nanoomi

Recently, Jo and I ventured down to Songtan (송탄) to meet up with a good friend and enjoy a little all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. Here’s our trip in just under 2 minutes! While Meat Restaurant (미트홈) is not a popular chain in Korea, there are several unlimited BBQ places across the nation.

To see more, read the blog: http://wp.me/p1hnjj-18a

What’s your favorite BBQ place?

Meat Restaurant aka Meat Home (미트홈)
Address: 314-14 Sinjang-dong, Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do
Phone: 031-611-6678
Hours: 12p-10p
Franchise Website: http://www.gajogsarang.co.kr/

-= WEB SITES =-
The Travel Channel: http://youtube.com/qiranger
The Vlog Channel: http://youtube.com/theqirangervlog
Podcast: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-qiranger-adventures/id451881376

Chef Gordon Xiao of Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda making pulled noodles. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)

Among the more than 80 caterers, mobile and brick-and-mortar restaurants and food-related vendors at the second annual Eat Real Festival in the San Francisco Bay area were two Korean “taco trucks,” a nouveau hanshik restaurant, a ramen restaurant serving kimchi and a food-preservation specialist teaching how to pickle the popular version of it.

Did I mention the live demonstration of making Chinese pulled noodles (lai min)?

Intensely craving some Korean yumminess, I attended the festival, held Aug. 27 to 29 at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., to snack on selections from Santa Clara-based MoGo BBQ and Seoul on Wheels of Emeryville. Reviews of those rolling restaurants will be posted in coming days.

Read the full story

I bought the Korean version of Bae Yong Joon’s best-selling book, The Journey to Discover the Beauty of Korea. I got the book because I knew there would be several Korean food recipes tucked in the pages. I got excited when I found his recipe for Kalbi steak so I decided I would work translating the recipe into English (ahead of Bae’s forthcoming English version) and also test out the recipe to make sure the ingredients and methods would work in an American kitchen.

Read the full story

Last year ZenKimchi had reported on the very first Korean BBQ Cook-Off event in Los Angeles, California.  Specifically in L.A.’s Koreatown district.  It was a packed and popular event with an estimated 10,000 attendees.  Although Korean BBQ has been around in California for decades since the start of large scale Korean immigration to the West Coast of the United States, it’s only now started to reach the mainstream, at least in this particular part of the country.

So, given the success of the event, the Korean American Coalition hosted a repeat this year.  A bigger venue, more vendors, more food and what appeared to be more people.  Well, perhaps a lot more people.

Read the full story

Brothers Restaurant, located San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, is one of the few Korean restaurants in San Francisco that is Zagat-rated. It tied with Namu as Best Korean Restaurant in the 2010 Eat and Drink Reader’s Choice Awards by 7×7 magazine.

Brothers is not a fancy restaurant, but it has a 20-plus year reputation (since 1987) of serving up authentic “old school” Korean food. It has generous operating hours from 11 am. to midnight Sunday through Friday.

There is a second location a block east at 4014 Geary Blvd. It opened in 1993 but operates only Friday through Sunday 5 p.m. to midnight.

Warning: Do not wear “dry clean only” clothes to this restaurant. You will walk out smelling like a barbecue grill, particularly one that uses real wood instead of briquettes. It’s the first Korean restaurant I’ve visited in the Bay Area that has grills embedded in some tables with vent hoods above.

Read the full story

ZenKimchi on “Sarang Haeyo Korea” from ZenKimchi on Vimeo

Joe McPherson, Dining Editor of Ten Magazine and food blogger at ZenKimchi, was recently featured on the I Love Koreashow on SBS TV. Joe wanted to show me his local butcher restaurant in Anyang  and we took some wine to pair with Korean food. I’m on the show from six minutes onwards talking about why I love kimchi.

These restaurants are great fun. You choose your cuts of meat from the butcher. Then they bring them to your table and you cook the meat yourself on a grill in the middle of the table.  We had Inama Soave Classico wine with Haengjeongsal and moksal.  Haengjeongsal (항정살) is the back part of the pig’s neck and is more tender than moksal (목살), the side and front of the pig’s neck.  The broad mid palate of the Soave Classico was substantial enough to handle the vegetables and the kimchi.  It had enough acidity to cut through the fat of the pork and work with the spice of the banchan.  It was a well integrated wine which worked with the banchan and pork. Good value too at 45,000 won retail.

Read the full story

Korean taco trucks are no longer limited to America’s West Coast cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland. Now Atlanta, the largest U.S. Southeast city, has Yumbii. It’s one of the latest such roving restaurants to follow in the wake of intense popularity for Kogi, which has more than 67,000 listed followers on Twitter.

Read the full story