Posted on 18 January 2012. Tags: Bibimbap brocolli, KoreafornianCooking, Korean food, Tammy Quackenbush
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. Read the full story
Posted in Food
Posted on 28 November 2011. Tags: cooking, Korean food
Several months ago I was watching the Korean news on my TV and they were talking about some kind of ramen. It turned out to be a kind made with chicken broth, instead of the usual spicy mix. Ever since then I have been trying to find it at my local marts. I finally gave up, and then last weekend spotted it.
Read the full story
Posted in Food
Posted on 22 November 2011. Tags: Korean food, spicy snacks, walnuts
This recipe took quite a journey along the way from one blog to another, each food blogger added and deleting ingredients as the recipe meandered its way to me.It reminds me of the old game of Grapevine, also called Telephone, Broken Telephone or Chinese whispers. One person whispers a word or phrase into a neighbor’s ear, and that person repeats the word to the next, continuing until the message returns, often hilariously garbled, to the original sender.
 |
| Hungarian paprika, Korean garlic salt and walnuts were the Koreafornian spin on this savory snack. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) |
Read the full story
Posted in Food
Posted on 09 November 2011. Tags: banchan, globalization of korean food, Korean food, namul, tammy
KwangJuYo Chief Executive Officer Cho Tae-kwon, a former restaurateur Korean media regularly consult on
hansik (Korean cuisine), served up controversy in
an interview with The Korea Herald by suggesting that charging for traditionally complimentary
banchan(appetizers commonly accompanying Korean meals) would create a demand for the items.
“Putting value to namul (herb) dishes, for example, will create demand for variously priced namul. The story of how namul is picked by hand on the mountainside in springtime will add to the value of namul.”
Most of the interview discussed the South Korean government’s continuing efforts to popularize Korean cuisine around the world. He said many Korean restaurants compete with each other on the selection and number of banchan dishes.
Charging for banchan also would reduce food waste in Korea, Cho suggested.
“It is also responsible for the tremendous waste of food. More than 1.3 trillion won is wasted every year as food garbage.”
I strongly agree. Food waste is a real problem in the country.
On Cho’s assertion that the premium would create demand for banchan, my gut reaction was, You’re kidding, right? Or as I wrote in a Facebook thread I set up discussing this article, ”Yeah charging for banchan is babo.”
However, charging a modest fee for banchan could increase the popularity of particular dishes with careful banchan menu planning, marketing and advertising. Growing on Cho’s notion of niche namul, a chef could craft such a menu made up of seasonal bounty with detailed descriptions of the quality, origin and preparation of ingredients. Similarly, savvy vintners of high-end wines, makers of seasonal craft brews and farmers of organic produce have been able to convince consumers to pay a premium via a well-told story.
Allowing customers to select their side dishes would alert the restaurant to which banchan to keep offering and which to discontinue. This would reduce food waste and give a competitive edge over restaurants with gratis grub. Yet blindly billing for banchan setting up a restaurant that only serves banchan will not help popularize the dishes or the restaurant doing so.
My ZenKimchi Food Journal “boss,” Joe McPherson, has a slightly contrary view on this same article, which he called “Cho Tae-Kwon’s “Noblisse Oblige.”
View the original post at Koreafornian Cooking.
Posted in Life
Posted on 28 October 2011. Tags: bibimbap, Jeonju, Korean food, QiRanger, South Korea, video, youtube
This past weekend, Jo and I ventured down south to Jeonju and the Korean Food Festival. There, we had the chance to sample several different types of kimchi, various kinds of street foods, and some fermented goodness.
To read more, check out the Korean Blog post: http://blog.korea.net/?p=5604
-= 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
Posted in Food
Posted on 11 October 2011. Tags: bibigo, bibimbap, CJ Foods, Korean food, korean recipes, 비빔밥
ZenKimchi Food Journal was approached some time ago by publicists for
CJ Foods, the owners of the Bibigo restaurant franchise. CJ Foods is also a subsidiary of CJ Corp., one of South Korea’s largest food manufacturers. They offered free samples of their new line of grocery products.
