Food Archives - Where to Kim?

7x Food You Need to Try in Madrid

Kim — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:00:00 +0000

These are the seven most famous Madrid dishes and small bites; the food you simply have to try when you travel to Spain.

You can find all restaurants mentioned in this post in my Madrid city trip map.

1) Callos a la Madrileña

A visit to Madrid is not complete without trying one of their famous tripe or organ dishes (if you like those). You can try this dish at the tavern La Tía Cebolla (and many other taverns in that area).

Callos a la Madrileña is a Madrid-style tripe stew. Delicious, but with a very strong taste. I would have loved to share this dish with someone.

2) Tapas of Jamón Ibérico and Manchego

Enjoy tapas of Jamón Ibérico, Manchego cheese and olive oil at Mercado Jamón Ibérico. You can also buy some packages to take home. It is a small family-run establishment. The owners speak English very well. The quality of the products is really good. For me, this was the best tapas on my trip to Madrid; the other establishments I tried didn’t even come close.

3) Hot chocolate with churros

Many cafes in Madrid sell Hot Chocolate with Churros or Porras (‘bigger’ churros). The two most well-known shops are probably San Ginés and Los Artesanos. They’re pretty much in the same street, so you can visit the one with the shortest queue.

I chose to visit Los Artesanos because they offer a dark chocolate variant. The chocolate milk was delicious and made for a heavy morning meal that lasted me well into the afternoon.

Don’t try to visit after dinner, as the queue will be huge. 8:30 in the morning is a perfect time though: I was led to a seat immediately.

4) Rabo de Toro

Rabo de Toro is a traditional Spanish oxtail stew often served with potatoes or fries and some vegetables. Many restaurants and taverns in Madrid have successfully mastered the art of making this dish so you can take your pick in the city center. I got drawn in by the beautiful shopfront of Vulcano Brasas and chose to eat my Rabo de Toro there.

5) Tapas Basque style

On the Gran Vía, you’ll find Txapela, a restaurant that serves Basque-style tapas. While Basque food is not necessarily something you would think of when visiting Madrid, it’s also something you can’t order anywhere in the world. Just walk in and take a seat at a table or at the bar and order the dishes that look best on the menu. Since I was traveling alone, I felt very comfortable at the bar, with a front row view of the cold tapas assortment.

6) Sandwich with Jamón Ibérico

A sandwich with Jamón Ibérico (Spanish ham) is one of those meal choices that you can smell as you stroll leisurely through the streets of Madrid. Everywhere in the tourist center of Madrid you will see shops and cafes selling this sandwich in many varieties. For example, you can buy it cold or heated, with cheese and tomatoes or without.

I originally planned to start my trip in Madrid with churros and hot chocolate, but when I saw the tiny store Bocadillos Oink (open 24/7) on Gran Vía from the cab window, I was sold.

7) Shrimp croquettes and sangria

Every small dish sold in a tavern could have been on this 7th spot of the Madrid food list. The idea is to have a walking dinner in Madrid, eating and drinking in many different taverns such as Casa Toni, La Casa del Abuela or one of the many other taverns in Calle de la Cruz. The taverns can get crowded, so it is best to avoid meal times. Also note that many taverns close their doors in the middle of the day.

Sangria is a Spanish wine that consists of red wine, chopped fruit and some other ingredients and spirits.

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7 Dishes You Need to Try in Austria

Kim — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 15:00:00 +0000

These are the seven most famous Austrian dishes and snacks; the food you simply have to try when you travel to Austria.

1) Apfelstrudel and hot chocolate

The perfect comfort food after a long mountain hike. Almost every restaurant and café in Austria serves apfelstrudel and hot chocolate. The quality and taste differ greatly. I’m not sure why, but during my trip to Austria in 2020 I liked many of them and during my 2021 trip none.

This traditional Viennese strudel, called apfelstrudel, consists of elastic, very thin dough (similar to filo dough), apple slices and raisins. The dough is rolled up to create thin layers. If the apple is spread over the entire surface, the layers that end up between the filling will not be fully cooked.

The dish is usually served with vanilla sauce (it can taste dry without it) and whipped cream, and sometimes with vanilla ice cream.

