Toj

Bliss, Itaewon 블리스 이태원

2010-03-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

I had been giving this place a miss for awhile, because it's usually always full of boring looking people eating the mediocre pasta dishes here and drinking lightly. I didn't realize though, that Bliss has a decent drinkable champagne and sparkling selection. They have about 8-10 different bottles that range from a bottle of Cava for 48,000W + 10% VAT to Dom Perignon 2000, which is a truly great bottle of champagne that is great for drinking nowadays, that goes for about 450 bones.
I'm on a champagne kick lately, so we dropped in on successive days last weekend and popped some Veuve Clicquots and some Moet, both the Rose and Imperial. Bottles are about 160,000W per, plus 10% VAT, so you can get 3 bottles of Veuve Clicquot for the price of one bottle of Dom; if I am gonna drop 5 bills I think I want to get to feeling good, so I go for quantity here.

Tomatoes; ie. why food in Korea is so bad

2010-02-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

Rant time; how many cuisines of the world rely heavily on tomatoes? A lot, right? Obviously not Korean food, for reasons I will explain, but yes, a lot of food just wouldn't be good without some good tomatoes. Tin tomatoes will get you only so far food-wise; your salads and sandwiches though will live and die by the tomato.

Imagine a country where all of the slicing tomatoes they sold were completely flavorless, neither sour nor sweet, devoid of tang, mushy, pink, and generally a disgrace to the name. Well, guess what, I live here. Why Korean-grown tomatoes are so piss poor, I will never know, but the only Korean food I've seen them applied to is Kongguksoo, a cold soy bean noodle dish, and they are an arbitrary addition at that; the only other way Koreans really eat slicing tomatoes is by serving them in wedges, sprinkled with sugar, at bars and in brothels and like establishments. You have the different Chinese dishes that use tomatoes, like the egg dishes, etc, but they neither have those here in Korea nor do the Chinese disrespect their tomatoes so badly to have a problem like this.

For those who doubt, I lined up a pair of Kinokuniya tomatoes bought in Japan (because Kinokuniya produce lasts twice as long as regular supermarket produce, sup Murakami), and a pair of Korean 'chal' tomatoes; of slicing tomato varieties in Korea, there is pretty much only this kind, and then the fully ripened 'wansook' version of this same tomato. As you can see, the prices are similar; 2700-something won for the Korean ones and 258 yen for the Japanese ones. The coloring is obviously different.

As you slice into them, you notice the differences immediately; Korean tomatoes have very little seed and liquid, and have a huge core section. The Japanese tomatoes are similar to what we know in the western world, as well as most everywhere else, as a typical (albeit a really good example of a) slicing tomato. The flavor is full and deep of tomato, good sour balanced with some sweetness (Japanese produce is all very deep and rich in flavor and natural sweetness) and texture is nigh perfect. Perfect on a sandwich, on a burger, in wedges or pieces for a salad.

If Korean restaurants, particularly the Italians, the Middle Easterners, and all of these bandwagoneers claiming to be serious about making burgers and sandwiches care about the food they make, then they are going to really need to address this tomato thing (amongst many other things)...

Fanatic, I know, but definitely a sore point.

Japanese Pringles: because your Sour Cream and Onion is so previous level.

2010-02-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

So, as it were, my house is a wonderland of Japanese snacks. One thing I always have in the pantry are Pringles, in flavors that you probably haven't eaten before, it's always a first for me too. Mentaiko flavor Pringles are not out of the question.

Here is a roundup of six Pringles JP flavors I've tried and was sober enough to remember snacking on: (there were more, but I can't remember them right now. I do remember a huge can of guacamole flavor and some french cheese flavor but I ate them before I could take a picture)

Ok, so from top to bottom, you have:

-usushio (lightly salted flavor)
-spicy chicken
-extreme mushroom
-extra pepper
-cheese carnival
-balsamic vinegar

Winner: extra pepper. Simple, yet delivers as promised. Great cracked pepper flavor that matches well with the artificial potato notes of your standard Pringle.

Loser: balsamic vinegar. This one didn't taste anything like its namesake. Salt and vinegar chips really do taste like vinegar, these barely tasted of anything. Disappointing.

Ho Lee Chow, Itaewon; 호리차우, 이태원

2010-02-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

Today was one of those cold, 'want to eat something now and don't need anything special' days. This, as we were standing in front of the Hamilton Hotel, complaining about being hungry. Luckily, this place is on the second floor of the Hamilton, and that was good for a Thursday lunch.

There's not a ton to say about this place, it's American Chinese food (actually to be technical, it's Canadian-Chinese food) by a couple of Korean-Canadian guys. While the food here is menu items you are probably familiar with if you are from North America (as we), you probably don't realize how genius this place is, even if you have been here before. We come here pretty often as it's convenient lunching for the crew.

The basic idea is this; two Korean-Canadian brothers (?, friends?) who've cut their teeth in Korean-owned Chinese restaurants in Canada (and obviously either made or courted attractive amounts of capital, capable of funding a hotel restaurant) move their act back to motherland Korea, dress it up with some smart but obvious branding ('Ho Lee Chow' really? inventive much?), and take a market all their own, despite how obvious and easy it may be, and still after all these years, no challengers have stepped forward. Why? I do not know. Many Koreans from North America can make a Chinese takeout menu's worth of food, and it's cheap to make. I am saying all of this because a lower-priced, more takeout or possibly delivery-friendly version of this kind of place would be welcome to some here. hint hint, money hungry people.
I've worked in marketing research before, and I know well enough that no proud Korean businessperson can trust anyone else's opinion enough to pay for it, so I am pretty sure that these guys had a pretty good seed of an idea and ran with it, and got big via luck, based on familiarity and good guessing; they have multiple locations throughout Korea, in pretty high-rent locations. What they themselves may not realize is that they're hitting their demographic straight in the kisser; you get a mix of hungry US Army guys in there, you get some mildly progressive Korean families just eating out, and you get Koreans who have positive memories of Chinese takeout from being overseas as students or something, or those who've not been overseas in that way but want to try it based on an aura in popular media, an image of white paper takeout boxes with wire handles. It's the same kind of success that brands like Honda achieved when they first entered the Korean market. You get all of the now-30 somethings who used to scoot about North American college towns in Honda Civics, with pleasant memories of their college days. While many other experiences these people have are inconsistent between locales, takeaway-style Chinese food is one of those things that many have experienced universally.

