Tag: bibimbap

14 Must-eat Korean Foods In Seoul and Where To Eat
I’ve been writing about Korean food in Seoul since 2004 at ZenKimchi. I’ve consulted Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Travel Channel, and other world media in finding the must eat Korean foods.
Here’s the ultimate list. These are foods you can find specific restaurants for. I’m not including foods that you’d find as side dishes, like Japchae and Kimchi.

Beginner’s Quest
This list is getting so hyuuuge that I’m dividing it into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Beginner is if you’re new to Korean food, or if it’s your first time in Korea. These are also the foods that are crowd pleasers–the greatest hits. The Top-40 music of Korean food.
Korean BBQ
The first must-eat Korean food that springs to mind. Cooking meat at your table and wrapping it in lettuce. There’s something primal about that. Korean BBQ is all about community and fun. In Korea itself, pork is king. Beef costs so much it’s for special occasions.
Where to eat Korean BBQ
It’s hard to screw up Korean BBQ in Korea. The competition is so fierce that mediocre places don’t hang out long.
Mapo Jeong Daepo 마포정대포
My go-to place is still Jeong Daepo in the Mapo neighborhood, near Gongdeok Station. The whole area is full of BBQ aromas. Most all the restaurants in that area are great. We made sure Anthony Bourdain went there the last time he was in Seoul. It’s the main place we go to on The Ultimate Korean BBQ Night Out.

Hongik Sutbul Galbi Sogeum Gwi 홍익숯불갈비소금구
I don’t know how long this will hold out against the pressure of gentrification. It’s a packed, packed, packed place. They give your meat a pre-cook over strong fire before finishing it at your table.

Chicken & Beer
“Chimaek” (Chicken + Maekju | beer) got its start in the early 1970s. It’s now such a great must-eat Korean food institution that we have more chicken restaurants than there are McDonald’s in the entire world. There’s something about this combination. Strangely, it works well with watered down Korean beers–preferably Cass. I swear.
I’m more a fan of classic styles. Recent styles of fried chicken lean more to the American style–thick flour-based crust. I like the thin starch-based coating with the aromatic spicies.
Where to eat Chicken & Beer
I’d almost say it’s hard to go wrong, but it is. Chicken hofs are neighborhood haunts. There’s no exclusive I-gotta-try-this chicken pub with a line out the door. In fact, if there’s a line out the door stay far away from it. My rule of thumb is this. If it’s full of beautiful young women taking Insta-selfies, it’s not good chicken. If it’s grease stained and full of middle-aged men who look like life has kicked them in the teeth, great chicken.
Two-Two Chicken 둘둘치킨
You can’t go wrong with Two-Two (pictured above). You’ll likely be the youngest person in any of its locations. It’s a franchise, but each venue acts like a mom-and-pop shop. The basic recipe and yangnyeom (spicy sweet garlic sauce) are the same, but they put their own spins on the sauces. We include a stop at a Two-Two on our Authentic Korean Chicken & Beer Experience. They’re outside Gongdeok Station, and the couple who runs it is great and welcoming. I want them to get more love.
Chicken Baengi 치킨뱅이
They also do it classic style. Get their chicken 3-ways: fried, sauced, and garlic. Then go for the pa dalk, boneless chicken thighs on top of dressed ribbons of green onions. My favorite location is run by two ladies on the north of the main strip of Hongdae. Go out Hongik University Station, exit 7 (Holiday Inn) and head due south a couple of blocks. It’ll be on your right.
Nurungji Tongdalk 누룽지통닭
A new brand, they don’t do fried. Chicken is spit roasted over wood and served on sizzling platters of crispy rice. We also go to this on the new Authentic Korean Chicken & Beer Experience. The ones near Gongdeok and Sookmyung Women’s University kill.
Locations?
Since these are franchises, your best bet is to copy and paste the Korean names above into Google Maps, Naver Map, or Kakao Map.
Kimchi Jjigae
Okay, you fans of “Always Be My Maybe.” This stew sits on the pantheon of comfort foods, next to macaroni and cheese. It is so perfect on a chilly Seoul night. You want it chock full of tofu and pork. The canned tuna version is also quite good, though I like it better when it’s served at a drinking establishment in a beat-up tin pot.
Where to eat Kimchi Jjigae
Most Korean diners, like Kimbap Cheonguk, will have it on the menu. There are few places that make it the star of their menus, except…
Omori Jjigae 오모리찌개전문점
Go down to Jamsil, across the lake from Lotte World, and up to the second floor for this. It’s a chain, but this is the flagship store. Go to the second floor. The first floor is for black bean noodles. Here, you can get 3-year-old Kimchi Jjigae. You’d be surprised at how subtle and smooth it tastes.

Gwanghwamun Jip 광화문집
Tiny, tiny, tiny place near Gyeongbokgung Palace. They have two items, a very tart pork kimchi jjigae and gyeran mari (rolled omelet). Get both.

