Last week, my first ever piece for theWall Street Journal was published. It covers Chef Woo-joong Kwon and his restaurant East Village, which strives successfully to do Korean fine dining. We particularly talk about his restaurant’s signature dish, an upgrade of tteokgalbi, which is usually like a flaccid hamburger steak. I...
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The talk I did for the worldwide TED talent search is online, along with my Seoul compadres. I talked about the meteoric rise of Korean food. I did have a flub in the middle, but I recovered. Still makes me cringe to see that. You can watch it here–and vote if you’re so inclined. Joe McPherson: The meteoric rise of...
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I’ve just been informed that my footage of last year’s landslide at the EBS studios will be on “Serial Killer Earth,” a series on H2 (I think that means History Channel 2). It will first air on Saturday night (June 30th) and will repeat at different times. Here’s some of my...
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I was invited to a blogger dinner at the new Kyotofu in east Itaewon, next to Spice, occupying the old location of Toque. I had been hearing good things about Kyotofu–in New York. The story is that some guys went to Kyoto and learned how to make traditional tofu and fell in love with it. They came up with interesting takes on...
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This is a quick behind-the-scenes diary of setting up ZenKimchi and Seoul in the City’s pop-up restaurant, Back Kitchen Seoul. Read Seoul in the City’s account, too. For reviews on how the food and the evening actually went, check these out: Pop-up Surprise: Korean Food Re-imagined Korea Realtime, Wall Street Journal...
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Since I have a large half-used bag of 부침 buchim pancake mix begging to be brought onto the front lines of my kitchen, I decided to make kimchi okonomiyaki. I’m always in such a hurry — 빨리 빨리 bbali, bbali! So what could be better than adding kimchi to the popular add-whatever-you-like Japanese pancake? Okonomiyaki makes a...
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I’d been hearing about self-serve beer bars not only opening but exploding in Seoul. These types of bars exist in other cities around the world, but it’s a very new concept in Korea, and it’s catching on quickly. Import beers are becoming popular with young Korean adults. FTAs with countries have been coming into...
read moreClockwise from the top left are seawater tofu, dallae (달래 – small wild onion or Allium monanthum), naeng-yi (냉이 – Capsella bursapastoris), and godeul bbaegi (고들뺴기 – Crepidiastrum sonchifolium). With the exception of tofu, these are considered early spring herbs easily found in grocery stores. But the ones above...
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Wow! I finally got to have a meal here. PIERRE GAGNAIRE à Séoul (listen to SeoulPodcast #128 to hear how Stafford pronounces it) is widely considered to be the best restaurant in Korea. The menu has been out of the price range of this little food blogger, but luckily Sarah at Seoul in the City was able to get us a complimentary...
read moreOne thing I miss about living in Korea is the abundance of sea vegetables. Although more people are now aware of and have found applications for a couple of kinds of dried seaweed in the U.S., such as nori (김 – gim, dried laver) for California rolls and kombu (다시마 – dashima, dried kelp) for quick dashi stock, I feel...
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