Some North Korean Style Stew

This North Korean style soup had beef, mushrooms, vegetables, dumplings, ginko berries and pine nuts. Because of the cooler weather in North Korea, hot peppers are harder to grow and not generally associated with the cuisine there.




This raw beef was unique and is served in only a small number of restaurants in Korea. It had pickled onions and some different sprouts inside.




The entertainment was top-notch as well.

Shabu Shabu lunch with co-workers

This place puts these huge mushroom plugs on your table. You take scissors and cut all the mushrooms from the mycelia and put them in the boiling broth.

Bunk Chicken

There's a chicken place really close to my apartment. I always go by there, so I checked it out. It was totally worthless, and I will never go there again. Pure crap. I ate about half of the chicken and drank the soda. Everything else went in the trash.





There was a small container of pickled turnips, one of canned corn, a shredded cabbage with mayo and ketchup salad, some garlic bread with sprinkled sugar and some other crap. The fries were those frozen kind you can buy at the grocery store.



Next time I'll go to Kyochon. It's one of the best here in Korea. There's a reason they are number one and have franchises in New York and LA. Here's their link: http://kyochon.com/2009usa/index.asp

Pictures of breakfast cereal in Korea.

Koreans like cereals with almonds. You can get this one almost everywhere.



This one's pretty good, too. It has pumpkin seeds.



This is your standard box of fibrous flakes. Another one that can be found at most stores. I do almost all my shopping at Lotte Mart, so I pick up the first three boxes there.



The Tesco cereals all come from Homeplus. That's my favorite store because they have frozen mangos and blueberries. They also sell tortillas and have the best selection of import beers of any of the grocery stores in Korea.







This last one can be bought at Emart for about 5 dollars a box. What a bargain considering the weight and premium ingredients. Oats are a specialty product here that can only be found at foreign markets, so I use this stuff when I make oatmeal cookies.

I'm considering a Costco membership. I've shopped there several times with friends, but I've been too cheap to spend 50 bucks on the annual membership. I may give in one of these days.

Seoul Tower

Same shot zoomed in, earlier in the daytime.







This is "The Place" restaurant on the second level of the base of the tower. Young Shin and I had already eaten Indian in Itaewon earlier, but Ellie ordered Linguine with Salmon. I nibbled on some. The pasta was good, but the Salmon was over-cooked in my opinion. I think it was poached and then sliced before topping the cream sauce. Anyway, it was far better than any other Italian food I've eaten in Korea.






There are certainly tens of thousands of these "friendship" locks on the fences surrounding the observation decks.

Nolboo Restaurant

My favorite restaurant in Korea is Nolboo Budae Chigae. It's a popular chain with other themes like bossam (pig's leg), which is also very popular. I've never been to any of the Nolboo Bossam restaurants, but I'm always happy when I find a chigae one.




I always prefer the beef budae chigae. I like to add ramen noodle as well.



Budae Chigae is actually a dish created when American GI's were stationed in Korea during and following the Korean war. It usually contains ham, baked beans, green onions, leeks, rice cake pieces, mushrooms, red pepper paste and vegetable broth.



This is Kimchi, the food most representative of Korean cuisine. There are hundreds of varieties, but this one, made with cabbage (baechu), is by far the most common.




Here are the Nolboo restaurant mascots. Yes, I know it's ridiculous.

My Favorite Dishes:

#1 Shabu-Shabu

This is Shabu-Shabu. It starts as a boiling pot of vegetable broth. Then you add a lot of green onions, mushrooms, mandu, fish balls and field greens. Those cook down quickly, so then you you put in pieces of thinly sliced beef at will. The beef cooks instantly, and I usually dip it in a sauce with soy, minced garlic, diced hot peppers, and wasabi (not pictured). There's also a sweet and hot red pepper sauce (go-chu jang). After you eat the meat and vegetables, you throw hand cut homemade noodles into the remaining broth. Finally someone comes by, pours out the broth and offers to cook two diferent styles of fried rice. We usually go for the jook style, which is more soupy and less spicy than the regular fried rice.

#2 Dalk-Galbi

This is Dalk-Galbi. It contains chicken (dalk), onions, cabbage and red pepper paste. We chose the version with mushrooms that this particular restaurant offers. Like all dishes that are prepared at the table, someone comes by periodically, stirs the food and adjusts the heat.

#3 Kam Jah Tang



This soup is called Kam Jah Tang or Potato Soup. Ironically, it had no potatoes in it. If you order a giant bowl for 3 or 4 people, it will have some potatoes in it, but we opted for 2 single servings.