Bibimbap
(Gogung Jeonju Bibimbap)
The king of rice bowls. There are many kinds of bibimbap. There’s the dolsot sizzling kind. There’s the fancy Jeonju bibimbap. There’s your basic Korean diner bibimbap served in a plastic bowl with a fried egg.
Contrary to what you may have had outside Korea, it doesn’t always come sizzling, and it doesn’t always come with an egg. There are infinite combinations.
Where to eat Bibimbap
Like Kimchi Jjigae, it’s available in most diners. There is a chain called Bon Bibimbap, the same as Bon Juk. It’s just fine and dandy. But if you want to go for something more serious…
Jeonju Yuhalmeoni Bibimbap 전주유할머니비빔밥
Respect, respect, respect. Grandmother knows how to make good bibimbap. This place has been around for over 50 years. Simple menu. Get the bibimbap and the Kongnamul Gukbap (Bean Sprout Soup).

Gogung 고궁
I love Gogung (pictured above). The original location is in Jeonju. It’s a case of franchising out and collapsing. It’s hard to find a Gogung in Seoul anymore. Thankfully, there is one in the Starfield Mall in Gangnam. This is classic refined royal Jeonju bibimbap served in brass bowls.

Naengmyeon
Chilled. Buckwheat. Noodles.
It’s in my top ten of favorite Korean foods. All the chilled buckwheat noodle dishes are. Naengmyeon itself comes from North Korea. The classic Pyongyang style is light with a clean sophisticated broth. Can you believe that before the 20th century, northern Korea was known for more fancy artistocratic cuisine than the south?
Naengmyeon always hits the spot at the end of a barbecue meal, with a few squirts of vinegar and hot mustard from the bottles sitting next to you. That may be why places like Woo Lae Oak are famous for the naengmyeon. Fancy BBQ must follow with refined naengmyeon.
There are usually two types available, noodles in soup (mul naengmyeon), and noodles mixed with a spicy gochujang sauce (bibim naengmyeon). Of course, there are many more varieties, like there are of bibimbap. Baby steps.
Where to eat Naengmyeon
If you’re in Korea for a short while, just order a bowl at the end of your BBQ dinner. The one pictured above was just a W5,000 (~$4.25 USD) lunch special at a little BBQ joint near my regular jogging route. Otherwise, try these places.
Woo Lae Oak 우래옥
Famous, famous place. Almost too famous for being too famous. I like it, but it feels a bit stodgy. It’s where you take your grandma after church. The prices are premium, but it’s worth it for the naengmyeon.

Dongmu Bapsang (Comrade’s Table) 둥무밥상
He used to cook for officers in the North Korean army before defecting to the South. Now his cozy shop serves dishes that he misses from home. Yes, definitely eat the naengmyeon here. Also try the soondae sausages.

Jeongin Myeonok 정인면옥
Watch out for the lunch lines here. It gets crowded. The naengmyeon is great, but it may also be because it’s one of the few good restaurants in Yeouido.

Street Food
When in Asia, tourists want street food. Seoul has good street food, but don’t expect what you’d find in Southeast Asia. Street food in Korea primarily acts as a snack and late night starch filler for an alcohol-laden stomach. Most carts serve the same exact thing. There are variations, but those are in areas that cater to tourists and college students.
Tteokbokki
Don’t call it “topoki!” That was some hare-brained scheme concocted by a government agency ten years ago. They’re chewy rice cakes in a spicy sauce. I personally think the stuff on the street is sweeter because it’s more suited for kids. Tteokbokki in bricks-and-mortars, like Jaws Food and Mimine (pictured above), tend to be better. Spicier and more savory.
Odeng/Eomuk
Fish cakes on sticks soaking in MSG-saturated broth. Just go and grab a stick, brush on a few happy dabs of sauce with the brush Bob Ross style, eat, and pay. The proprietor counts the number of sticks you have left over.
Hot Ba
Or Hot Bar? It’s fish dough shaped into logs on sticks and deep fried like a corn dog. In fact, they come with hot dogs and other ingredients in them. That’s one of my favorite street foods.
Twigim
Fried stuff. Usually sweet potatoes, shrimp, sesame leaves. It’s like tempura but heavier.
Soondae
The proper romanization is sundae, but I don’t want you to confuse this with ice cream. They’re blood and glass noodle sausages. The traditional version uses rice instead of noodles, but the street version uses the glass ones, giving them a bouncy texture. It’s served with pig liver and offal. What I like to do is make Kim-Tteok-Soon. Mix the Twigim and Soondae together with Tteokbokki sauce. It’s what Harold and Kumar would crave if they lived in Korea.
Hotteok
Fried dough stuffed with brown sugar, nuts, and other goodies. They are delicious and make great hand warmers. They emerge in high numbers during winter.
Bungeobbang
Sweet cakes stuffed with sweet red bean or custard. Another great hand warmer and quite good.
Gyeranbbang
Literally, “egg bread.” Sweet pancake batter cooked in a cup like a muffin with an egg cracked inside. Sweet and savory. Protein and carbs. It’s the breakfast you never knew you needed.
Where to eat Seoul Street Food
You can get it most anywhere. Here are some areas that have a unique touch.
Myeong-dong
It’s one of the few times I’ll say Myeong-dong has better food. The street food scene there is competitive. But Myeong-dong is like Times Square in New York. There are more tourists than locals. It’s here that you’ll find the Frankenstein creations, like lobster with cheese. The Tornado Potato was born here, as well as many street food staples and flashes in the pans.
Insa-dong
It’s another touristy area. Here you’ll find the famous Insa-dong Hotteok, which puts a bit of cornmeal in its dough, giving it a super crunchy texture. Other highlights are the fire-grilled chicken on a stick and my beloved egg breads. Insa-dong’s street food scene took a bad hit from both COVID-19’s tourism dearth and the relentless bulldozing to make way for bland shopping malls.
Hongdae
Carts with the basics camp outside Hongik University Station, exit 9. Further down, past the buskers, you can find what I call Crazy Street Food Alley. It’s a series of stalls that are always rotating with new street food ideas. It’s like a market research lab throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.
Noryangjin Cup Rice Road 컵밥거리
Now this is food that is meant to be eaten like a meal. These stands cater to young adults studying for professional exams. The cram schools to help them prepare for these career tests congregate here. Cup Rice Road sprouted as a bunch of carts to feed these poor hungry young professionals-to-be.
Here’s a map of all the places I’ve mentioned.