The food itself? Pretty shoddy, but what would you expect?

Food: 1.5/5
Ambience: 2/5
Service: 1.5/5

Recipe: Pho Rice Burger

2010-02-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

Here is another one of my masterful ghetto foodstuff creations; the Pho Rice Burger. You get to have some Vietnamese flavor combined with Japanese food technology here, and that isn't a bad thing. Most stuff would probably be better with some Japanese food technology, to be honest. This ended up tasting honestly more like Pho than any actual Pho that is available in this country, and that is on one hand, sad, and on the other hand, pretty cool, I guess. I'm not gonna become the next oriental Ferran Adria anytime soon, but the overall flavor definitely says 'pho'....

Ok, so to reach the next level, you are going to need a lot of stuff. For those of you in Korea, none of this stuff isn't easy to find here, but guess what? It's not impossible. Itaewon Foreign Mart are your friends, people. It's where I purchased most of the stuff for this recipe.

Here is the literal cornucopia you will need to make this epic, next level meal:

-Sawtooth leaf herb (aka ngo gai, aka long coriander)
-regular cilantro
-Thai basil
-mint
-some Anaheim or similar peppers, preferably not Korean chunyang peppers, which have a thicker skin and different flavor profile
-a red onion
-a carrot, optional I guess
-cucumbers
-limes

-iceberg lettuce

-some good flavorful ground beef
-an egg

-some short grain sticky rice
-a packet of pho soup base, the dry Pho buillon cubes would also work here
-sriracha

-some potato starch and S+P

Steps:
1) make an herb slaw of the julienned vegetables in the first bar, and chiffonade the herbs, season with salt and pepper, lime juice, set aside

2) mix beef with a bit of the remaining minced onion, an egg to bind, and some chopped cilantro. Mix in a bit of the pho soup base and some S+P and then form patties, chill awhile.

3) cook short grain rice as usual, add some pho soup base to the cooking water, in proportion to the amount of rice in the cooker, according to the packet ingredients.

4) when rice is done, mix in some sriracha, give it a spoon or two of potato starch to bind, squeeze a little lime juice into the steamed rice, and then form some rice buns in a saran wrapped patty form. Carefully peel away the saran wrap, place into pan, and toast these buns over low heat in an ungreased nonstick fry pan, until both sides of each bun half have crisped and caramelized.

5) cook your pho burger patty to your liking, either in the same pan, or over a grill.

6) assemble the burger, with a bit of sriracha on the buns, some iceberg lettuce leaves, your burger patty, and some of the herb slaw.

Chakraa, Itaewon; 샤크라, 이태원

2010-02-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

There was an Indian curry trend here a number of years ago, where a few restaurants popped up and tried to cash in on burgeoning demand for (slightly) more authentic non-Korean dining; Mogul, Ashoka, and US Mania in Itaewon, Chakraa, originally from Haebangchon, Ganga Blue in the Seoul Finance Center, and some others. This was about 2002 or 2003, until 2005 or so.
Fast forward a few years, and seemingly half of Nepal moved in, started opening up their own curry houses, serving tandoori, naan, and their buttery curries, with menus looking much like their Indian counterparts. There opened a trio of Nepalese restaurants around Dongmyo serving up pretty decent curry for cheap, there is a few around Jongro, and then some more Indian places (I think) opened up near Hooker Hill in Itaewon.
This restaurant, Chakraa, as mentioned, started on the Haebangchon main drag; their original store is now occupied by a terrible pet store (more on this later) and Chakraa has since moved to Itaewon and expanded to multiple branches around Seoul and Kyunggi-do, with print ads claiming they are the foremost, or something along those lines.

Despite knowing about it for years, I went for the first time just recently, and unintentionally caught them on a buffet day, as I recall they serve a buffet on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We had gotten there in the late afternoon, and so the food on the buffet was fresh and not picked over at all, in fact we were the first ones to dig in. That is about the only way I can bring myself to eat buffet, so we did it, and it wasn't too bad. The lamb vindaloo was decent, they had a crispy vegetable salad with a nice tangy vinaigrette that I really liked, a couple of pieces of tandoori were included and brought out fresh from the kitchen, separately, and fresh naan was also delivered to our table intermittently. There were plenty of samosas and about five or six different curries on the line, plus rice and some raita and chutneys. 15,000W a head, so it was a decent enough eating experience for cheap.

Today, for two, we ate off the menu, and things were definitely a bit different. We habitually order up some samosas, half a tandoori chicken, some naan, and some curry, sometimes two curries if I feel like trying something out. Today, we ended up getting all of that, including regular naan, sesame naan, and tomato and cheese naan, and we got Aloo Gobi and Chicken Vindaloo, the latter being my favorite curry of all time. I spent a couple weeks in London in my younger days eating only chicken vindaloo and naan.

