A Coda: The Best Kimchi & a Beef Soup in Busan

Surprisingly, Japanese is much more useful than English in Busan, the largest port city in South Korea. After googling, the result makes sense that this city is so close to Japan, and it takes 1.5 hour from Osaka by plane, whereas it takes 3 hours from Fukuoka by ferry. By the way, I changed tourist information with an old lady, a lonely & kind backpacker from Kumamoto, on my way to Beomeosa, a must-see temple. Let's get back to foods. When A-Mao arrived in Busan by KTX, an alluring smell of beef was floating in the underground passage connecting Busan station to the opposite Chinatown, or Shanghai Street. I therefore was liked a rat hearing the march from "the Pied Piper of Hamelin" and found this restaurant. One of their young waitresses speaks Japanese well and suggested their beef soup. The kimchi is all-you-can-eat which the best kimchi is in my whole life.

 

From two jars, experienced A-Mao took a pair of scissors & a pincers to cut the daikon & cabbage kimchi. Firstly, it is spicy, spicy, and spicy! Secondly, it is juicy, tasteful, and balanced well with vegetables, pepper, salt, sugar & ocean flavor maybe comes from fish sauce or shrimp paste. Even though I was sweating a lot and might get a serious stomachache, I could not stop my hands & mouth. Finally, the beef soup stopped me. The broth is clear, flavorful but a little bit salty. Like the locals, I poured the bowl of rice into the soup for balance, and then it tasted so good that I composed this perfect meal as a coda of Korean cuisine in my 2007.

Cherry blossoms & CCTV

Tosokchon Samgyetang

Thanks to Korea Tourism Organization. I got a free but exclusive Chinese-speaking tour guide at Gyeongbokgung for 2 hours and really enjoyed it. He highly recommended Tosokchon & their Samgyetang (or chicken ginseng soup) for a lunch near by the palace. Before my first Samgyetang, as usual, I had kimchi as appetizer. It is average, and I couldn’t tell what the difference between these two daikon kimchi is.

 

I went to there at 11:30 A.M. around, and suddenly people crowded the restaurant. Most people went for Samgyetang which was served in the hot stone bowl with a small bottle of ginseng wine. I imitated the locals and then poured the wine into the soup. The broth is herb flavor & healthy, the whole chicken is young & tender, and the rice inside it is nutritious & yummy. Really fond of it but extremely full up.

Night view seen from Mount Namsan, Seoul

Bibimbap: Hell & Heaven

From my point of view, Itaewon in which a local landmark Hamilton Hotel can be found is the most non-Korean area in Seoul for tourists. Slightly similar with "Khao San Road" in Bangkok & "Pham Ngu Lao" in Ho Chi Minh, there are lots of stores, bars & restaurants earning money from foreigners. If you don't have much budget for sleeping, I recommend a sauna in the basement of Hamilton Hotel because it's cheap and near by the subway station. But the ceiling of sleeping area is so low that you have to watch your head, and you may lie next to a guy snoring loudly. In Taiwan, anyway, dolsot bibimbap is my favorite Korean cuisine. It is served in a very hot stone bowl in which a raw egg & seasoned vegetables with chili pepper paste is cooked against the sides of the bowl, and the layer of the rice touching the bowl is golden brown & crispy. I ordered this in Itaewon which is a colorful one but the most distasteful dish during this travel time.

Jeonju bibimbap is well-known across South Korea, and Gogung is one of the best restaurants specializing in this traditional food. This set appeared in Myeongdong. Before 7 delicate side dishes, including a few kinds of Kimchi and fried laver which is flavorful and crispy, served as accompanists, the soloist, Jeonju bibimbap, was sent in a brass bowl wearing a gorgeous dress, various unknown nuts & vegetables. One Japanese-speaking waitress helped me stir it professionally. Overall, a complicated concerto, a harmonic masterpiece, bravo!

Hamilton Hotel

By the Way, Foods Encountered

Regarding marinated raw crab I encountered in Busan, there are two versions: soy sauce one with lemon & pepper and spicy one which is wrapped in so much red sauce that I almost couldn’t see its shape. I wasn’t hungry then, and its price isn’t cheap, but it will be tried when I go there next time duo to reviews from the other bloggers & its egg yolk inside.

For experience & energy, I tasted Balut (half-hatched duck egg) in Vietnam, and it really worked but made me feel disgusted. However, I’m a fan for roast suckling pig expressing soft texture & crispy skin. During walking around in Jinhae in which lots of cherry blossom trees crazily flowering in April, I encountered this baby pig being turned. After inquiring its price, I sadly left because I was on a tight budget.