Patbingsu
Dessert! We don’t really have desserts in the Western sense in Korea. We do have this shaved ice treat. The competition each summer with Bingsu makers gets more intense each year.
It’s a war!
The goal is to shave ice so perfect it’s fluffy fresh fallen snow. The ice itself usually comes from frozen milk, but I’ve seen other ice sources, including coffee and makgeolli (Korean rice ale).
Where to eat Patbingsu
The margins make this lucrative, so everyone is trying to get into the game. Most all bakery chains, like Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours, get all into this. Most coffee shops do this. There are some places that specialize in it.
Sulbing 설빙
Sulbing is a franchise that popped up a few years ago. I wondered how risky such a venture would be–as in, who would order bingsu in winter? But they’ve done well. They’re crowded in the summer. Sulbing specializes in Instagrammy bingsu, and that’s a good thing. They’re showstoppers. Don’t worry about how large they are. Remember they’re just shaved ice. When melted the liquid would fit into a grande Starbucks cup. If you’re traveling with kids this is the treat they’ll remember.
Since it’s a franchise, just copy and paste 설빙 into your map app of choice to find your closest location.
Mealtop 밀탑
Odd name. Odd location. It’s hidden on the 5th floor of Hyundai Department Store in Apgujeong. Well, not really hidden. It takes up a lot of space. But you have to go up a bunch of escalators to get there. They have a big variety of bingsu. What I like is that the portions or smaller, so you can try different flavors in one go. They are starting to franchise out.

August 23, 2023
Jeonju – Cheonnyeon Nuri Bom
Jeonju, the capital of North Jeolla Province is 3 hours away from Seoul.
Pungnammun Gate (전주 풍남문)
Having done my research, Jeonju was chosen as part of UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. I was hoping to taste really good Korean food in this city.
With an empty stomach, I began to explore the cuisine of Jeonju. I was approach by a local who asked me if I lost my way. I replied in Korean that I wanted to find good food here and she led me to a restaurant called “Cheonnyeon-nuri Bom- 천년누리 붐”.
Interior
I ordered Bibimbap since Jeonju is famous for that.
And then I realized this is not “Jeonju Bibimbap” but “Sanyacho Bibimbap”. The bibimbap is topped with fresh and delicious vegetables with no meat. I was surprised at how delicious this bibimbap is.
Sanyacho Bibimbap 산야초 비빔밥
Generous Banchan
The Jeolla region usually serve their Banchan generously. Even pajeon is part of the banchan! What’s more, this wild vegetables bibimbap meal only cost me 7,000 Won!
Indeed, I had a hearty and healthy meal.
Definitely a must-visit if you were to visit Jeonju.