Being that the guys at Chakraa are from southern India, and that the lamb vindaloo I had before was decent, I was expecting good things and ended up really disappointed with tonight's meal. The chicken vindaloo sucked. It tasted sweet and overly tomato-ey; like it was ketchup and sauteed onions with curry powder. The Aloo Gobi was also pretty bad; I'm pretty sure I can cook better southern Indian than this and I've never been to the country. The Samosas were Samosas but their chutney was not good, the naan was dry and tough, and the tandoori was decent but nothing to talk about. The worst thing for me: I have asked them twice now if they could give me some cilantro on the side, because this is regularly available at almost all curry places in Seoul, and Chakraa's own advertising in all of the expat rags features a pretty good-looking bowl of curry topped in a mountain of fresh cilantro, and both times, they said they didn't have any. I called it cilantro, I called it coriander, I called it gosu, I called it pakchi, they didn't have it, apparently.
I might try the buffet again here at Chakraa, but ordering off the menu was a waste of money.

Food: 1/5
Ambiance: 1/5 (the steps up to the 2nd floor entrance reeked of toilet smell)
Service: 2/5 (we got complimentary bowls of Ottugi cream soup with some raw carrot scraps and chicken mixed in, I appreciated the gesture, but not the soup)

Com Binh Dan, Sinseol-dong; 곰빙단, 신설동

2010-02-17T10:25:00.000-08:00

I love pho. I think it might rank as my all-time favorite food. Koreans like their Koreanized pho, as they like their Koreanized pizza, Koreanized sandwiches, and Koreanized everything else; with an ever increasing number of Vietnamese people coming to Korea though, it stands to reason that there should be an improvement in the quality of Vietnamese food here by way of some Vietnamese-run shops opening up and capitalizing, right? No more imitation crab and pickled radish in my goi cuon, and no more light yellow mopwater pho with al dente noodles and mere snippets of green onions, right? Wrong.
I am on the quest, trust me. I think that things might improve in the future, but for now, finding a good bowl of pho (along with many other good food items) in Korea will prove to be a lost cause. I am probably one hundred times closer to finding a fated true love than I am a good bowl of pho. Ok, enough of this talk, because I am getting depressed again.

We go up to Shinseol-dong for work here and there nowadays, and one day recently we were trodding around the backstreets and I saw the word 'Pho' and was ready to pass by it. I pointed it out in passing to Dan, and we sort of dared each other to go in. We opened the door, walked in to what seemed to be a chicken hof, and then a familiar, non Korean aroma wafted towards us - Vietnamese food. We walked to the back of the room, to discover this little corner in the chicken bar to be a Vietnamese restaurant. To boot, the owner was a Korean man with a young Vietnamese wife, and at a table were sitting two young Vietnamese women. I thought, 'could this be... the fated bowl of pho?' and we started getting excited about the prospect of having found real pho in Korea. Two bowls of Pho Bo please, 6000W a piece. Iced coffee for Dan and a Soda chanh for me.

What came out was definitely not the kind of dish I am used to calling pho. It looked pretty similar to a Korean bowl of pho, the same clear, near-water looking broth, the same sad-looking greeen onion bits floating around. They did offer us some cilantro as standard along with the sprouts, but nothing more. The noodles were cooked to a softer consistency than Korean people do, ie not al dente, which was appreciated and added something to the experience, at least. The broth though, was very sadly lacking.

We went back today so that we could get a couple snaps up, got the same order, same experience. Not worth going back again, really. Not expensive, not terribly inconvenient since we are in the neighborhood sometimes, but it's just as bad as a Korean pho place, which is pretty sad considering they had a wall of Vietnamese groceries and supplies on the wall for sale, like a mini-mart.

Food: 1/5 stars
Ambiance: 1.5/5 stars (authentic immigrant stall food to be sure, at least)
Service: 2.5/5 stars (the owner is friendly enough)

For now, I will have to eat my patented Pho Rice Burger (recipe forthcoming) and dream of real pho...

Marie, Ewha (Back Gate) 마리, 이대후문

2010-02-16T06:58:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty rough day, where nothing seemed to line up; when it came time to eat my dinner, I knew I didn't want any nasty surprises at the dinner table, or any disappointments, so we went to Marie, a local Korean restaurant that serves an abridged hanjeongshik (한정식) multi-course meal.
This place is not so much about mind-blowingly awesome taste, or next-level advanced techniques. It has been around since 1984, and it's location directly opposite of the back gate of Ewha Womans University has probably allowed it to continue on as it has for the past 25 years. 25 years for a restaurant in Korea is a pretty good stretch. I have been going to this restaurant occasionally for over 10 years.
It has a feel reminiscent of old Korean movies from the mid 1990's; it seems a little cute, a little foreign while being without a doubt Korean, and it's housed in a brick-fronted and ivy-covered building that seems like it would make a nice place to eat lunch on a rainy summer day. As it were, many Korean films and television shows were shot in this neighborhood, in front of Marie and other stores. I lived here for quite awhile, and seeing film crews was more than a weekly occurrence. It's a nice quiet neighborhood tucked in the middle of Seoul.

The food itself is nothing to write (home) about. It's your standard hanjeongshik fare; juk starter, gujeolpan - crepes with multiple vegetables for filling, a small shinsollo hot pot of meat and fish, jeon - egg-battered fish and meat fritters, an odd filet of sauced salmon, different kimchis, and then stewed kalbi (kalbijjim) and then a choice of bibimbap or dduk mandu guk (rice cake and dumpling soup) - we were given both, as I think they had started to prepare one for us and we decided to take the other. Taste was nothing out of the ordinary, and presentation wasn't either, except for small touches like parsley garnishes on the gujeolpan crepes - a touch seemingly stuck in Korea circa 1984. I kind of like that, I guess.

If you happened to be in this area of Seoul, and had already tried the many other good restaurants in this area behind Ewha, then this place isn't bad to go to. I am a sucker for nostalgia, so today won't be the last time I eat at Marie.

Prices range from a cheap 20,000W per person for a course menu, up to 60 or so, if you opt for things like fresh abalone and grilled fish, in addition to the above. One can also order items like the bibimbap a la carte, if dining alone.

Food: 2.5/5
Ambiance: 2.5/5
Service: 2.5/5

Location: directly opposite the back gate of Ewha Womans University, and a block or so from Yonsei Severance Hospital.

