Soon Du Bu

Yesterday we went to DBS Soon Du Bu house for some spicy soft tofu stew. Soon Du Bu is one of my favorite meals! I usually have it with mandu (dumplings), but tried it with beef and mushrooms yesterday. DBS gives a great selection of Ban Chan, including fried whole fish. There's a whole process involved in eating Soon Do Bu.

First you take the rice out of the stone pot, leaving a thin layer of rice that's stuck to the bottom alone. Then you pour the hot water into the stone pot and put the cover back on. By the time you are done with your meal you'll have some starchy rice tea to drink.

Second, you take a raw egg from the basket of raw eggs that sit on the table (unrefrigerated) and crack it open and drop it into the the boiling sood du bu. I think this is supposed to calm some of the spice of the soup and give it a thicker texture.

Third, you have to incorporate all the ban chan into the meal. So you can take the seaweed and make rice, tofyu and kimchee wraps - all with your chopsticks!

Here are some pics before and during the meal.

"Art is anything you can get away with"

**This post is dedicated to Nicole - a great friend and Warhol enthusiast**

Today we went to the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art and I was pretty impressed. The exhibit was really large and had a lot of Warhol's work that I was unfamiliar with. We both especially liked a Jackie Kennedy silk screen that we hadn't seen before. I especially liked seeing his earlier works, magazine covers and fashion spreads, not because they were that special, but because I never saw them. Before today I only really knew the pop cultural CampbelIs, Brillo, and silk screen works of Warhol. I also didn't know that he created Interview Magazine!

We weren't the only ones who came out to see the exhibit.  When we arrived at the museum it was packed and the line was wrapped around the curving entrance. We figured it was because entrance to the museum is supposed to be free on the fourth Sunday of every month, at least that's what the website said. We waited on line for almost an hour (during which we entertained ourselves by trying to figure out what percentage of the Korean women on line and in the area were wearing high heels, roughly 75%). When we finally got to the ticket counter we had to pay $12,000 won (about $9.50) each to get in. We still aren't sure why but we think it's because of the special exhibit.

The one disapointment at the museum (and it's not limited to this exhibit at this museum) was the horrible English translation. Reading the captions and quotes by Warhol was difficult and annoying. The Seoul museum of art should  be able to afford a better translator/editor.

The Line:

In front of the banana

M in the lobby

The lobby

A woman in a really short skirt - seriously click on the pic to enlarge it. Those are not shorts!

Taking it back to 2007 at Nicole's "Whateva" holiday party. Good times with Warhol behind us.

I miss my Nicole!

M's Inner Sleeping Beauty

M loves his "hairstylist" back home (me, not so much) and he was worried about how he would manage here without her. Well the time came and he needed a cut so Yerim and I took him to Juno, where I got my haircut a few weeks ago. M got the same VIP treatment as I did, the coffee and pretzels, the scalp massage, the warm blanket covering him while his hair was being washed, and his favorite, the two people blow drying his hair at the same time. In the end he got a very stylish cut (something Nicole, his "stylist" back home never seemed to be able to achieve if you ask me) with more perks and at a lower cost than at home. While reflecting on his experience at Juno, M says,"they awakened my inner sleeping beauty." Nuff said.

Before:

During:

After:

Seoul Food and Fun

Last night we went to a local hangout for Pa Jun, a large pan-fried scallion and seafood omelete/pancake/fritatta. I love Pa Jun and I especially love it at this place. (We still don't know the actual names of any of our favorite places.) The Pa Jun is large and drenched in oil so we try not to have it often - we've been averaging once a week. When it comes out of the kitchen it's still cooking. Its a hot steaming plate of puffed yellow and green goodness. You can't go near it for a few seconds because the hot oil is spraying all around it and it gets crispy on the bottom where it cooks the longest. I love the crispy bottom part the most. When it's all finished it looks like an oil slick. But it's so tasty that there are never any regrets. Usually the place is packed to capacity with students. Last night we went a little earlier and so it wasn't quite full yet. There were a couple of tables filled with students though. The students here seem to have a lot of school pride and they show it by singing/screaming their school songs at the top of their lungs. We see and hear this often when we are out in Sinchon, the central point between a few of the nearby universities. No one ever seems to notice when 5 or 10 kids are shouting in a bar - except us. Last night when the students started singing they realized that we were watching (i.e. taking pictures and videos of them) they played up to us and finished their cheers with "this is KOREA baby!" Just another fun and tasty Thursday night in Seoul. Pa Jun before and after and some crazy college kids:

Cheongdo Bullfighting Festival: A picture essay

5:45 am - M and I leave to meet Stephan and Aryong at Seoul Station

5 hours later we arrive in Cheongdo

Aryong gets a tip from her brother, who is waiting for us at the bullfight, that there's a lot of traffic so we should take the bus to the arena.

At first it's pretty empty on the bus

It gets much more croweded and it's standing room only before we even leave the bus depot.

The bus should take about 10 minutes but 55 minutes later we are at a standstill on the road so we decide to walk along the traffic the rest of the mile and a half to the area.

The bus we just got off of passes us.

We make it to the arena and we are greeted by the famous Cheongdo muppets.

The arena is packed

We see the famous Cheongdo gold people

We finally meet up with Aryong's family and take our seats in the arena.

After 10 minutes of watching the bulls face off we decide it's time for lunch. On our way out we have to face the huge crowds and the notorious Korean granny's who will nudge, shoulder block and push their way through anything.