August 19, 2013
Restaurant: Kristalbelli, New York
The opening of “the next Korean barbecue restaurant” in midtown Manhattan by K-pop star and producer Jin Young Park has generated some controversy. Some think the restaurant’s aesthetic is too antiseptic to provide an authentic Korean experience.
Some reviews have viciously criticized the atmosphere, exemplified by the restaurant’s namesake crystal barbecue grills. Meat is cooked on a gas-heated, 99 percent crystal griddle in the “belly” of a golden Buddha-shaped frame embedded in the center of each table. The sloped griddle drains grease away from the meat into an under-table trap, and an exhaust fan incorporated in the griddle frame keeps much of the smoke of cooking meat from filling the restaurant and the clothes of patrons.
Reviewers claim the environment is overly elegant, even sanitized, in comparison to the more rustic feel of many all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurants. To those people I would say, it’s not about you.
Kristalbelli does not indulge those who have a fever for the food of Korea’s third-world past of 50 years ago, or even a decade or two past. It’s for Korean food virgins and neophytes, many of who are non-Korean fans of JYP’s K-pop bands.
Readers of my restaurant reviews may remember that my family aren’t hardcore Korean food fanatics like myself and my dear husband. That’s why I enjoy taking them — they might say, dragging them — to Korean restaurants, especially when I really need the perspective of those with little to no understanding or appreciation of Korean food.
To make sure everyone would have a chance to pass some degree of judgment on it, we asked to eat each dish “family-style.”
This is the first Korean restaurant I’ve been to in a long time where the wait staff was eager to answer any and all questions about dish ingredients and preparation. And in a first for me States-side, I didn’t have to be the one explaining all the dishes.
And there was a lot of explaining to do, with multiple 반찬 banchan items (side dishes served with the meal), appetizers and main dishes. My father-in-law counted 50 plates of various sizes on the table for the five of us.
The spread was more typical of a leisurely dinner setting than a rushed work week lunch. If you are really craving barbecue, going at lunch vs. dinner won’t save you any money. But, satiating your craving earlier in the day may save you time. The restaurant wasn’t crowded when we went after the lunch hour.
Each of us received banchan. That included bamboo shoots, seaweed salad and pickled cucumbers. Interestingly, the pickled cucumbers had a pleasant combination of soy sauce, sesame oil and a slightly smoky flavor.
Also among the banchan were two kinds of kimchi: 배추김치 baechu (the most commonly seen kind, made from Nappa cabbage) and 총각김치 chonggak (ponytail radish). The ponytail radish was a little on the spicy side. Yet it was pretty fresh, no more than a couple of weeks old in my estimation.
The first appetizer tray brought to our table had delicately sliced raw tuna set on a bed of lime slices, dabbed with citrus sauce. The tuna was fresh and seemed to melt in my mouth.
The second appetizer was a small serving of rice wrapped in tofu skin and drizzled with a mustard citrus sauce.
The third appetizer was tempura-fried crab legs surrounded by squiggly trails of spicy mayonnaise and savory, okonomyaki-type sauce on the small platter.
For the main dishes, we ordered Wagyu 갈비 galbi (grilled beef, $31), 두부 잡채 tofu japchae (savory cellophane noodle dish, $13), 크리스탈 비빔밥 Kristal bibimbap with tofu ($15) and 두부 된장찌개 tofu doenjang jjigae (fermented-soybean stew, $12).
This japchae was somewhat unconventional. It had the typical mix of mushrooms, tofu and shredded carrots, but it also had shiitake (aka 표고 pyogo) mushrooms and asparagus. The flavors were balanced, none overpowering the others.
Japchae is a common item on Korean restaurant menus. Yet, I never know what I’m going to get, because it is pretty easy to mess up the delicate balance of bold flavors: sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and black pepper. Sometimes, the soy sauce is dominant, and other times, it’s the sesame oil that terrorizes the tongue. One restaurant used a black pepper–forward sauce — unforgettable, not in a good way.
We asked for the Wagyu galbi to be grilled medium-well, basically between medium rare and well done. The meat was well-marbled and tender. The waiter cooked it, so we wouldn’t be distracted from our conversation with the task of grilling. The 쌈장 ssamjang (spicy, savory sauce spread on 깻잎 kkaenip/perilla or lettuce leaves wrapped around grilled meat) had a wonderful robust doenjang component, but it was not overly salty.
Accompanying the kalbi was a little dishful of Nagui sea salt. It’s an unrefined sea salt from harvested from filtered salt water at Docho Island in Korea. It has 20 percent less sodium than Guérande sea salt of France and three times its mineral content, according to the restaurant’s blog. Our waiter pointed out those attributes and recommended we dip at least one piece of galbi in the salt. It was a pleasant, new experience.
