I shuffled through toward the dimly lit door, hood up and head down, body bent against the wet springtime wind. I slopped up the stairs, opened the door, and stepped over the threshold – to a lodge on a lonely moor in Yorkshire. Or maybe I was somewhere in Vermont. In 1921. Wherever I was, I certainly wasn’t in Korea anymore.
Food & Drinks
The barista stared at me expectantly through his thick, black-rimmed glasses, waiting for my order. I felt the familiar flutter of butterflies in my stomach. My palms began to perspire. I gave a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one else was within earshot. Then in a meek voice, I told him my order, knowing full well that one mispronounced syllable would be the difference between a low-fat latte and something you might hear in a porno film.
She grabs a set of vegetables and starts peeling, dicing and frying them in her one-room apartment in Seocho, southern Seoul. The resulting meal — a salad, a bowl of sweet potatoes and a spicy mixture of vegetables and rice — is not an elaborate one. That’s not her style.
“I’m pretty much a very simple person,” says Sae-hee Burke, the author of the Vegan Beats blog. “I go shopping for food every day. I get fresh food.”
It could be the heat, or maybe its days spent at the beach showing off my spare tire. But the humble salad has grown more and more heroic in my mind.
I was on the Mediterranean coast for the summer, and shock therapy has begun. All these perfect bodies, no fat to be seen, and there I was, trying to hide under a beach wrap, a hat, an umbrella, a newspaper — all the while wondering why I wasn’y getting tanned.
I will admit that I have never been a big fan of mayonnaise. I always hated mayo on my sandwiches, and came to resent the blue jar of Helman’s in the fridge. I never trusted the way it moved. The slight jiggle of creamy white blobs sitting on picnic plates.
When I finally had my first taste of handmade mayonnaise, I started to understand what I was missing. Store bought mayo and homemade mayonnaise couldn’t be more different.
The texture and flavor is something much more subtle and begs for a lot more than egg salad and club sandwiches.
Beer, like all good things crafted by humankind, begins with people. Yes, you need good ingredients, but to make the selection of what and how to use those ingredients, you need good people. Hopefully you have people looking for something in particular, something special. They should be working at something that inspires them. They should seek out others with like passions and build something together. In this case, the five founders of 7brau are doing just that here in Korea.
The sanitizing effect soju has on your taste buds is anything but appealing. It may make it a helpful stand-in for counter cleaner when you’re in a pinch, but as far as consumption the flavor isn’t exactly ideal to Western tastebuds. Starting with myself, and then looking to friends, I came up with a few ways to breathe new life into the nectar we all love to hate.
Lisa Pollack - USA
Sweet Strawberry Blonde (Soju Strawberry Lemonade)
R-A-M-E-N. Notice there was no “y” in that. No “o” either. Shin may be fine for a hungover morning, but this is the real stuff, the stuff you might find in a cramped little joint in Tokyo. This is Kenzo Ramen.
Kenzo, just off the busiest street in Myeong-dong, serves Japanese-style ramen in big bowls. The place opened in 1999, and has garnered a following judging by the white autographed pages taped up in its little window.
Korea
Chapjae
The semi-transparent noodles in this dish are made from sweet potato, which accounts for their sweetness and stretchability. They’re also sometimes sweetened with sugar. These are the noodles you find served with saucy beef and sesame oil in bulgogi, or mixed with seasonal vegetables in side dishes. The noodles can be served hot or cold.
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