Beodeulgol, Itaewon; 버들골, 이태원

2010-02-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

Beoduelgol, located near exit 4 of Itaewon station, does pojangmachas a service. This establishment has a cozy atmosphere, friendly staff, and delicious seafood-based dishes - all without breaking the bank. Dan and I go there to eat (and drink) at least once a week.

Once seated, you're near instantaneously given a piping hot pot of mussels in a broth at no cost.

Of course, at a place like this, it's only proper to wash every down with bottles of soju.

My personal favorite thing on the menu is broiled mackerel. I get this each time I visit Beodeulgol because the portion is huge and it's always cooked perfectly and tastes amazing to boot.

The next thing ordered was the king shrimp. Nice to munch on with a side of gochujang (hot pepper paste).

By this time, Dan and I were pretty full, but Dan's girlfriend came to join us so it was only proper to order more food. She decided to get the snails with noodles. I'm personally not a huge fan of snails, but the taste of the snails did not bother me so much in this dish. However, I felt this dish was too spicy (as did Dan and his girlfriend).

This is definitely a place I'll visit many more times to come.

Food: 4.4/5 stars
Ambiance: 4/5 stars
Service: 4.3/5 stars

The TOJ peacoat

2010-02-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

(Perry from Australia, wearing his TOJ peacoat)

About 6 months ago, people had asked me to make a peacoat. I have had a whole laundry list of items that I've been working since last summer, and I included the pea in my agenda.

Well, that took longer than I expected. A learning experience, to be certain; when Dan joined forces with me, I put him in charge of getting the pea coat realized, and it was toil and tears for both of us. We got a pattern made with our personal guru on a CAD table, we went to a factory in Anyang, about an hour away from Seoul, where they only make tailored wear, they took one look at the pattern and scrapped it and made their own, their sample turned out weird, we had chosen the wrong materials, rinse and repeat a couple more times; yeah. It was not fruitful for more than a couple months.

We finally got someone who did the right thing, and it was ready in December. The pattern was a lot easier than expected, and the production process made it seem like we had wasted two months away from home when we should've just been following our normal model of production - it's the hard way, but the best way to get people what they want.

The end product - amazing. I am really happy to have seen this project to completion and not scrapped it, because the coats turned out amazing. The fit is slightly boxy; a trimmer front with a bit of boxy undulation in the back and sleeves, something a little modern looking without any deliberately outward modern details - it's all in the cut. Think a little Jil Simons with less techno. You get slightly roped shoulder heads and they rest softly and do not bear on the shoulder, and a classically shaped collar that still looks modern.

I have plans to make a double breasted trench coat for Spring, and I won't have to waste two months getting it to market this time, which I'm thankful for. I also know exactly what I want in my next coats, and that means I will be turning up the heat a lot.

All in all, a great first outing for Toj tailoreds. I plan to do a lot more with this playing card in the future.

Sortino's, Itaewon; 소르띠노, 이태원

2010-02-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

Valentine's day called for some good eating, and the rumbling in my belly called for some Italian. Sortino's is where I go for my pasta fix, and I like some of the other stuff they do there, so it was a no-brainer. I forgot to make reservations though, so we really lucked out and were able to walk in and be seated at the only vacant table, and we even got the same waiter we always get when we visit. His English is not great, which I think is a bit weak for an Itaewon restaurant, but his service is great. He is always around to refill your wine or water, and brings out dishes at a nice pace, queuing up dishes at a good interval so that you can enjoy each dish.

If we had arrived 5 minutes later, we probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to sit down, so this meal went down very well for us.

The food here is not the best or most creative Italian food in the world obviously, but for Korea, Sortino is really hitting hard and bringing solid game, and I can support a restaurateur who does that. Once your starter comes out, you will realize all of the work put into the menu to get the fundamentals down. He has a pretty intimate knowledge of what he can and can't do with local Korean ingredients, which is pretty key for Italian food - which are built around a lot of tomatoes, cheese, and olives, among many other things that are not easy to get properly in this country.

I also learned the key to good food blogging - bring a notebook and pen or something, to jot names of your plates. I tore into the Chianti a little too quickly and stopped caring about the details, therefore I don't know the menu names for most of the stuff we got, but I can describe them accurately enough.

What we got, just a bit of everything;

Antipasto Misto platter for two - prosciutto, artichoke heart pieces, assorted olives, rocket, gorgonzola and grana padano, roasted red peppers, and two portions of insalata caprese, with the best slicing tomatoes I've had in Korea to date, barring the Kinokuniya ones I get smuggled to me from Japan. Sortino's fresh tomatoes are a Korean variety, but are fully ripened and have a great color. You can't find these at stores.

Green salad, tossed with lemon dressing - typical green salad, had a couple olives and assorted cherry tomatoes in it, along with a couple dried tomatoes. I really like the lemon dressing, but I eat this at home pretty much everyday as well.

Pasta course - it was a penne dish in a spicy tomato sauce, with calabrese sausage. I get this everytime, it's very good, very simple. Probably telling of the quality of the whole outfit.

Steak - 250g wagyu filet cut, with Chianti demiglace. Arrived on top of potato wedges and sauteed mushrooms. The steak itself was good, the accoutrements were not so. Still, this steak was better than the other ones they have on their menu- last time I got the roulade steak with asparagus, which was disappointing.

Pizza - alla diavola - salami, red peppers, red onions, black olives. typical.

Dessert - chocolate cake a la mode, and always a lemon sorbet for me

Wine was a Chianti Superiore

Overall, very solid Italian food, that I crave once in awhile. It can get expensive if you get a bottle of wine and throw in several courses, but I see most people at Sortino's on dates, ordering just a pasta dish and a pizza, drinking house wine. That is not very cool though; I saw a couple eating just a pizza and sharing a diet coke, completely uncool. This is the kind of restaurant where you should go all out, order a whole bunch of food, and take doggy bags home. You'll want to eat the leftover pasta and pizza as your midnight snack. We left pretty buzzed on wine and felt completely full and satisfied, which the sign of a good Italian restaurant.