The bibimbap had the traditional mix of veggies, which we ordered with tofu. It also had two different kinds of seaweed:kim (aka nori) and seaweed stem called miyeok julgi, and yet seaweed flavor did not overwhelm the dish. Since we were eating the meal family-style, they were kind enough to bring out separate little dishes of gochujang so we could decide whether to spice up the bibimbap individually.
Korean restaurants in the States I’ve visited offer 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper sauce) separately, allowing diners to apply as much pain as desired. In keeping with the upper-scale setting, Kristalbelli also offered the sauce separately but in a small dish, rather than in the refillable plastic squeeze bottle of the typical barbecue house. This version of the sauce was sweet, as is common for bibimbap gochujang, but the amount of spiciness was milder that the conventional preparation.
The one adjective that circulated over and again through my mind during the meal was “balanced.” Balancing favors is really a difficult task, especially for Korean cuisine, which is known for its bold flavors. Kristalbelli does that well, maybe too well for some people’s tastes.
Yet, one can’t accuse Kristalbelli of false advertising. One of its goals stated on their website is to “to spotlight the delicate aspects of Korean cooking.”
When we entered the restaurant, it was hard not to notice the wine collection, prominently displayed near the front desk. It’s quite the wine list for a Korean restaurant, with wines from major wine regions all over the wine world: Oregon, Australia, the Napa/Sonoma region of California and Europe. We did not order any wine with our meal, so I would have to leave it to someone with more wine experience to judge the wine and food pairing experience.
If you’re up for it, Kristalbelli currently is hosting a food and wine pairing every Wednesday at 3 p.m. New York time, according to the restaurant’s Facebook page.
Kristalbelli’s second floor has a bar and lounge. We didn’t have an opportunity to go up there on this trip. Someday, I would like to try the 복분자 스테이크 Bokbunja steak ($23), described as a “steak with black raspberry reduction.” I think this is the first dish I’ve seen in a Korean restaurant using 복분자 bukbunjaju (black raspberry liqueur) for cooking.
Long-term success for this restaurant won’t be on the coattails of Mr. Park’s K-pop fame. Kristalbelli will have to win customers with great food and superior customer service.
The latter seemed to be a priority. My family’s relatively virgin palates were treated with respect rather than condescension. And it was the first time I’ve seen a Korean restaurant actively solicit comments via a customer-service survey handed to each of us at the end of the meal. For many diners, especially JYP’s target audience, the emphasis on service will cover alleged culinary faux-pas.
Kristalbelli
8 W. 36th St.
New York, NY 10018
(212) 290-2211
www.kristalbelli.com
Lunch: Monday–Saturday, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
Dinner: Sunday–Thursday, 5–10:30 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5–11 p.m.
Lounge: Monday–Thursday, 5 p.m.–1 a.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5 p.m.–3 a.m.; Sunday, 5–10:30 p.m.
September 16, 2012
Jiri Mountain Eats – Eden Restaurant
If you find yourself in the vicinity of popular tourist spot Jiri mountain, I’ve got a must-visit bibimbap restaurant for you to try out.
Eden Restaurant, or, 에덴식당, keeps odd hours and you’ll need to call in advance to check their availability and make a reservation, but there’s a reason: all of their bibimbap ingredients are grown wild and hand-harvested.
For a very reasonable price (~6,000 won), a full spread of various mountain veggies and a bowl of rice is brought out to your table. Many of the veggies are tasty enough on their own and refills on them are provided if you ask. If you ask really nice they’ll sometimes even give you extra rice (allowing you to basically have another bibimbap).
While the decor of the place isn’t anything fancy, the main dining area is build as a deck over the parking area and underneath a large tree. With the windows open, an amazingly cool breeze of mountain air comes through that makes the long windy drive worth it.
Eden Restaurant
San 19 Gogi-ri, Jucheon-myeon
Namweon, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea
063) 626-1633
010-5480-1633
[googleMap name=”Eden Restaurant”]San 19 Gogi-ri, Jucheon-myeon Namweon, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea[/googleMap]
August 6, 2012
Restaurant: Korean BBQ Plus!, Concord, Calif.
Serendipity brought me to this restaurant on the east side of the San Francisco Bay area. I had an appointment with friends in Concord early one February morning. By noon, our meeting was over, and I was hungry.
Rather than waiting until I returned to more familiar territory to eat, I followed my instinct — and my insistent stomach. Tapping “Korean restaurant” into my smartphone map app pointed me toward Korean BBQ Plus!. It was less than a mile from where I was and from an onramp for Interstate 680, my ticket home. That recommendation hit the spot.
One of my brave friends came with me. She has very limited experience with Korean food and felt more comfortable with an “expert.” Since I had not done any preliminary research on this restaurant, I had no idea what we would find.