Buy the way, by the way

Mul Naengmyeon

When it comes to cold noodles in East Asia, I experienced three already: Taiwanese type with sesame source, Soba mainly served with dashi in Japan and Mul Naengmyeon in Korea, a cold soup with the noodles contained in broth and the boiled egg, meat & vegetables added. In fact, there is the other variety called Bibim Naengmyeon, served as more of a salad in a spicy dressing, but my guess for my tong the free kimchi is enough.

Jinhae is famous for its annual festival on white cherry blossom grown during the Japanese occupation period. Before leaving this beautiful harbor, I ordered one mul naengmyeon in a BBQ restaurant. It was so hard to chew that sooner or latter a nice waitress bought a specialized pair of scissors and cut the noodles. Very appetizing in the summer.

Suwan is near by Seoul, and there is a World Heritage, Hwaseong, took me a whole afternoon for climbing. After that, my body ordered mul naengmyeon again and then I found this one, much spicier than the former. However, both are as balanced as delicious because the latter was added some ices.

Spring water over brims the streams

Abalone Porridge & Mul Kimchi

Before being employed in CCTV industry, I had no prejudiced view of Korean. Not only are they our main competitors, but I also disliked their behavior when they observed our DVR at exhibitions. After traveling there in 2007, I had changed my mind because most of them are enthusiastic as well as virtuous. Anyway, have you watched “Dae Jang Geum”? The heroine introduced abalone porridge at a cooking competition and it deeply touched my heart duo to her introduction: because abalone eats lots of seaweed, its entrails shine light green and is distillation of ocean. About this one, creamy mouthfeel and seafood taste with slightly sesame flavor made me almost cried. Albeit expensive, it will also be a must when I go to there in the future. Meanwhile, the small bowl of soup is not a soup but mul kimchi (or water kimchi) and the liquid is really tasteless.

Summer clouds fancy peaks outshining

Roadside Stand: Sundae & Sea Pineapple

In Seoul, I found a crowded roadside stand selling Sundae & Tteokbokki. The latter seemed so spicy that I went for the former (or blood sausage) come with steamed pig liver & stomach. There are two seasonings for me: one is chili flavor salt, and the other one is chili soybean sauce. Not bad for tasting, but too bad I finally noticed the soybean sauce is for every gourmet, and, actually, Korean has the third dressing option—their friends' Tteokbokki source.

In Busan, A-Mao found another crowded roadside stand vending sashimi. Unlike Japanese, Korean wrap it in lettuce and then dip it in two kinds of sauces: traditional version is favored with raw garlic and, of course, chili, as well as Japanese version dressed with wasabi. Never had I tried sea pineapple before. This glowing creature was picked then. Now, I don’t want to recall its taste, but at least I didn't have to share sauces with others.

The autumn moon sheds brilliant

The Debut—Seol Leong Tang vs. Something Leong Tang

I've gone through America, Japan, South Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia since being a sales staff in a DVR manufacturer for 3 years. My guess it's time to make a debut of a blog sharing experiences regarding food, travel and music. Delicacies should be a good point from which to start because my mother is so good at cooking and boiled my stomach already.

This is my first Korean meal, Seol Leong Tang, when I was being a lonely backpacker there for 9 days in 2007. The milky soup must be stewed with ox bone for quit a long time. In the beginning, A-Mao really had no idea how to enjoy this combo. But a few minutes later a kindly waitress noticed I was a new comer and used a specialized pair of scissors & a pincers to sheer the red-hot kimchi, including a chunk of daikon & many leaflets of cabbage—A-Mao really has to say: the kimchi is extremely hot but juicy. Without receiving my green light, she suddenly poured the rice and chopped spring onion into the soup. And then, anyway, the mix is so flavorful.

This meal appeared in Gyeongju. A-Mao requested “Seol Leong Tang” at a cozy restaurant, but the boss brought me this “Something Leong Tang” with six side dishes. Well, the only two Korean I can speak is Hello (An Nyeong Ha Se Yo) & Thanks (Gam Sa Ha Mi Da), and poor I therefore tried it without a second thought. Lots of unknown vegetables and the soup tastes a little bit bitter but luscious. Without these side dishes, I couldn’t finish this Exotic Nutrition.

On winter cliffs stands a lonely pine