Note: I have not received any compensation for this review by CJ Foods (or anyone else) other than the samples to try out for this review.
Bibigo began its corporate life last year as a small chain of Korean restaurants fervently trying to reinvent 비빔밥 bibimbap as fast-casual cuisine. The restaurant chain has now spread to Singapore, Beijing and Los Angeles.
Read the full story
Posted in Food
Posted on 11 October 2011. Tags: Food, gimbap, globalization, kimbap, Korea, Korean cooking, Korean dining, Korean food, life in Korea, QiRanger, Seoul, Seoul dining, youtube
My favorite food in Korea is the kimbap (김밥), although with the new romanization rules, it’s now written gimbap! It’s a snack and a meal that isn’t native to Korea. It was introduced by the Japanese during the occupation period as the futomaki. Gimbap is made from rice (bap/밥). The gim (seaweed/김) is used to roll the rice and other ingredients into a tight package and then is sliced into bite-sized pieces for consumption. The rice is typically lightly seasoned with a little salt and oil, giving it a slightly different flavor than if ordering rice with a meal. Typical ingredients also include fish cakes, imitation crab meat, egg, radish, ham, carrots, spinach, and cucumbers.
-= 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
Posted in Food, Life
Posted on 29 September 2011. Tags: Korean food, korean recipe, raspberry, ssamjang, 쌈장
I have this obsession of taking every non-Korean recipe and trying to put a Korean spin on it. When I have a “eureka” moment, the result is published here.
 |
| Just a suggestion: Serve this sauce with some grilled Korean barbecue and lettuce or large leafy herb (깻잎 kkaennip/shiso/perilla shown here) for a low-carb lunch or dinner. (Tammy Quackenbush photo |
Read the full story
Posted in Food
Posted on 13 September 2011. Tags: Jung Sik, Korean dining in New York, Korean food, 임정식, 정식당
(Inside Jung Sik)
I’m very excited about my latest feature article for Yonhap News (연합뉴스). Chef Jung Sik Yim of Jung Sik Dang in Seoul and now Jung Sik in Manhattan was kind enough to spend time with me in the midst of final preparation before the opening of Jung Sik in Tribeca.
(Yonhap Feature) A first look at a Seoul chef’s Manhattan offshoot
By Shin Kim, Contributing Writer
NEW YORK, September 8 (Yonhap) — When many New Yorkers left the city to take advantage of their last summer vacations in the last week of August, chef Jung Sik Yim was buy finalizing preparations for his new Korean-style restaurant soon to open in Tribeca.
Within a couple of hours in one afternoon, he tasted wines with the sommelier to complete the wine list, cooked with sous chefs tweaking garnishes for the new menu, watched over a candidate trailing for a cooking job and discussed administrative details with the manager.
Yim signed the lease at the current location, previously occupied by the quintessential New York restaurant Chanterelle, over a year ago. After working through countless yards of red tape, including construction delays and license issues, his first New York restaurant Jung Sik is set to open on Sept. 12 with a private fashion event.
To read the full article, you can follow the link here.
Posted in Food
Posted on 18 August 2011. Tags: Korean food, korean recipes, noodles
In the last few days, the weather has wearily cooled down with frequent rain. Uncomfortable humidity makes it feel hotter than weather reports want you to believe. As much as I feel that the days are moving fast into autumn, August still belongs to the summer season.
So before the season’s over, I want to squeeze in a couple more summer dishes in the coming posts, including today’s black kong guksu (콩국수), literally meaning bean (콩; kong) noodles (국수; guk su). It is one of the most popular summer dishes and it’s highly regarded for its nutritional values. In its simplest form, you will find somyeon (소면; white wheat noodles, thin like angel hair) in chilled soy milk, often freshly made by boiling crushed soy beans with water and seasoned only with salt. You might find some garnish of sliced cucumbers and an accompaniment of tangy kimchi, but not much else.
Read the full story
Posted in Food
