Birthday Brunch

Yesterday was my friend's birtyday, so we went to the French Restaurant in Itaewon to have Sunday Brunch together.



Bread was served first. We had 2 more baskets of Bread. hehe :))

I had a Breakfast Platter - toast, orange marmalade, scrambled egg, green salad, bacon, and baked potatoes.

I usually have a cup of coffee or a bowl of yogurt for breakfast unless I am at my parent's house. (Yeah, at home, we do usually have 3 meals a day...a bowl of rice(!), soup and several side dishes even for breakfast. You might think it's too much for breakfast. But definitely I feel healthy!)

My friend ordered a pork & potato stew. The pork tasted like chicken. It was so000 tender...and delicious. I realized that 'if it is cooked properly, the food can taste different & much better.'

Sirloin Steak with mushroom gravy

Sometime, I am so hungry that I forget to take pictures of food. When my friend put her knife on the steak, I realised that I forgot to take a picture. hehe. ;p You can see that in the picture....

Red wine poached apple for dessert

Instant Noodle

At work, I decided to make a nice dinner for myself tonite. However, after staying 1 hour on the Tube in a rush hour, and food shopping in a crowded department store...I lost all my passion(?) for cooking. I just put all the stuff in the fridge after I came back home and cooked an istant noodle. How sad. :(( But at least, I put some clams and spring onion in it. ;p

Kim Bugak

Kim Bugak (Fried Seaweed)

I've never made this at home (coze it takes time and effort....hehe), but this is one of my favorite snacks. This is made with sticky rice glue and seaweed. (On small picese of seaweed, put some rice glue...and let them dry...and then, deep fry. )

Even though it is fried in oil, it's not greasy. Also, it is crisy like crisps.

Hong Bo Seok (Chinese Restaurant)

This restaurant is on the top floor of the Hyundai department store...It has a beautiful view.
We had dinner looking at sunset. ;)


pickled radish(?) in red chili oil, peanut with coriander, pickled cucumber

crab meat soup (too much starch for me)

Brocoli, mushroom, a ginko nut, sea cucumber, Shrimp, green pepper, and Squid....
I don't know the name of this dish, but it was quite nice. Maybe because it had all my favorite incredients. :)


Strange looking mushrooms (I don't know the name, anyone? ) and Bokchoy in oyster sauce with Chinese flower bun(?)

Fried King Prawn with chili-garlic sauce (they served only one(!!!!) prawn for each)


Sweet & Sour Beef


Noodle with Black bean sauce. (Korean's favorite. I heard we cannot find the same food in China, even though we eat this in chinese restaurants in Korea. It's because Chinese Korean made this food for korean's taste.)



Little sticky thingie with sesame seed 4 dessert

Persimmon Puree(?). It reminded me of my grandma's house. It has a couple of persimmon trees in her yard. When i was young, my gradma used to make dried persimmons for me and my sister. :)

Shrimp Mandu

Those ugly but lovely dumplings are Shrimp Mandu I made last Sunday. I've never made dumplings at home before...but it was quite fun to make. The reason I chose Shrimp is simply I don't really enjoy dumplings with pork or beef.

Shrimp Mandu & Clam Soup

I also cooked Shrimp pancakes with leftover shrimps and vegetables

Tokyo Eat Out - Dessert

Soft Icecream with mashed sweet potato and black sesame sauce
Ice cream was melting on the warm sweet potato. Hmmm... It was Heaven!

Tokyo Eat Out 2 - Ramen & Udon

Ramen with Shrimp and Cabbage
This might not look very delicious on the picture, but it was really nice.
Especially, the soup. I don't usually like Ramen with Nikku (Meat) stock,
but this was made with dried fish. Yum~




Onigiri with Salmon
Salmon wasn't enough ;(

Picked vegetable

I guess the yellow one is picked daikon (white radish), but I have no idea what the other one was.

Udon with Egg Roll

In Korea, we put salt when we make Egg Roll...however, Japanese add sugar for Egg Roll. I thought this is quite weird...actually, the taste was a bit strage to me, too!

