Yongsusan (Acrovista branch)

On Wednesday last week, a wonderful foodie friend of mine introduced me to a restaurant in Seoul called Yongsusan.  There's a branch in Los Angeles (950 S Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90006, 213 388 3042) -- anyone within driving distance of this place should go.  And if you don't go on your own, I will make you go when I come back.

The food served is modern Korean, based on Kaesong style traditional food.  The decor is modern Korean at this particular branch (Acrovista -- which is near the JW Marriott), with traditional Korean tables (small and short) used to create modern tables and used as decoration on the walls.  Below is the place setting.


Sea weed soup.  This was light and tasted like the ocean (minus the gagging saltwater experience).  It's difficult to describe, but it was like essence of seafood.


Tofu encrusted with black sesame seeds. I'm not a fan of tofu normally, but these were slightly crunchy, light, and oh so delicious.


The next course was bean sprouts with dried persimmon (the orange stuff in front), with noodles with bean sprouts (in back).  First, I had a bite of each separately.  The persimmon one was slightly sweet.  Then I combined the two for a totally different flavor.


Then there was this dish.


Which became these little guys. Which were dipped into a mustard sauce.

Next was a dish with pork marinated in a slightly sweet sauce, white kimchi, and radish.

Combine the pork, white kimchi, and radish into an amazing combination of salt and sweet.

Next was the Nine Gods dish, which was a broth with all sorts of delicacies inside it, including walnuts, shrimp, oysters, fish cakes, and other goodies.  There was a special shaped spoon that we used to eat this that fit into the bowl.






















And then there was tempura.  Things dipped in batter and fried always taste better.  These are peppers stuffed with minced pork with some herbs (bottom part of the plate) and oysters with kimchi (upper part of the plate).


Jellyfish salad with mustard sauce.  The mustard sauce was sinus clearing, kind of like a large dose of wasabi. There were also small slices of beef and mushroom, plus finely julienned cucumber.  Jellyfish salads are really like noodle salads, and if you didn't know it was jellyfish, you'd think you were eating noodles.


Even more tempura... shrimp and ginseng.  The ginseng has a consistency similar to that of a sweet potato, and has a very slight gingery tang to it.  I've had it in samgyetang, and to me it has a woody taste to it that I'm not particularly fond of.  Shrimp tempura... 'nuff said.

Seafood and vegetable skewer with shrimp, squid, mushroom, and broccoli in a light teriyaki sauce.


Galbi, or ribs, that fell off the bone.


Kimchi, which was brought out just before the main course.  Yes, the main course.  The main course is considered to be the rice or noodle dish at the end.

These are the side dishes that came out with the main dish.  From top clockwise, freeze dried squid, garlic tops in red pepper paste, and dried anchovies.  The garlic tops (you know, what you get when you let the garlic sit for too long in the pantry), are kind of woody in texture.  They look kind of like green onions, but they didn't have as much of a tang to them as I thought they would.  The freeze dried squid are salty and semi-sweet at the same time.


The main dish.  In this case, I opted for the hot noodles.  The choices were hot noodles, cold noodles (potato starch noodles with red pepper paste), or rice (sort of a rice porridge with water added to the rice where a crust is allowed to form at the bottom of the pan).  The hot noodles are thin buckwheat noodles, with a small bit of kimchi and some shredded beef brisket.


The dessert...  Rice cakes.  The one on the left is kind of chewy, with a light flavor to it.  The one on the left has a half a cherry tomato in it, so when you bite it, there's a burst of tomato flavor mixed in with the rice cake.

With the rice cakes came this drink made from grapes.  This is nothing compared to the Welch's grape juice found in the grocery store.  It was sweet, yet light, and really tasted like fruit.


Even though this all seems like a ton of food, it really wasn't.  Each of the courses ranged from one to three or four bites each.  The noodles were not that plentiful.  It was just enough food to feel comfortably full at the end.  This was also one of the most memorable meals I've ever eaten.

Wine Wednesday turned into Italian Wednesday

For a while, there's been a highly irregular Wine Wednesday gathering where we go to a wine bar and have wine and whine.  But our wine bar was closed one Wednesday when we managed to get our act together and a group of people together, so we headed up the street to La Tavola and had Italian food and wine.

The lasagna -- good, could have used a touch of salt.  But decent.


Pasta with a cream sauce.  As I recall, it was decent.


The tiramisu.  Yum.  Although I don't understand the point of the fork outline.  I've seen this on other desserts at other restaurants.  I suppose it's kind of cute.


A second tiramisu with a different decoration.

Bangkok Adventures Day 1

Our first full day in Bangkok.  Oh, it was gloriously warm.  It wasn't that cold in Seoul, but it was cold enough.  So it was delightful to be in a place that steamed up my glasses when I stepped outside.  We stayed at the Royal Princess Larn Luang, since that was the ISCGM meeting location (and the reason for the trip).  We were able to walk around a fair bit, although the hotel was just a bit beyond comfortable walking range for a few places.

In the hallway near the elevator, they had a bowl full of flowers.  And yes, they're real (and yes, I poked them to find out).  By day 2, they weren't looking quite so fresh as they were the first day.



We headed towards one of the palaces near the zoo first.  This is one of the pedestrian bridges over the canal.