Total bill was 275,000W for two people.

Food: 4/5 stars
Ambiance: 3/5 stars
Service: 4/5 stars

And, for an after-dinner top off, we dropped by 7 Beonji, to smoke a Cohiba Siglo II, and have some drinks with the TOJ crew.

Recipe: Poulet en Croute Pommes de Terre, Tabouleh au Genmai, Ume, Shiso, Kyuuri, Sauce ume

2010-02-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

I do a little cooking here at home, and if I might say so myself, I'm not too bad with a knife and frypan.

Today's dish:

Paillard de Poulet en Croute Pommes de Terre sur (? something) Tabouleh au Genmai, Ume, Shiso, Kyuuri, Sauce ume

(Potato 'gill' encrusted chicken paillard, over a tabouleh of genmai rice, ume, shiso, and cucumber, with an ume sauce)

To be honest, this recipe would be best with a fish filet of your choice, but since I don't like cooking fish, I made this with chicken, knowing full well how much better it'd be as a fish dish, ie Poisson en Croute Pommes de Terre.
The potato 'gills' are a Paul Bocuse nouvelle cuisine thing, so not really my typical steez, but eh. This dish would make a great dish to cook for a date if you can tourne a potato quickly and well (alternatively, you could cop out and just get a cookie cutter type thing or an apple corer and use the center batons that come out), and the rice can be made ahead of time, so it could be a 10-minute dish if you planned it correctly.
The rice tabouleh came about because I like ume-kyu (umeboshi and cucumber - umeboshi-kyuuri) when I eat sushi, for cleansing the palate. Japanese shiso has a really distinct flavor as well, so these ingredients are not to be substituted or omitted if you want the full flavor range. The ume acts as an astringent here, the shiso is the herbal, peppery green that livens it up.

The basics: a little French, a little Japanese-y fusion here, nothing too hard to palate or get your head around. Chicken, a little potato, and some rice.

The chicken (or fish) portion: tourne some potato (it looks a little better if you can tourne them to 14 sides, rather than seven) into batons, slice paper thin, arrange on the meat as scales. As I did this with chicken, I butterflied my chicken breast into a paillard and pounded it out to a uniform thickness, but you wouldn't need to do that to a fish filet, obviously. You want to arrange those potato scales on the meat pretty quickly, and right after cutting, so that the starches remain and they stick to themselves and to the meat. It's not too hard to do.
Anyway, grease a pan lightly with a light oil, pat the scales down on the meat and flip it into the pan scale side down first, let it turn a little golden on the edges, and then cook the other side of the meat. That's all there is to it.

The genmai ume-kyu tabouleh portion: boil some genmai brown rice as directed, and then ice it down to cool. I rinsed my cooked rice in cold water because I wanted it to stay pretty light and less starchy. To the rice I added a few umeboshi, pitted and chopped chunkily but small, and then some shredded shiso leaves. Also, dice your cucumber finely and some red onion, and there you have it, pretty simple. A little S+P and you can lay it down on the plate, cold, ready for the filet on top.

The sauce I did was minced umeboshi and some balsamic vinegar, mixed til it made a jelly'ish sauce.

Plate it all up nicely and there you have it.

The best part - this isn't too expensive to make. Granted, it's just a course and not a meal, but it's a nice presentation for mundane basic ingredients. A couple chicken breasts, a couple potatoes, a cup of brown rice, a cucumber and an onion, and then the two Japanese items - yellow honey-cured umeboshi and shiso leaves - can be bought many places, for not too much. It's not like having to buy 30,000W worth of stuff to put together a sandwich, like many other home cooking endeavors in Korea.

Raw Horse meat: basashi, and yakitori at Buntaro, Itaewon 분타로, 이태원

2010-02-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

Last night's attempt to go to Teppen in Kangnam failed, so we went to the Japanese end of Itaewon for some izakaya-ing.

This place, Buntaro (I can't remember if they call it 'Muntaro' as in Korean or 'Buntaro' as it would be in Japanese, but that's what the little chinese chicken scratch letters on the sign out front read.

I knew it to be a yakitori place, but we sat down for some beers and chicken, and I noticed that they had raw horse meat on the menu. I had to order it, not so much for the eating experience, but just to get a snap for this blog. Luckily, it didn't taste too bad, and we finished the whole plate.

We also got the typical array of yakitori, some grilled prawns, a plate of gyoza, and we got a couple rounds of edamame. I gotta get my edamame on if I'm doing an izakaya, I love those things.

The verdict though: the food wasn't that great. The aspara buta bara maki (asparagus rolled in pork belly) came out; it was a single stalk of asparagus cut into four little pieces, wrapped in razor thin pork belly. The biggest crime was that it was the frozen asparagus from China that they have here, so when grilled it just became soggy and water-logged. Clearly this place does not care too much about the quality of their food.
The gyoza were pretty lackluster. I think I've had better frozen gyoza. The edamame were, well, edamame, and those were luckily from fresh. They could go a little lighter on the salt, they were caked in it. I prefer my edamame blanched in heavily salted water with no additional salt after draining, so I had to pick these out by hand.
I didn't eat the seafood portion, and everyone else ate the scallops and prawns and said they were pretty good, but I tried the horse sashimi. It was a bit fattier than basashi is supposed to be, looking like beef. The overall taste was not dissimilar to raw beef, and we ate it with soy, grated daikon, and wasabi, which further obscured the taste. Luckily they didn't drown it in sesame seed oil and egg like I thought they were going to do. They did garnish absolutely everything with lemon slices, which was pretty unnecessary. Gyoza don't really call for a sprinkle of lemon. Chicken breast does, so that was nice, but I'd prefer yuzu or yuzugoshou on my chicken breast.

