Gourmet Korean Restaurant, Kingsford

This is the first Korean Restaurant we came to 3 years ago.

and surprisingly, we’ve only been here twice and not for the past 2 years.

but a few days ago, i got a craving for it. I think because it is getting cold. and it seems like we’ve found an old favourite. i hope we will be back soon again!

It’s a very quaint and homely restaurant. Their tables are all for 6 and are these huge shiny wooden tables. i quite like it. It’s upstairs, in Kingsford, but quite far away from the other restaurants. i don’t even remember how we chanced upon it. I think it was on a bus on the way to Eastgardens.

Their dishes are all in sets which only a few side dishes.

It doesn’t look like a lot. but it is quite filling.

I ordered a Japchae Gourmet Tofu Set and Fish ordered a Teriyaki Chicken Set.

We also ordered a side dish of seafood pancake.

My set came with:

  
Rice – cooked in a stone pot. I really quite like the idea of this. It makes it feel all the more authentic.

 
My Japchae – the version here is very different and it is here where i ate my first plate of Japchae. Here, it is much soupier whereas others are more like fried noodles. I like this, but it was a tad salty.

and a small pot of Gourmet Tofu. Spicy broth with soft tofu and an egg and seaweed on top. Very nice on a cold night.

Fish was the same, except he ordered Chicken Teriyaki.

He wasn’t a big fan of this. but he really loved the Tofu hotpot.

So, the next time, they actually have their Tofu hotpots as main dishes instead. They have it with all sorts of ingredients, like Beef Tofu Hotpot, which i’m quite sure that will be what Fish will be getting. Mushroom Tofu hotpot etc etc..

 
We also ordered a plate of seafood pancake. It was huge. but it was good. I had to pack some home. The seafood i find, is better than the one @ Seoul Ria. Their squid is much softer and tender as compared to Seoul Ria and i find myself chomping it all down, although i don’t eat squid. It also has a lot of veggies that Seoul Ria doesn’t.

 
It has onions, capsicums and carrots.

Side dishes! are of course important in a Korean meal. We had 5 side dishes. Kimchi, Sesame oil Beansprouts, spicy picked something, spicy fishcake and a coleslaw of sorts. Everything was delicious, but these were our favourites:

 
This is my favourite. It’s like coleslaw and it’s crunchy. It has carrots obviously, but i’m not sure what the other ingredient is. Our first thoughts were Japchae noodles. which i think it is.

 
Fried fishcake with a spicy sauce – should be made spicy using green chillis. This is quite nice. I really like it and i’ve never eaten this from any other Korean restaurants.

and this is fish’s fav. Beansprouts in sesame oil. I don’t like it obviously. but he does.

and you can get refills of your side dishes as long as everyone eating ordered their own dishes. so if you and your friend are sharing a dish, you can’t get refills.

we got refills for the coleslaw like thing and fish wanted more beansprouts, but they were out of that.

 
We sat diagonally opposite the cashier, which also has this display cabin, which is where they take the side dishes and bring it to you.

Their chopsticks and spoon have a paper covering over them. which i quite like. somehow gives me a sense of cleanliness.

I like it here. it’s nice and quiet, the waiters are not very fluent in English but they’re very polite and unassuming at all. A bell rings in the kitchen to signal that there’s food to be collected and a waiter goes running over, placing all the food in a trolley and rolling it over to the table. It is all stone pots etc, so it is very hot, using the trolley was a great idea.

I hope we go back soon!

WOW Bulgogi, Kensington

A few few days ago, we wanted to eat Kaki Lima – but it was closed.

so we decided to head on down the road to a relatively new Korean restaurant WOW Bulgogi.

 
They use traditional Korean utensils which is not a problem. until i realise that the chopsticks are flat. they are not round. and i had a big problem with that. i found it extremely difficult to use. hahaha.

And that’s the bbq on our table.

This i like. their cups used when they serve you water are kept in a sterilizer. Very good.

Me and hui tried a can of this sparkling white grape soda. Nothing special but cheap $2.

Can you see it? The walls are faked! They are merely wall paper! hahaha..

Green Salad which came with something. Their salad dressing was very delicious.

Oh by the way. don’t be alarmed, we ate a lot that day.

some of the side dishes..