Last time when I stayed with Japanese family in Kyushu Island, Kyoko (a daughter from my host family) made an egg roll for breakfast. At that time, I thought she put sugar by mistake. ;))

Tokyo Eat Out : Okonomiyaki

I spent my weekend in Tokyo. It was pity that I stayed there only for 2 nites because I had to start working from today, but I had a great time with my lovely Japanese friends. With them, I had many different dishes, but I forgot taking pictures cose they were so delicious. hehe

Here's some pictures which I could take from Okonomiyaki restaurant.

















Potato with Cheese and Mentaiko. This was really nice. What a combination!

















Okonomiyaki
The sauce was a bit too strong for me, but I liked it with Mayo.


















With seaweed powder on top, Yum!

















Okonomiyaki with Noodle inside....looks weird but delicious.

















Steamed Cabbage with Pork....This was a bit disappointing.

















All the stafffs here were soooo kind and nice! Whenever customers order something, all of them answered(almost shouted) saying something like "It's our pleasure." That was pretty funny.
Also, the food here was pretty cheap compared to other places I visited. I recommend you to visit.

This okonomiyaki restaurant is near Isetan department store in Shinjuku area.

Bi-Bim-Bob

I found a restaurant in Myung-dong where i can eat Jeonju Bibimbob. There are many restaurants which sell bibimbob in Seoul. But Jeonju(city) Bibimbob was special. How? See the pictures below.





The restaurant "Go-gung," which means an old palace.





Nak-ji (Octopus) Dolsot(hot stone bowl) Bibimbob . This was a bit spicy, but i liked this a lot.




Dolsot Bibimbob
many vegetables....i can see zucchini, mushiroom, devil's tongue jelly (i didn't know the name in eng before. it's such a weird name), white radish, the yolk, seaweed, etc.
i heard they make a steamed rice with a bone broth, and the hot spicy sauce also has a secret.



Haemool (Seafood) Pa jon (pancake)



before it gets to our table



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From here, you can see many kinds of Ban-chan (Side dishes)
If you go to Korean restaurant, you can expect to be served many side dishes with your main dish. All of the side dishes are usually (almost everytime) FREE!!
Also, if you finish some of your side dises, you can even ask them for more!!!!!

(WARNING: when i went to korean restaurants in other countries, they usually charged for Kimchee or Namool(vegetable side dishes). So u should ask whether it is free or not. :p)

One more thing i complained about in other countries was that i always have to order something to drink in the restaurant. Here in Korea, water or Tea (not special tea like Jujube tea or citron tea) is always available for free. (Of course, posh restaurants charge for a bottle of still water or tea) We don't usually drink Soda when we have a meal (typical korean meal, which is rice).


bean sprouts soup




pickled squid




sweet potato fried in batter



white Kimchee


Normal(?) Kimchee


roots of baloonflowers (not quite sure this is the right name)



spinach with mashed tofu ( yummy!)



fried seaweed with sticky rice glue

We,5people went there and ordered one Bibimbob for each of us. One Pajon (pancake), we shared. All together, we paid about 10,000won each. (1 us dollar = 1,008 won)
worth to visit, right?



Jujube tea

(actually, they served plum tea after the meal, which was free of charge, but i forgot taking a picture of it. This is what we had in the cafe after that)

Dak - gal- bi

I've been crazily busy over last several weeks. So these are what i had in 1 or 2 weeks.
Dak(chicken)- gal- bi is one of the food you probably will have if you visit Korea. (Actually, i don't really enjoy this. But I went there for my japanese mates who visited me to Seoul) We went the restaurant called "Chun-cheon dak-gal-bi." This restaurant is one of the chain restaurants. Chun-cheon is the city where dak-gal-bi is from.





it wasn't spicy at all to me. But my friends almost cried while they were eating this. u can usually expect sweetpotatoes, rice cakes, peril leaves, cabbages, of course chicken in hot spicy sauce. we also ordered some noodle in it. The secret of the sauce is that you put little bit of instant korean curry powder in the hot sauce.





Since i posted several pics on this blog, I realised that we korean people always make fried rice in the end. hahahA :))






this is what we call "Bing-soo." We usually enjoy this in summer time. In a big bowl, put everything you like and ice flakes. Ice cream, fruits, some snacks, chocolate, small rice chewy thingy....etc.