On the decor side of things; it was dressed up just like any other izakaya in Korea; tons of Japan kitsch, empty sake bottles and cartons, and lots of wood everywhere. The seating was mega uncomfortable and it was packed last night, so it was really loud inside. The wait staff don't speak very good Japanese, but none of this really affects the Korean patronage. For me though, the seats were killing my back and I wanted to leave pretty soon after arriving.

Total bill was 187,000W for four people, a few beers for each us and not much food really, so not a great value in the end.

Rating: 1/5
Ambience: 1/5
Service: 1/5

daily accessories

2010-02-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

When I leave the house, there's really only a number of things I need on me - a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, my Blackberry, and lately I have been wearing watches. Apparently they don't work as well as they should because I am still late to everything, but I am not sure if I can blame this on the Germans, as they make a damn good watch.

Dan got himself the black Sinn 756 S(chwarz) Duochrono back in October, and yeah, I had to copycat and get a Sinn for myself. I got the 356 Flieger I with the acrylic domed crystal, on the Sinn bracelet. Mine is from Japan, so it's a series 1 and not the series 2 on leather band that is more standard for the US market nowadays. Dan's 756 is from Singapore, so I am not sure if it is a variant, though it seems they sell an identical model in the US. Our girlfriends have a lot to say about our matching accessories, but they just don't realize how cool these watches are.

The 756S has a dial based on aircraft navigation clocks; the 356 has a pilot's watch type dial. The other outward differences would be that the 356 Flieger is similar to many other Fliegers (namely IWC's) in that it has the full bevy of chronograph display plus day-date, albeit in German, while the 756 subtracts the day readout plus the constant seconds. I sort of prefer having a constant seconds hand, frankly it looks cool with all the moving shit on the face and someday I may have a use for it, boiling eggs or something. I had to study the days of the week in German there for a little bit, sup Dontag.
The blacked out 756 looks pretty navy seal black ops level, like something you're going to wear before you dive to 100 meters and then harpoon the enemy, whereas the silver 356 is a bit more run of the mill, army'ish looking, like a typewriter commando or something.
Both the 756 and the 356 are built on the same movement, a Valjoux 7750, which is pretty workhorse, and shows up in a lot of good watches. If you give them a little rattle, I think the vibrations are a lot stronger on the 356, but that might have to do with the 756 having a deeper, beefier case with a flat inset sapphire crystal - it's huge. The 356 has a shallower case and a big bulbous crystal to reach about the same height.

The 756 is definitely the nicer of the two, it has the tegimented steel technology to keep the bracelet and case from scratching in day to day use, which the 356 doesn't have, and a copper sulphate capsule on the lower left side of the case that indicates interior moisture levels, ie service requirements.

Anyway, I'm not a horologist or anything, but the Sinns are nice distinctive looking watches that make for an interesting timepiece at fair prices.

The other daily accessory we use are our zippo lighters. There is something infinitely charming about a zippo, the hand feel and the vintage attitude of something you have to regularly service. Even the smell of the lighter fluid is charming. I look at the time, and then flick the zippo open and light a cigarette....

Me, on FourHorsemen's blog;

2010-02-11T22:25:00.001-08:00

I am the 'well known international personality' on 4HM's blog right now ;)

http://www.fourhorsemen.ca/

Dak Han Mari, Shinchon 닭한마리

2010-02-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

I like to go for this once in awhile, but I have to be pretty hungry. It can be a ton of food.

Essentially, the concept is this; you get a whole chicken in a bath of chicken stock, some snipped negi leeks and sliced eringi mushrooms, some dduk rice cakes, and a couple slices of potatoes. They come and cut the chicken up into manageable nuggets and you eat all the stuff out of this boiling hotpot in a dip of soy sauce, crushed chili, garlic, and sometimes a dollop of mustard.

You can have them add extra of the other stuff, such as potatoes, dduk, mushrooms, for a buck or two, and then after the chicken is done and cleared from the pan, they reconstitute the broth one more time, and you order up a plate of kalguksoo noodles, and eat those. The broth plus a bit of crushed chili paste and garlic, plus black pepper, mixed up in your bowl, is a great soup, in my opinion.

After the noodles are done, you order up juk, and they come around, dump a bowl or two of rice into the leftover broth, and stir it over heat until the rice congeals. Then, optionally, they stir in an egg quickly and add some seaweed bits, and you're on your last course.

The one chicken costs 16,000W, and it's good for 2-3 people. You can also get a chicken and a half for 24, or two chickens for 32. The add-ons cost 1-2,000W, and beer and soju are commonly drank with this, so it's a huge meal for two or three for under thirty bones. You'll leave feeling pretty garlic-y and heavy, but satisfied.

By the by, this dish is pretty similar to the Japanese dish 'mizutaki' and I am not going into who started what first, but want to merely point out at this juncture that the Japanese eat the chicken pieces from it with grated carrot and ponzu sauce, which is also good. It's not a difficult concept to get your head around, so I think this dish has the potential for creativity as well.

The Bubblegum Brothers - Won't be Long

2010-02-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

An oldie but goody. This video is great because of the 1) floormat they are dancing on, 2) the clothes everyone is wearing, 3) the fact that the song is catchy as fuck. The energy in the room reminds me of good 1980's Top of the Pops and the kind of energy a Korean nightclub nowadays gets when a song people recognize comes on. The fanaticism, down to the clothes and dance styles, are now a sadly bygone era in Japan, I feel.

You may recognize the singer, he is Brother Korn, aka 'Korn' the oft-featured panelist judge on the original Iron Chef series as it was played on FoodTV. Little connection back to food there.