 
My beef bulgogi. I don’t love love it. i don’t hate it. but i wouldn’t order again. simply because – that’s way to much meat for me.

Shi Hui’s sujebi i think. She didn’t complain so i guess it wasn’t too bad.

 
Fish’s bibimbap. He likes it. He says it’s good and moist. and he will definitely eat it again!

 
Japchae! I love Japchae. The one is isn’t the best best. so it’s not too bad. so this will be what i order when i come here next time.

Kimchi Pancake. Not a big fan. Preferred Seoul Ria’s Seafood pancake to this. Although the presentation is beautiful.

 
We had slices of pork belly to bbq. we sniped them into bite sized pieces and they were good. as pork belly should be.

 
and we had beef tenderloin as well. The thing with beef is, you must really look after it and make sure it doesn’t overcook.

That’s all that we ate. it was a very filling dinner. i would be back again. but we now know what is good and what we would and would not order again. so it will be way lesser next time!

Seoul Ria

We’ve been to Seoul Ria around 3 times. and we love it. but the thing is, we usually eat Kimchi hot pot – which doesn’t seem that appropriate when the weather is hot. but the weather seems to be turning around soon with daylight savings ending today.

Kimchi hot pot with sausages, maggi noodles, tofu, stewed pork belly, rice cakes etc and kimchi.

It comes with 3 bowls of rice. and it’s quite delicious.

Korean cuisine is known for its side dishes. and here, we get a dish of green veg, potatoes, konnyaku jelly, kimchi and beansprouts.

We also always order their seafood pancake which is best when it is hot and crispy.

This is also great. Pork belly slices simply fried with onions and spring onions. They go great with the dish of sesame oil, mixed with sesame seeds and salt.

This is something new that i’ve never tried before but was recommended by Xuefen (shi hui’s friend). It is fried chicken pieces in sweet and sour sauce. It is. Delicious! It’s crispy and really good. a nice big plate.

I had a great great delicious dinner.

Can’t wait to get back!

Kimchi Instant Noodles…Dinner

Merry Christmas!

I cooked dinner the day before yesterday using my Kimchi – which i still have quite a lot leftover.

I didn’t make the Sujebi as it is a little time consuming. So… i made it with instant noodles instead.

 
This is really simple to make.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

1/4 part Kimchi
1tsp powdered dashi
1 small pack silky tofu
2 eggs, scrambled
Enough water
Salt, soy sauce

Directions

Boil water.

Add powdered dashi.

Add sliced kimchi.

Add salt/soy sauce to taste.

Add tofu, roughly sliced.

Add 2 cakes of instant noodles.

When nearly done, add the scrambled eggs. Or if you prefer, a whole egg.

Eat!

 
Also also….. I just made a very simple dinner yesterday. I was considering what to eat, when God sent me a sign. HAHA.. I opened the freezer. and a pack of Chorizos dropped out and into my hands. Hehe.. so Chorizo it is!

 
Simple pasta of oil, garlic and chorizos. It really doesn’t need much oil as chorizo itself has and will give out a lot of oil.

and and and.. i deep fried stuffs in the fridge.

There was a lot more. But we couldn’t stop eating.

I fried the chips before but wasn’t in love with it. But amazingly, i loved it this time around!

I am so going to buy this brand again. It’s Bird’s Eye Beer Battered Chips.

Those are not chicken nuggets you see.. those are prawn nuggets which are quite tasty, but Fish doesn’t like it.

There were potato gems too.. but i don’t like it.. so Fish popped all before i even noticed.

I also cooked Herbal Chicken soup. Don’t ask me for a list of ingredients. Haha.. I buy ingredients.. around 10.. from what i know and heard of. and just add a few of everything into the soup with water and a breast on the bone. Boil it forever in the rice cooker. *The important thing to remember is to not add salt! Add salt into the serving bowl and then the soup. Don’t cook with the salt. The salt would cause the chicken meat to become tough.

okokok…

Tonight is Christmas Eve.. and we’re having a special dinner.

I’ve ordered turkey and risotto balls from an online store and they’re now defrosting.

I’m also roasting potatoes which i’ve just chopped up and mixed with EVOO, salt, pepper and rosemary.

I'll definitely post pictures of our dinner tonight!

Also.. also.. i’ve made Pineapple Tarts! and i’m quite proud of it! Will share in due time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Kimchi Sujebi & Fish’s Pork

So….