Statue of King Rama V.  It happened to be the anniversary of his death that day, so temples were open for free, and people were leaving flowers and offerings at the foot of the statue. They would put them on a tray, and one of the guard would take the tray when it was full and put the items near the statue.


One of the many palaces or palace type places along our route.

Monitor lizard along one of the canals.  Turns out we saw several of these along our walk along the canal.  Along with a few people with fish nets wading in the water.


This is Wat Benchamabophit Dusitvanaram, a Buddhist temple also known as the Marble Temple.


Dogs of Bangkok.
At the temple we saw several dogs wandering about or even just lazing about.  After being in Seoul, where I rarely, if ever, see stray dogs, it was kind of surprising to find dogs all about in Bangkok.

Smaller structure within the temple grounds.


Bangkok parking.


I love being in places where the plants and flowers are so lush and green.  And I am still fascinated by all the houseplants that grow outside and can turn into gigantic bushes or trees.


Colors of Bangkok.

More houseplants outside.  I still find it fascinating to see these kinds of plants, the ones I have in little pots in my house, everywhere outside.


Corner of a roof seen through vegetation.


Golden Mount, another Buddhist temple.


This one is almost like a ride at Disneyland.  You go up one side (one way traffic), with things to see along the way, like this row of bells.

View from the top of Golden Mount.

After our walking adventure, we went back to the hotel to relax, then headed out to Pat Pong that evening for additional entertainment.  Pat Pong is the red light district that caters to foreigners.  And as you walk down the  street, all the various "salespeople" come up with menus of things you can pay to see, none of which are appropriate to describe in a public forum, so I will leave them to your imagination.  This is where we were followed by a European man, and when we stopped and turned around, he immediately said he was married and had kids.  We managed to ditch him in the Japanese section of Pat Pong, where all the signs were in Japanese. 

Learning to cook Korean food

The other day, a very kind and patient friend came by and showed some of us how to make some Korean dishes at home.  These are the results.

Seafood pancake.  We cheated a bit and bought a bag of pancake mix for this.  At least now I know what to get at the store.  You mix water with the pancake mix (it's kind of like bisquik), add seafood.  Put it in the heated pan with oil, and then put baby leeks and some thinly sliced pepper on top.  Let one side cook until it gets slightly crispy, then flip it over and cook the other side.  The dipping sauce is a mixture of soy sauce with brown rice vinegar, with some finely chopped baby leeks and maybe a slice or two of pepper.


Mandu guk -- dumpling soup.  First, we started the soup, which was a piece of beef brisket, a leek, and a couple cloves of garlic covered in water and brought to a boil.  Then we lowered the heat and simmered it.  It's better to simmer as long as possible (all day) for the best flavor.  But we only cooked it while we prepped everything else.  Then, we made up the mixture for the dumplings, which contains kimchi (rinsed and finely chopped), some firm tofu smooshed until it's got a texture like ground beef, minced beef, minced pork, finely chopped baby leeks, some very finely minced garlic, and some mung bean sprouts that had been boiled very briefly until soft, then rinsed in cold water, drained and chopped very finely.

When the broth is done and ready to be used, a little bit of soy sauce was added for the color.  And salt was added to taste. The dumpling mixture was mixed up and then we filled dumplings using wrappers bought at the store.  The garnish on top of the soup is egg.  The egg white and yolk were cooked separately in a pan kind of like an omelet, then chopped into a diamond shape.


This is mung bean pancake, made from a mix found at the store.

Seoul Sidewalk

There's a stretch of sidewalk not far from our place that we've covered a few times, usually when we aimlessly wander over towards Seoul Station and then head home. Along this two block stretch, there are tiles with drawings representing various cities around the world

Tokyo, Japan:



Bangkok, Thailand:



The street between the two blocks has plastic flags from all over the world flying above.

.

Sydney, Australia:

San Francisco, California:


Restaurant along the street:


Mexico City, Mexico:


Washington, DC:

Shabu Shabu Lunch

Yesterday we went for lunch at a Shabu Shabu restaurant near Suseo station, exit #1. Shabu shabu is a style of meal where you get a plate of raw meat and vegetables and you put them in a heated bowl of broth in front of you to cook. This is popular in Japan, too, but it originated in China.

This is the place setting. When we sat down, we had kimchi (upper left), seaweed (middle), squid (right), with a bowl of dipping sauce which is like Japanese ponzu sauce, with a slice of lemon, chopped green onions, and some powdered red pepper.


This is the plate of raw vegetables. There were five types of mushrooms, a slice of pumpkin, a few dumplings, a bit of fungus, and various types of leafy vegetables, including cabbage. There was also a bit of a jelly like substance, but I don't remember what it was called, or what it was made out of.


This is the beef, which is very thinly sliced. You take one piece at a time, and put it in the boiling broth, and swish it around for a few minutes. It cooks very quickly. Then you dip it in the dipping sauce and enjoy.


This is the first batch of goodies put in the broth to cook.

Time to power up the frog

It's that time of year again. When it's so dry your skin cracks. When you touch other people you practically electrocute them. When it's hard to breathe. That means it is time to power up the humidifier. This is my frog humidifier on my desk at work.