Yakitori at Yoshimi Shouten, Shinchon; 요시미 쇼우텐, 신촌; 　新村の「よしみ商店」

2010-02-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

So here's a small little place I go to once in awhile, to get yakitori.

There used to be a decent place in Hongdae that served this purpose for me, and they did a pretty neat job, with proper Japanese sauces and condiment pairings (only place in Korea I'd seen with yuzugoshou, for example) for their yakitori. Unfortunately, while I was out of the country, that place either changed hands or just changed concepts, they no longer do yakitori and are just an anonymous Korean-ized izakaya now, so they are no longer worth mentioning.

This place, Yoshimi Shouten, I am not sure how I got here originally, but it's not bad. They have a few standards, and then a few non yakitori-ya type things on the menu; ramen, oden, etc.
One thing I like drinking lately is Japanese sours and chu-hais (shochu highballs)... Yoshimi has a lemon sour that is like lemon juice and seltzer and some soju; nice if you feel like a headache later on the same night, and it's easy drinking. For a Wednesday night, I'll take that.

There is nothing too authentically Japanese about this place beyond the decor and menu style, but it's a nice break from Korean BBQ every night. Yoshimi doesn't have tons of chicken on their menu, or at least any that I really want to go for (grilled chicken skin or assholes, anyone?) and have more pork than I'd like to see for this place, but I do like their pork belly-wrapped cherry tomatoes, shishito peppers, and their gingko nut skewers. When I'm in Japan, I usually get about the same thing, balancing about 2/3rds chicken to 1/3rd vegetable orders.

Yoshimi can get pretty expensive, especially if you like to drink. I usually see customers restraining themselves during their stay, usually just a couple beers and a few skewers per couple. One skewer of meat, which is only about 3-4 little cubes of meat, is about 3000-3500W a piece. When I'm eating with friends, we can drop almost a bill on chicken skewers and sides alone, it adds up pretty quickly. I also like their tomato salad (8500w) that is dressed in a Korean-y faux wafu dressing to cut the grease, and Charly likes the maguro tataki (18,000W), which is a pretty sizable filet of tuna, served over a generous bed of greens and the same dressing.

The lighting wasn't good enough for picture taking, and we forgot to take pictures of the grilled stuff we ate. Drinking and food blogging, there is a delicate balance.

Our bill was 127,000W for three people, including a few drinks for each and a normal amount of food.

I guess this place is a 2-2.5/5 stars on our scale. There is far worse out there, and then there are places towards the far end of Itaewon that also do yakitori, that I will touch upon at a later time.

Location: out of Shinchon subway station, head down the main street toward the front gate of Yonsei University; there will be a Starbucks on the left side of the street, close to the Yonsei; Yoshimi Shouten is down the alley next to Starbucks on the left, about 100m.

The TOJ Daypack

2010-02-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

I've had this idea in my head for ages, and things came all circular and I finally got the chance to make it. They are turning out just as I had envisioned them. I haven't worn a backpack since about 1995, but now that mine has finally come to fruition, I am gonna be wearing them all year now. It's part a recollection of my youth in the mid 1990's; half-filled Jansports covered with band names and logos scribbled in whiteout pen on everyone's backs; Patrik Ervell's elusive deerskin backpack from a couple years ago did ring well with me, as it supported the former idea, a time period that stays in my memory.

What they are: it's a classic big-compartment, small zip pocket daypack format, in an unstructured, floppy monochrome palette. I chose cow suede for these as it allows the bags to droop low and abstract. They get the good YKK metal 2-way zippers in 8 gauge, and the construction is impeccable.

I've already made five grey ones, and five black ones, which have all sold out, and the second run in olive suede and eggplant suede, five per, is in production. A couple of each are still available. A washed black lambskin is in the cards for the third production run to follow, with a possible reprise of grey suede, but I'd also like to introduce burgundy suede and a dark moody teal suede at some point as well.

They are selling for $275 in the suede version and $325 in the lambskin version.

I get to wear the f'd up sample, which is a bit smaller than the production versions, and this sample got gold zips; the regular ones are getting silver zips. It is definitely nice to tote stuff around in though. Once the crazier colors are made, I will be taking one and toting my iPad and moleskin around in it all year.

4Horsemen X Granted handknit Cowichan sweater

2010-02-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

I wanted to show my support for this store, 4Horsemen, out of Vancouver, so I bought one of their latest annual handknit Cowichan sweaters that they make in very limited quantities in collaboration with Granted, which is apparently a local handknitting operation in Vancouver.

Today was a rainy day but not too cold, so I decided to take it easy today and stay in - perfect weather for wrapping up in a couple kilos of handknit wool.

I've had various handknit cable sweaters in the past, and heavy knits - Jil Sander, Raf, APC, blah, blah, but this one is definitely hand done, and very beefy. It's pure long-fiber new wool, with wooden buttons, and made with no more than a pair of knitting needles and a sewing needle for attaching buttons and tags. That is pretty damn impressive. I went for navy, to match my oriental complexion best. A good buy.

Here I am wearing it today, with my legendary looking APC New Standards and a pair of Red Wings.

I believe that 4Horsemen still have a couple of these left, out of the edition of 15, so interested parties may be able to grab one from their site. I think they run $350.

Shinchon Korean BBQ - Kang Ho Dong 'Baek Jeong' - 강호동 백정 신촌점

2010-02-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

At this point in my life, I think I've lived in Shinchon longer than anywhere else in the world, and that's including a lot of places. From the early 1980's when it was a lot of dirt roads and outhouses, to now, where it's paved roads and er... well, it's improved a bit I guess. Kidding, it's not luxury living, but it gets the job done.

To that end, the local specialty, as it were, would have to be Korean BBQ, hands down. Pork, to be specific, nowadays. There are a ton of various eateries in the Shinchon area, Mexican, Italian, mystery genre, lots of American family chains, etc, but for every one of those is a charcoal grilled pork place. To be even more specific, most of these places serve up meat at rock bottom prices, some go as low as 2900W (about $2.50US) a serving, up to about $10-15-20 for beef.

