found all along eastern Asia, the best specimens are supposed to originate from Yangcheng Lake. Bourdain ate some of these crabs in his Shanghai episode, No Reservations Season Three. They're considered quite the delicacy - my own grandfather would sometimes fly to China for a weekend during the height of the season, just to eat them.

A close-up of my victim. A pretty cute little guy, about the size of my palm.

Now deconstructed:

It takes about twenty minutes and a lot of patience to really pick one of these guys clean. The meat is extremely fine-grained, with a subtle, delicate flavor. Good enough to eat completely unadulterated, or accented with a quick dip in some light Chinese rice wine vinegar.

While very yummy, I don't quite understand the whole to-do over these crabs. I think my west coast Dungeness (cheaper, meatier and extremely tasty all in all) could give them a run for their money.

Song He Lou

Occasion: Lunch after touring the Humble Administrator's Garden
Location: Song He Lou (The Pine and Crane), 198 Shantang Street in Suzhou (which is, confusingly, just a city and not a province)
Edibles: yin yang spinach and tofu soup (pictured above); lots of small dishes (pictured below left to right, top to bottom) - an unidentified vegetable, sautéed; another indentified vegetable, chopped, with mushrooms; honey-braised pumpkin; sautéed baby shrimp; marinated jellyfish; rice cakes with sweet and sour sauce; Chinese broccoli with soy sauce; bok choi with cured ham

Musings: As is common in the area, the meal started with a fantastic assortment of cold dishes. Mystery veg #2 (the bright green one) and the pumpkin were my favorites.

We came in at the tail end of their lunch service, after the head chef had already ended his shift, so they could only produce a limited selection of their hot dishes. I thought they over-sauced the rice cakes but I loved the bok choi, which was topped with the Chinese equivalent of bacon. Mmmm... bacon...

I enjoyed the meal and thought the food was pretty good. My folks, with their more educated Chinese palates, deemed it decent but rather primitive and rudimentary. I guess that averages out to about a "B"?

Mmmm... lotus seeds

Location: The Humble Administrator's Garden (a UNESCO World Heritgage site)

While touring the garden, we saw this lady paddling around in what looked like a wooden bathtub, selling lotus seed pods to the tourists. Of course, I had to get one.

The pod is fist-sized, and you pry the seeds out the spongy, leathery pod. Once extricated, you peel off the pale green skin and eat the white seed inside, avoiding the bitter sprout in the middle. The seed is mostly flavorless and tastes sort of like a chickpea.

This is the lotus plant: leaves, flowers and pods. It's an aquatic plant that grows like wildfire if you let it. For the eagle-eyed, one of the pods is visible in the lower left corner of the photo (click to enlarge). Incidentally, the word for "showerhead" in Chinese comes from the lotus seed pod.

Shanghai Expo 2010 - Spain

We had dinner at the Spanish Pavilion. The architecture of the pavilion itself was awesome. It was sort of free-form and Frank Gehry-esque. The entire exterior was textured with "shingles" of woven rattan.

The food was... pretty pathetic. The table wine was barely drinkable. We got a sad waterlogged salad to start, some rubbery meatballs and soggy patatas bravas to follow, and a slice of some pie or other to finish. If you know me, you'll know that a pie has to be pretty damn bad for me to forget what the flavor was. [Postscript: This meal ended up being the worst one we had at the Expo.]

The dinner cabaret show was likewise feeble, though listening to the MC speak Chinese with a heavy Spanish accent was a suprisingly enjoyable novelty.

Shanghai Expo 2010 - Norway

My crazy uncle-in-law (my dad's sister's husband's brother) found a loophole in the Expo queue system: if you make a reservation in the dining room, you can tour the main part of the pavilion directly after your meal. (Those Expo lines were no joke. The line for the Saudi Arabian Pavilion ranged from 6 to 9 hours.)

We started with lunch at the Norwegian Pavilion. The food (prepared by fursetgruppen.no) was excellent - seafood imported from Norway, skillfully prepared and presented in that spare Scandinavian way. It didn't look like a heavy meal, but it was deceptively rich and filling. [Postcript: Norway ended up serving the best meal we had at the Expo, completely eclipsing the offerings of traditional culinary countries like France and Italy.]

This is salmon prepared four ways (smoked; with lemon oil; with sliced almonds; cured) and some soft scrambled eggs.

Seafood chowder, roasted potatoes, salmon with beurre noisette and Asian-influenced cod with braised mushrooms. That chowder was thin, but a real umami powerhouse.

This is cod main - pan-fried, topped with an apple-fennel salad, with spinach purée. Also very tasty. We somehow ended up with an extra one of these so I ended up eating one and a half mains. (What? I'm on vacation.)

Dessert: fruit, a lovely lemon sorbet and a chocolate mousse. I also had a glass of aquavit. It's... an acquired taste. (I could easily imagine it being used to de-grease an engine.)