Korean BBQ Plus! is tucked into a small shopping center and was a little challenging to find. The restaurant shares a building with a small Korean grocery store and a Mexican restaurant. Across the parking lot is a larger Mexican grocer.
As we walked in the Korean restaurant, I quickly noticed that almost every table was full at 12:30 on a Friday afternoon. That was a promising sign.
The waitress quickly brought menus and cups of hot barley tea — a beverage I’ve had to ask for at other restaurants. That was promising sign No. 2.
The lunch menu had a good assortment of standards such as 비빔밥 bibimbap (a bowl full of meat or dubu (tofu) as well as vegetables over rice), 닭구이 dak gui (spicy sweet marinaded chicken) and 된장 찌개 doenjang jjigae (fermented soybean paste stew). However, my friend and I ordered 돌솥 비빔밥 dolsot bibimbap (bibimbap in a hot rock bowl; $12.95) off the dinner menu.
Among the dozen-plus bowls of 반찬 banchan (side dishes) that came out first were baechu kimchi (cabbage kimchi), radish kimchi, egg omelette with ham, cucumber pickle, mung bean sprouts, soybean sprouts and soy sauce–marinaded sweet potatoes.
Dolsot bibimbap came with topped with bulgogi, cucumber pickle, soybean sprouts, enoki mushroom, shredded carrot, mushroom, spinach and a raw egg cracked open on top.
The raw egg excited me way too much, because it was an authentic touch. Most Korean restaurants I’ve visited in the Bay Area fried the egg sunny side up then add it to the bowl, so only the yolk needs to be cooked on the side of the hot bowl.
My friend was far more excited about the crunchy rice at the bottom of the bowl. It gets that way when the cooked rice fries in a little oil put in the bottom of the very hot bowl.
I squirted onto the fixings in my bowl a generous amount of 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) from the squeeze bottle. (Red squeeze bottles on Korean restaurant tables likely aren’t filled with ketchup.) My friend made a tamer mix of soy sauce and gochujang.
It also came with a small bowl of 미역국 miyeok guk (seaweed soup). The soup had a full body to it with a little touch of beef.
Between the dolsot bibimbap, generous banchan and the soup, I left the restaurant satisfied. Korean BBQ Plus! is a good ambassador for traditional Korean cuisine.
As we were finishing our meal, my friend asked me, “Would you come down here again just go to this restaurant?”
“No,” I answered honestly. Concord is a 90-minute drive from my home, and there is a traditional Korean restaurant just 20 minutes away.
However, when I’m in Concord area on business, I will arrange my schedule so I can return for lunch or dinner, hopefully with my patient photography-loving husband in tow.
Is there a Korean food experience that you would drive (or even fly) a long distance just to experience repeatedly? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Korean BBQ Plus!
1450 Monument Blvd
Concord, CA 94520
(925) 680-9090
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.
koreanbbqplus.com
February 23, 2012
Tex-Mex Bibimbap
Korean food purists walk away.
One evening last week I took over dinner prep and thought I’d make some chicken burritos. Got everything ready and then took out the tortillas. They’d grown a bit of mold. Each one. So I was stuck with the ingredients I had put together. Well, why not replace one starch with another? So I got a metal bowl, put in a few scoops of rice, and topped it with fajita chicken and onions, lettuce, shredded Monterey Jack, and salsa. Stirred it up and didn’t expect it to taste any good.
It was damn good! The cheese brought it together. Melted a bit in the hot rice and chicken. Again, this is proof that you don’t need to make bibimbap a big production. It’s a way to get rid of leftovers.
January 25, 2012
Hidden kimchi: Java Hub, San Anselmo, Calif.
Many assume the territory between San Francisco and Sonoma County wine country an hour’s drive north is bereft of Korean cuisine. I did, too, until I discovered one long-disguised as a coffee shop.
Java Hub Cafe is Marin County’s only noted venue for Korean victuals. It’s a simple coffee shop in San Anselmo, Calif., a suburb of San Rafael located about 10 minutes north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. And it is well off the beaten tourism path of Highway 101, the Marin-Sonoma thoroughfare.
On entering the little cafe, I noticed the subtle sounds of acoustic modern folk and alternative music playing subtly from speakers. The large counter has a big posted menu from which to order.
Indoor seating is on barstools with a long table facing a large window. That’s nice natural lighting for food photography, but it offers an unimpressive view of the regular stream of traffic.
Outside there are more than half-dozen tables. It would be nice to enjoy coffee and a meal alfresco in the summertime. However, it’s now winter in California. Even though our winter days are mild compared to Korea’s, I still didn’t want to eat outside.
Tucked behind the coffee shop edifice is a restaurant serving all sorts of North Asian cuisine, including 갈비 kalbi, 비빔면 bibimmyun and miso udon.
After waffling between ordering bibimmyun or bibimbap, I initially ordered the spicy bibim noodles (called bibimmyun in Korean, $7.25 USD). But owner Joyce Jung immediately advised me it would take about 20 minutes to make it. I asked if the bibimbap ($6.50 USD) would arrive more quickly, and she said “yes.” So I opted for the popular Korean dish.
The bibimbap arrived in a regular ceramic bowl — not the oven-heated stone bowls of dolsot bibimbap — with steamed white rice, raw shredded carrot, sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, a sunny-side-up fried egg and a couple of tablespoons of 고추장 gochujang.
After thoroughly mixing items together with the supplied fork. The raw carrots and lack of marination of the ingredients made the Java Hub version not as sweet and garlicy as the dish often is in traditional Korean restaurants.
Non-Korean vegetables such as broccoli may surprise some, but as a big fan of broccoli I enjoyed it very much.
Jung told me Java Hub has been open at this location for 10 years. Originally she only served coffee, tea and typical coffee shop fare like bagels and sandwiches. However, she soon found she needed to offer something more to keep the doors open.
“I noticed that business dropped off in the winter, and I started offering hot meal options to draw winter business,” she said.
So she began offering familiar Korean and Japanese dishes to her menu as well as other hot items like hamburgers.
The mix of coffee joint and Korean restaurant may seem eclectic. Yet while I was talking to Jung after my meal, one of her customers, waiting for his “usual order” of a bacon cheeseburger, opined, “Her burgers are the best anywhere.”
If 빨리 빨리 bbali bbali (“Hurry, hurry!”) is your battlecry and you just want a quick coffee to go, you can place your order from the drive-through window. Jung makes the coffee herself and will bring your order to your car.
[googleMap name=”Java Hub”]60 Greenfield Avenue, San Anselmo, CA[/googleMap][googleMap name=”Java Hub”]60 Greenfield Avenue, San Anselmo, CA[/googleMap]
Java Hub Cafe
60 Greenfield Ave.
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 451-4928
January 18, 2012
Cooking Video – Crispy Bibimbap
Just in time for Halloween, not that I intended that in any way or I can force any relations between bibimbap and Halloween, here comes my first self-produced cooking video on crispy bibimbap (recipe).
I submitted this to the Delicious Seoul Story cooking video contest, in which they choose 5 entries based on the number of views, ‘like’s, and creativity among other things. The finalists will be invited to Seoul, Korea for a final round of cooking in front of judges and will be treated for various Korean food experiences.
With my late entry, I only have today to get the views and ‘like’ votes, so please follow this link to ‘like’ my video on Youtube and help me visit Korea in November.
At any rate, the contest deadline became a good motivator for me – I’ve wanted to put up complementary video clips to my blog posts for a while because of, well, obvious reasons. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a short video clip is worth…a lot of pictures.
Now I’ve shot and edited my first cooking video, I commend anyone who does this on a regular basis. In the process of making this 3-minute clip which took too much time and made me watch my endless faults endless times, I also had a lot of fun with it. I plan to post complementary video clips once in a while, maybe going back to some of my previous dishes and of course for my future trials.
I hope you enjoy the video clip. If nothing else, it’s 3 minutes of good laugh. Imagine me all dressed up, cooking and talking to myself all afternoon.
Go ahead, laugh at me, laugh with me. I also hope that it shows you how easy it is to make crispy bibimbap at home and how delicious it really is. Even if it doesn’t, I hope it brings you at least a sliver of smile.
For my previous blog posts on crispy bibimbap, click the link below.
Crispy Bibimbap, Revisited February, 2011
Crispy Bibimbap January, 2010
By the way, it’s bizarre, weird and worrisome to have blizzard-like snow in October, but I couldn’t help myself getting really excited about it. I mean that in the ‘sitting at home watching the snowfall outside’-kind of way, not the ‘let’s go outside in the snow’ way. Here is a picture of the first snow of the season in NYC from yesterday (Saturday) afternoon.