I tried my kimchi today and it has turned sour. Which is good. and i can make a lot of dishes with it now.

Two days ago, i made Kimchi Sujebi. Which basically means hand torn noodles in a Kimchi based soup.

This is also from Maangchi. (I think i shall place a link to her blog in my links)

 
Looks good eh? Well.. as always, there were mistakes made from this and i definitely learned alot.

Ingredients (3-4 servings)

I’ve had to change the recipe Maangchi given for the noodles as mine just didn’t come together properly. So i searched around and found this. I will try this next time and let you guys know.

Noodles

2 cups plain flour
1/4 – 1/2 cup water
3 tsp cooking oil
Pinch of salt

Soup

10 cups water
1 1/2 cup chopped kimchi
6 tbsp kimchi juice
1/2 – 1 chopped onion
2 tbsp Fish Sauce (i only used 1/2 because i was afraid Fish might not like it, but i think it should be ok to add till 2 tbsp, try and see)
Soy Sauce, to taste
Hot Pepper Paste (Optional – if you don’t put this, try and see if its seasoning is ok, otherwise add more kimchi juice)
Sliced Green Onions

Optional Ingredients – These are stuffs i added and you can add whatever you like

3 hot dogs, sliced
2 pieces Oyster Mushroom
1 clove garlic

(I think thinly sliced beef might be a good addition)

Directions

Make the dough first.

Place all the dough ingredients in a mixing bowl and combine till it forms a dough. It won’t look very pretty now. It is not supposed to be a sticky dough, or maybe just slightly sticky.

Put it in a plastic bag and into the fridge it goes.

For the soup, combine all the ingredients in a pot. I would suggest to add the soy sauce and fish sauce when it starts heating up or even after you put in the noodles, so you can season to your taste.

*The thing here is, you have to be fast with the dough. Since it was my first time, i made mistakes with the dough and i took very long for all the dough to get into the pot, so instead of a soup, i ended up with a thick stew. Which is still nice, but… so, if you’re going to be slow, switch off the fire after it has boiled and concentrate on your dough first.

Hopefully the dough might be in the fridge for at least 15 mins to 1/2 hr.

Take the dough out and you have to knead it.

For convenience sake, since it’s a relative small piece of dough, knead it on a chopping board, it makes my life way easier. You will notice the difference as you knead, your dough should become more elastic, smoother and shinier.

When you kneaded it approximately enough, what you do now is switch the fire back on to the lowest fire. Holding the dough in your left hand, stretch out a piece of the dough to form noodle. It’s not strips of noodles, but rather pieces of noodles. So, what you want is to stretch it as thinly as possible. Don’t worry about breakage or ugliness – adds to the charm.

Do this for the whole dough. Practice makes perfect, towards the end, i was very good at stretching out and making the noodles.

Consistently stir to incorporate the noodles into the soup and don’t let it come to a boil if you know you’re going to be slow with the dough. I ended up with some nice and chewy dough but also some mushy ones which were obviously not as good.

Taste and see if it’s salty enough or flavourful enough. Mine wasn’t quite flavourful enough, so i added 2-3 tbsp of kimchi juice and maybe 1/4 cup soy sauce. But… be careful of the soy sauce as it has a tendency to overwhelm the kimchi. I would try adding salt next time instead.

Conclusion: It tastes really good, but can get really spicy when eaten both spicy and hot from the pot. and it’s so versatile that you can add whatever ingredients you have on hand that you think might go well with kimchi and the whole flavour. Experiment wisely.

 
This is something really tasty that Fish made for dinner the same night. It was just a pack of thinly slice pork with 1 slice of bacon. Fried with onions and green onions and seasoned. It tasted really really good. A very very nice side dish to make up for the lack of meat in the sujebi.

Thanks to Maangchi and i can’t wait to see what i will be making next!

Kimchi! Easier than Pie.

Looking at my camera, i realise that i actually have loads of things i have yet to blog about. So, i shall start with this. KIMCHI!

As you all should know, Kimchi is an integral food in Korean food culture. and before i actually read about it, it always seemed like something really far out and near impossible to make by yourself – something that should be eaten at restaurants or bought in a bottle.

But. it is really simple. really simple. and the ingredients are easy to get as well. So.. let’s start shall we?