I'm happy to report I was able to fight off the food coma for an afternoon of pavilion-touring.

Menya Musashi

Occasion: The search for authentic ramen.

Location: Menya Musashi in Shinjuku, Tokyo. You can find them at www.m634.com/634/

Edibles: ramen, natch - I had the cold ramen with one pork and one egg (then had to get an extra pork - it was just so good); my mom had the regular hot ramen with one pork and one egg; my brother had the house special hot ramen with three porks

Musings: It's a tiny little unitasker shop. There are maybe twenty seats, four guys in the kitchen. A fun part of the experience is ordering from the ticket machine. (Apparently, this kind of set-up is fairly commonplace in Tokyo - this way, the cooks don't have to handle any money.)

We spent quite some time trying to figure out the options, cobbling together info from my brother's rudimentary Japanese and my mom's Chinese (the source of Japanese kanji characters). Eventually, the kitchen guys took pity on us and sent out an English-speaker to explain the machine.

As it turns out, the machine has three rows, one each for cold ramen, hot ramen, and the house special. Then the columns represent different combinations of pork and egg. The first button is one pork, half an egg. Then one pork, a whole egg. Two porks, half an egg. Three porks. And finally, three porks and half an egg. The eagle-eyed will see that there's a fourth row of buttons further down. The function of most of these remains a mystery to us (side dishes? beverages? cigarettes?), but one was the button for my desired extra piece of pork.

On a hot, swelter-y day, cold ramen REALLY hits the spot. Zaru soba is one of my favorite summer meals, but cold ramen absolutely surpasses it.

The noodles were awesome - thick and really chewy, with a little twisty texture. The pork was likewise awesome. Each piece was a hefty block of meat, luscious and fatty, falling-apart tender, with deep, rich flavor.

Below is the house special with three porks. Looks like a real winner for colder weather.

Best of all, this place was way cheap. It was really just the beer that tipped us over the $10 mark. I have never had better ramen in my life. Unlike yesterday's yakitori, this place gave me a little pang. As good as my Minca is, this is leagues better.

[Note: Japanese people eat fast! In the time it took us to finish, I think they turned the seats next to us three times. And we weren't dawdling.]

In case you were wondering how we found Menya Musashi, the concierge at our hotel had a ramen map for the neighborhood!! How cool is that?

(click to enlarge)

Momotaro

Occasion: Our first proper dinner in Tokyo
Location: Momotaro in the Ebisu neighborhood of Tokyo (description and exact location in this article)
Edibles: lots o' chicken and skewers - details below.....

Musings: My sister was in Tokyo for business last year, and got taken to this place for dinner. I figured if Sony folks would take business guests here, it must be pretty legit. It wasn't too difficult to find (look for the KFC as a landmark) and, upon entering, I was pleased to see that it was a) tiny, and b) full of actual Japanese people. We ordered the tasting menu, about $35 per person, and waited for the magic to happen.

They started out with a bang - our first dish was chicken sashimi with raw sliced onions and grated ginger. Not for the faint of heart. I was immediately excited, but my mom refused to eat it. My thought process: if they dare to serve it, they must really trust their supplier. (They used to serve chicken sashimi at Yakitori Totto. They took it off the menu a couple of years ago during the avian flu epidemic, and I've always kicked myself for not trying it when I could.)

The chicken sashimi was lovely, very silky and subtle. Would I eat it again? Absolutely. But it wasn't SO special that I feel the need to seek it out stateside.

A proliferation of skewers followed: gizzard; chicken oyster (a part of the thigh); knee; chicken with scallion; chicken meatball; liver with a soy glaze; chicken neck; chicken "entrails" (I still have no idea what this was).

The liver and the neck were wonderful. I don't order liver a lot, but I do really enjoy it when it's prepared well. The chicken oyster was a little greasy compared to Totto's version. Momotaro's meatball was indisputably inferior to Totto's as well. The gizzard and the knee were a tad gristle-y and chewy for my taste (I don't usually order those) but objectively well-executed.

More skewers came: bacon and cheese; bacon and tomato; quail eggs; shiitake and peppers with sauce and bonito; some other kind of mushroom, possibly porcini or matsutake. The quail eggs were surprisingly delicate and tasty.

We got a couple of fried dishes next: deep-fried chicken strips; deep-fried knee; deep-fried something cartilaginous - I thought it was perhaps the keelbone.

We got a salad with some more chicken sashimi, some cold summer rolls with a garlicky sauce and some liver pâté on crostini....

.... and finally some onigiri (rice cakes).

Whew - what a meal! I ended up being a little divided on the chef's tasting. On the one hand, we undoubtedly ate some amazing things that we wouldn't otherwise have ordered. On the other hand, I'm familiar enough with yakitori that I could have done a decent job ordering à la carte, and saved myself crunching through quite a lot of chicken knees....

Bottom line: it was a great meal and I would certainly recommend Momotaro. But I'm also quite smug for NYC that we have some amazing yakitori right here.