We get outside and Aryong's family tells us they packed lunch. We were pleasantly surprised and thankful. We are expecting sandwiches. We get a huge Korean buffet picnic that seemed to be pulled out of thin air.

After lunch we go back into the arena and get to sit in the luxury suite because we are foriegners. The seats are right behind the trophy distribution and we will be on the big screen and on Korean TV!

In the end Turbo was the big winner.

We took the KTX fast train (first class) back home and were back in Seoul, land of the short skirts and high heels, in about 2 hours.

Pizza Delivery

After the Asian Dust settled we decided to order some pizza delivery. Yerim came over as promised and after an intense 30 second debate we chose to order two pies knowing that it would be way too much food for the three of us. We wanted to taste some variety and in Korea the pizza is all about the toppings. We chose the bulgogi pizza (bbq beef ) and the shrimp and jalapeno pizza.

20 minutes and $40 (!) later we were ready to eat. My first impressions:

• The pizza here is smaller than a NY pie and closer to the Chicago style in depth.
• Tomato sauce is exactly nowhere to be found.
• Just because you ordered a pizza with Shrimp and Jalapeno toppings doesn't mean you won't also get corn, olives, onions, hot sauce, sweet sauce, some kind of "meat", and a sweet potato crust covered with melted cheese on it too.
• Pizza always comes with individual packages of pickles on the side.
• Finally, Mr. Pizza does it for the love of women. Really though, who can blame him?

For my first bite I decide to play it safe. I go for the bulgogi. Pizza it is not. It's more like a not so bad Philly cheese steak and I can live with that.

I'm a bit nervous to try the topping crazy shrimp pizza but it's actually really tasty. Again, most definitely not pizza, but a welcome mixture of crunchy, savoury and tangy. I am pleasantly surprised and it's a good thing because we have lots of left overs. 

Here are a few pizza pics - and I couldn't leave out the cup o'pickles.

"Asian Dust"

Yesterday I blogged about the "foggy" weather without realizing that it was actually "dusty" weather. I learned that seasonal winds carry sand and dust from the Gobi desert in China right into Seoul. Deforestation has made it worse in the past few years because there are no longer tall tree barriers to block the winds. Fascinating and, eh, gritty. Here's a repost of the pics.

Bad weather and Pop Corn Juice

Spring hasn't quite sprung in Seoul just yet and it's been cold, windy and rainy for the past few weeks. Today the sky is a weird foggy grey with some hints of red in it. We knew it would be a bad day weather wise so we invited Yerim and her sister over for dinner. Only problem is that we have exactly one very small pot and no other cooking utensils or appliances. So, instead of making some kind of Egyptian feast that we keep promising all our new friends that we will eventually make for them we are going to order Korean pizza delivery.

(I was pretty hesitant to agree to this at first, considering my self proclaimed pizza snobery. But Yerim and M told me not to think of it as pizza and to think of it as some Korean food I haven't tried yet. I'll post all about it tomorrow.)

To prepare for our first house guests we went to our local supermarket (Grand Mart) for some ban chan and desserts and while we were shopping I found a curious looking bottle of what I thought was iced tea. I though it would be tasty considering all of the yummy tea that we've been drinking here. It was about 65 cents so I got it. As soon as we got home I gave the tea to M to taste (I wasn't going to try it first!) and he said it tasted like popcorn juice. And that's exactly what it tastes like - except with a really bad after taste. It's not good and really odd.

Japanese Tapas

Last night Yerim and I went for Japanese Tapas. I've been to this restaurant about three times now and it never disappoints. The food takes a while to come out but its worth the wait. Since the long menu is in Korean and Japanese I let Yerim do the choosing.


We started with what I think was grilled Mackerel. It was really meaty and tender and perfectly cooked. (All of the fish I've had in Seoul has been fantastic so far. I know I'm going to miss Korean food in general but the perfectly executed and ridiculously cheap grilled fish will be especially difficult to leave behind.)

Next up was cooked tuna over shredded cabbage with sesame sauce. The tuna pieces were chunky and not as flaky as I was expecting. The sesame dressing was perfect. You could taste the sesame but also some citrus and maybe honey or something a little sweet tasting at the end.

The fried shrimp was great. I don't think it was shrimp tempura because the batter seemed different than what I know tempura to be. Either way, the batter was light and tasty and the shrimp inside was moist and tasted like shrimp - not like oil. The tartar sauce was nothing special and the shrimp was perfect without it.

Soft Tofu topped with chives and tuna skin came out next. I was relieved to see the small wooden spoons that came with it. My chopstick skills are fine but not soft tofu fine. The tofu was okay but I wasn't expecting it to be cold and it was too soft for me. I prefer my tofu firm and I love it fried.

 The edamame was, well, edamame. It tasted no different than any other fresh edamame that I've had, which is good. But it's eaten differently here than at home. At least it's eaten differently here than that way I eat it at home. In true barbarian style I usually take a piece of edamame in my mouth and chew out the two or three beans (although I always try and flush out the pods with four or five beans before anyone else finds them) and then discard the chewed out pod into the provided bowl. Here, people (although I'm not sure if it's just women) gently split apart the pods and the individual beans are dipped into salt that you pour into your plate. It takes forever to eat and it's kind of tedious but it is more civilized and you get to eat with your hands - and I love to eat with my hands.

We washed it all down with some Sapporo drafts and some Soju.