 

I’ve recently gotten into a Korean food craze after watching Maangchi’s youtube channel. She teaches how to cook Korean food. She also has a blog. This recipe is from here. I’ve only made minor tweaks here and there to suit our tastes. and that’s the best part. You can change it to suit your own taste instead of letting others decide what you should taste.

Don’t be frightened by the list of ingredients. I’ve broken it up into 4 parts so that it’s easier to follow.

Ingredients

Part 1

1 Whole Chinese Cabbage
1 cup Sea Salt

Part 2

6-7 cloves of garlic (you may use lesser, i LOVE garlic)
1 inch Ginger
1/2 onion
1/2 apple

Part 3

1/4 cup Sweet Rice flour (aka Glutinous Rice Flour)
1 1/2 cup Water
<1/8 cup Sugar

Part 4

2-3 cups of Korean hot pepper flakes
5-7 stalks of Green Onions (could be a mixture of green onions and chinese chives)
1/2 cup Fish Sauce

Directions

Salting

Taking the whole cabbage – mine were already halved. Slice the cabbage into half and then quartered. Slice only into the core and gently pull apart, instead of slicing into the leaves.

Place them in large containers. I didn’t have much large containers, so i just used a pyrex baking dish (which worked really well) and a large serving plate.

 
Sprinkle salt liberally into each leaf section, placing more salt on the inner stems. Repeat for all 4 portions.

Leave to cure for 4 hours, turning them around halfway or as necessary.

Go have fun for 2-3 hours.

Making Kimchi Paste

After resting for 2-3 hours, get your knife and chopping board ready for prepping the other ingredients.

In a small pot, heat the Glutinous rice flour and water mixture. (Part 3) It will slowly heat and thicken, keep stirring constantly. When it begins to bubble, add in the sugar. Mix well and when sugar melts, take it off the fire.

Leave aside to cool. or pour into a LARGE mixing bowl to cool.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, place Part 2 of the ingredient list in and mix till a mushy paste. Leave aside.

After the flour paste has cooled down considerably, add in the mush from the food processor, and the ingredients from Part 4. Stir and Stir to combine.

 
Washing Time

By now, it should be approximately 4 hours since your cabbages have been salting. It’s time to wash the cabbages.

The easiest and fastest way to wash these is under running water. Place each cabbage under running water letting the water do the job of rising the salt off the cabbage. Wash each and every leaf. I did this twice for each cabbage. Squeeze the excess water out of each cabbage. Just squeeze.

 
See the difference in the size of the cabbage. It should now be in a way more manageable size. Try to squeeze as much water as possible out of the cabbages.

Rubbing in the paste

Now comes the final part.

Wearing gloves please.

Taking each cabbage, place into the LARGE mixing bowl leaves on top.

Taking an amount of paste with your fingers, place them into each leaf. Finally rub some paste on the outsides of the cabbage and place nicely into a container. Repeat.

I managed to squeeze them into my new Ikea plastic containers. Leave covered at room temperature for a day or two. (i left mine for one) and place in the fridge where it will continue to ferment.

 
The next day, i checked up on it and this is what i found. See the bubbles at the top right hand corner of the container. This means that it is fermenting. And the water that surrounds the kimchi is known as Kimchi Juice.

Kimchi juice is used in cooking as well, so it’s not going to be wasted.

AND!

There you have it! Your (Mine) own homemade Kimchi!

I sliced up half of a Kimchi for dinner. Tastes great. Just one small problem.

Hehe.. in Maangchi’s original recipe, she also made Radish Kimchi which i obviously didn’t, but i had used to same amount of paste. Therefore, my kimchi was very ‘rich’. Loads of paste on each leaf. =) I will remember to reduce the amount the next time i make kimchi.

The recipe above is as how i made it. Feel free to reduce the amounts for making the kimchi paste. I didn’t do that for you guys as i’m not 100% sure of how much i would reduce. So go rely on your intuition. and have Fun!

Other than merely eating the Kimchi on its own, it can also be made into other dishes. I have so far made one for dinner tonight and it’s called Kimchi Sujebi aka Hand torn noodle soup.

I shall post that tomorrow and i made mistakes with that which hopefully you guys can learn from my mistake and not go down my path.. although it still tasted great. =)

Kimchi On!!