Happy Halloween and stay warm!
October 31, 2011
VIP Restaurant, Anchorage, Alaska
On trips to see family in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, I make it a point to visit VIP Restaurant at least once. It’s located in the Valhalla Center, a retail and office building amid the Korean business cluster along West Northern Lights Boulevard.
There are a few other Korean restaurants in the city, but I have a personal connection to this one. A relative built the center the 1970s and leased the space to the restaurant in the early 1990s.
VIP Restaurant is on the ground floor of the Valhalla Center on the far right side. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
VIP Restaurant — 영빈관 in the Korean name means “house for special guests” — serves a large variety of Korean food, particularly soups and stews (탕 tang and 찌개 jjigae). VIP also has a selection of broiled fish, beef and pork dishes.
For those reluctant to try Korean food, also offer a modest selection of Chinese restaurant favorites, such as curry chicken, fried rice and Mongolian beef.
My husband and I brought my mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law for a weekday lunch. The restaurant was not crowded, and we received attentive service.
Land of the Morning Calm in the Land of the Midnight Sun: A 13-banchan display was traditionally reserved for royalty, but this is not a snooty, royal cuisine restaurant. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
The waitress brought out 13 반찬 banchan (appetizer plates), the most I’ve seen at any Korean restaurant I’ve visited so far in the States.
One of the banchan highlights was the seaweed salad. My husband normally eschews chewing seaweed in its various forms. This was first seaweed salad he said he enjoyed, partly because the type of plant used was the more delicate wakame seaweed (which is called 미역, miyeok in Korean) and partly because the savory-sweet marinade pleasantly masked the taste.
The main course came with a small bowl of 동민 dong min radish kimchi broth flavored with green onion and beef. That was another first for me on this side of the Pacific.
Between the four of us, we ordered 갈비 galbi (grilled beef ribs), two variations of 돌솥 비빔밥 dolsot bibimbap (hot stone bowl filled with mixed vegetables and rice) and Mongolian beef.
Ordering galbi ($12.99 lunch) and Mongolian beef ($11.99 lunch) allowed a side-by-side comparison of Korean and Chinese foods. The galbi was grilled wang-style (“king” cut with thin meat along two- to five-inch-long ribs) rather than L.A.-style (a thin flanken cut) more common to Korean-American restaurants.
The galbi had the typical Korean sweet touch, likely from fruit juice or corn syrup in the marinade. The Mongolian beef was stir-fried with ample green onion and certainly was more savory than the galbi. My Korean cuisine–averse builder-relative scarfed up the galbi and barely touched the Chi-Am dish.
The dolsot bibimbap dishes — served at this established in thick metal bowls rather than earthenware — hit the key cue: a blazing-hot bowl to crisp the rice in sesame oil and keep the food warm throughout the meal. The latter is nice for a typical Anchorage August day: in the 50s Fahrenheit and raining.
Kimchi bibimbap with the required fried egg. The other veggies are hiding behind the kimchi (Jeff Quackenbush photo)