Since we decided to start this blog fresh, I also decided to try out some new places I don't normally go to.
This place - Kang Ho Dong's Baek Jeong, is apparently a chain restaurant, and fairly new. I can't remember it being here a couple months ago.

The overall look of the place is a clean retro pagoda-esque multi-story tower of pork grilling. It looks pretty 1915 'we're sitting on these hand hewn benches grilling clams and dog that we brought in ourself' X Chipotle bare galvanized aluminum decor thing going on, it's not too bad. Lighting is not so bad, so it looks like the kind of place you'd imagine Jackie Chan scaling the side of, upside down, thwarting attackers.

Anyway, onto the food. I can't even remember what cut of pork I ordered - I'm not too picky when it gets this grimy. I am pretty sure it was a back or throat cut, looking back on the pictures, which is typically looked down upon in Korea. Koreans are all about the pork belly - samgyupsal. Then again, they like eating trotters as well, so maybe we all just have certain perceived values surrounding our meat.

(They have a wall-sized menu, and the English titling scheme was surprisingly not embarassing and coherent, presumably so whitey can come in and point to what they want if all else fails)

At these really cheap K-BBQ places in Shinchon, you get the bare minimum of sides, and they make their money off selling you meat and liquor. This place was no different, but they have remixed stuff slightly. The greens - typically presented in basket, raw - were torn into smaller bits and tossed in a light Asian-y garlic dressing, which was not too bad really. Soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, maybe some citrus juice or something, plus a little sesame seed oil. Other accoutrements were dongchimi (pickled white radish pieces, this one served in ice), some really, really, really ripe kimchi (it was almost clear, and yellow), and some dipping sauces and shredded green onions.

The highlight for me though, was the eggs. Not that I really ate them, but they put some beaten eggs and sesame oil into the trough that is normally reserved for the fat dripping off your meat. Voila - you get an instant gyeran jjim X omelette type thing going on. I've heard of this practice before, but it was my first time seeing it in the flesh. It worked out nicely.

Overall, not a bad little place to eat, I guess. The first set of chopsticks I received were dirty, but the staff was generally attentive, despite it being their group dinner time.

Location - on the end of Shinchon 'Myeongmulgeori' between Ewha and Shinchon, directly opposite Outback steakhouse. Tucked about 20 foot into an alley, behind a budaejjigae restaurant. Open 24 hours apparently.

The bill was about 32,000W for 2 people, but we got a jjigae on the side and I drank a couple beers.

Food: 3/5 stars
Ambiance: 3/5 stars
Service: 3/5 stars

Petra Kebab House, Itaewon - 페트라 케밥 하우스

2010-02-09T10:47:00.001-08:00

It was getting on in the day today after a long day of sorting fabrics and leather at the markets, so it called for a meal. We decided to start a food and lifestyle blog whilst in the taxi en route, so I called for Petra Kebab House to be our first stop. It was my first time, but the food was not unfamiliar.

For the three of us, we picked up the menu, and rattled off a bunch of dishes to our server;

Hummus
Baba Ganoush
Chicken Kebab - chicken pieces grilled in spices
Falafel
Tikka Kebab - lamb pieces grilled in spices
Sultan Chicken - chicken pieces stewed in a tomato and spiced sauce, with raisins and chickpeas
Tabouleh
Olive Salad

Food came out quickly, and in a logical order. I've read plenty about this place and so I had fairly high expectations. The first things to be placed on the table were a cucumber-yogurt based sauce not unlike a tatziki sauce, and a chili sauce. The dishes we ordered soon arrived and we dug in, trying to put bread to vegetables and protein. Food was overall pretty good. We ordered a second olive salad as it went quite quickly and we got seconds on pitas as well, as we had a ton of food to wrap.
We probably didn't need the Sultan Chicken, a sweet'ish stewed chicken dish in a tomato sauce over raisins and chickpeas. In hindsight we could've gone with more chicken kebab or lamb Tikka Kebab.

My gripes with the food itself were thus; Korean tomatoes do not suit this style of food, just like any other tomato-heavy cuisine. Some more acidic, more sour tomatoes would've done wonders for that olive salad and the tabouleh. Both kebab and falafel dishes came out with the same relish of shredded red leaf lettuce and onions dusted in sumac powder. Looked nice enough, but red leaf lettuce doesn't have enough strength to hold up against the pitas nor protein; this is a technical mistake I feel too many restaurants in Korea do. For a restaurant that is as proud of its food as Petra is, I really do think they could put forth the effort and do their own tomatoes as well as realize the red leaf lettuce shreds don't function as embellishments nor do they add much in a kebab.
The Hummus was not knockout, and considering the fairly easy availability of all of the ingredients for Hummus in Korea, I found it a bit disappointing that it fell short. The Falafel was also a bit small for its size and a trip through the fryer made the Falafel small and more crunch that flavor.
Likewise, the Tabouleh was also a bit short on bulgur wheat, it was definitely more parsley than anything else.

Perhaps it was the drinker in me, and nothing against Petra in this case, but I felt that a meal without alcohol and a smoke to be a pretty strange feeling. The food itself was very fresh and light as well, which lended to the overall lunch-y vibe of the meal. I'd happily eat this for lunch any day of the week, but for dinner, it'd be a tougher sell to me.

I do think Petra has some decent food, but they do have some room for improvement as well, both with food detail and facility.

Location: On the hill above the 4-way intersection at Noksapyeong station. Also accessible by walking from Itaewon station.

Total bill was 89,000W for 3 people, including three Diet Cokes for beverages.

Food: 3.8/5 stars
Ambience: 3/5 stars
Service: 3.5/5 stars

Toj