My husband ordered dolsot kimchi bibimbap ($14.99). He noted for our Korean cuisine–cautious tablemates that cooked kimchi takes on a mellower flavor from its banchan brother.
Royally Jeonju-style bibimbap: I decided I preferred having kimchi on the side this time around. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

For my hot bibimbap, I chose to eat like a queen: 전주 Jeonju bibimbap ($15.99). This specialty of Jeonju incorporates cues from Korean royal cuisine. My dish was overflowing with veggies: shredded laver, carrot, radish, soybean sprouts and gosari. My taste buds appreciated a generous squirt of bibibimbap 고주장 gochujang (a sweetened version of Korea’s go-to spicy red pepper sauce) from the tabletop squeeze bottle.

VIP Restaurant
Valhalla Center, 555 W. Northern Lights Blvd, Ste. 105, Anchorage, AK 99503
(907) 279-7549
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/vip-restaurant-anchorage
August 13, 2011
Review: Trader Joes's Bibimbap
This is what it looks like before it's microwaved. The bright orange carrots are a promising sign. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
The lastest of several prepared Korean dishes introduced recently by Trader Joe’s, a Monrovia, Calif.-based chain of grocery stores, is a frozen version of 비빔밥 bibimbap.
This “mixed-up rice” dish — the meaning of the Korean name — already has created some Twitter and blog buzz over the past six weeks.
I stumbled on the following Twitter reviews of the meal:
Anna Pinkert, an intern at Boston radio station WBUR (@annapinkert), wrote,
TJ’s bibimbap bowl should not be as tasty as it is.
Aurynyumi (@laurynyumi) wrote this after taking a bowl with her for lunch:
Eating trader joe’s bibimbap for lunch.. It’s good. 🙂
The ingredients include precooked white rice topped with bulgogi, cooked spinach, a whole scrambled egg, soybean sprouts and julienned carrots. The bowl also included a separate packet of a sweet and spicy chili sauce.
Once the sauce reaches room temperature, it's easy to dispense. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
Observations
The spicy chili sauce had a good balance of spiciness and sweetness, leaning towards the sweet side. Yet it tasted more like Thai sweet chili sauce than the sweetened 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) sauce commonly poured atop bibimbap.
The cooked spinach flavor was different from the marinated blanched spinach usually used in bibimbap.
The sesame oil flavor, one of the key flavor profiles of Korean food, also was lacking. It’s listed among the ingredients but isn’t as bold in the final product as is in the fresh-prepared version.
At first I thought the dish didn’t have soybean sprouts, another common ingredient in bibimbap. The sprouts were listed on the package but weren’t a separate item in the ceramic bowl-resembling plastic container. I finally found the sprouts “hidden” among the scrambled egg.
To improve the flavor, I stirred in a half teaspoon each of sesame oil and doenjang along with the spicy chili sauce provided in the packet. That little nudge improved the experience.
Another options comes from emiglio (@emiglio) who gives this advise
I’ve realized you can eat pretty well out of Trader Joes frozen section if you dice fresh onions/mushrooms/garlic into everything.
Conclusions
Trader Joe’s frozen bibimbap bowl does not compare to what you would find in a restaurant or make at home. Despite that, the grocery chain’s version has come close for those days when you don’t have a long enough lunch break to visit your nearest bibimbap restaurant while you’re at work.
Trader Joe’s also released frozen kalbi and bulgogi dishes recently. I plan to scrutinize them for you soon.
July 26, 2011