To complete your sugar boost, you can order a hot chocolate with it. As with the apple strudel, the quality of this hot chocolate can vary. I often found the sugar-free whipped cream tastier than the rather bland tasting hot chocolate. I think I got too used to hot chocolate made with real chocolate instead of the milk + powder variety. But still, if you’re in Austria, you just have to order one once in a while.

2) Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn are Austria-style thick scrambled pancakes. It is a dessert, but beware of that designation: it is as filling as a full meal. The pancakes are caramelized and have a sweet taste. It is said that this dish got its name from Emperor (“Kaiser”) Franz Joseph I, who liked this dessert very much. The schmarrn part means scrambled or shredded.

3) Wiener Schnitzel

Finally, the Austrian dish named after the capital of Austria: Wien (Vienna). A Wiener schnitzel is a thin, breaded, pan-fried cutlet. If not specified, pork is used for the meat portion of the schnitzel. Often you can also choose turkey or veal. There are variations such as the cordon bleu, which you see in the photo above (taken at Blaa Alm near Loserberg).

Those of you who have visited Japan will be reminded of Tonkatsu, which is also a schnitzel, but thicker.

If you can’t stomach any more Wiener schnitzels, look for a Korean restaurant in Austria for something different.

4) Fish from the lakes

Restaurants near the lakes often have grilled or otherwise prepared freshly caught fish on the menu. Trout and char are plentiful. The fish is usually served with boiled potatoes with parsley.

5) Game stew with red cabbage and knödel

A trip to Austria would not be complete without a hike (or drive) to a mountain hut and a hearty meal. A game stew fits perfectly in this setting. Knödel are Austrian bread dumplings. You’ll often see them as a side dish instead of potatoes, but you can also order knödel soup (in which case they usually come with bits of bacon).

6) Bread with cheese and ham

You can’t go wrong with a varied platter of bread, local cheese and meat. Especially not if it comes with a view. The variety on your plate depends on the establishment. The surprise is what makes it the most fun. Austria produces all kinds of cheese (from hard cheese to cream cheese), bread with spicy undertones and smoked ham.

7) Goulash soup

This soup will thoroughly warm you in the middle of a hike. Goulash soup is a national dish from Hungary, but is widely served all over Central Europe. It is a stew of meat seasoned with paprika and other spices. Depending on the restaurant, the soup may be filled with vegetables, egg slices and diced potatoes or served more watery.

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6x Try If You Dare Korean Food

Kim — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Have you tried Baby Octopus Sashimi, Sea Pineapple and Makchang BBQ? Try to eat them in South Korea. If you dare.

Let me start by managing expectations. This list is written from my own perspective. These dishes might not seem daring to you at all and perhaps you eat them regularly. But for me, the sannakji (#1) and sea pineapple (#2) were especially challenging. In fact, the people I traveled with to South Korea didn’t even try #1, that dish was all mine!

So challenge yourself and try some food from this list. Let me know in the comments if you love or hate them.

1) Sannakji (산낙지)

Have you tried Korean Baby Octopus sashimi? Don’t worry: it is dead. The nerve system just doesn’t know it yet. The severed tentacles move freely on your plate and also in your mouth, where they attach themselves to the inside of your mouth. This feels very interesting. If you chew on it a few times, it stops and you can swallow the tentacle safely.

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At Daecheon beach near Boryeong, I saw one of the cooks take the baby octopus out of the tank and slice it up right before serving. You can’t get fresher than that. Funnily enough, I didn’t even order sannakji: I ordered a different kind of sashimi and got the sannakji as a side dish.

If you are visiting Seoul, you can find sannakji at one of the fish markets, for example Noryangjin Fish Market.

2) Sea Pineapple (멍게)

Sometimes you stumble upon some very interesting food and you don’t know what it is. You can guess that it comes from the sea because the stall selling it is right next to the sea and you do recognize other objects in the fish tanks and bowls. So what do you do? You point at it and order it.

This is how I met a sea pineapple on Jeju Island and at many other fish markets in South Korea. A sea pineapple is a beautiful orange sea squirt that is most commonly eaten as sashimi in South Korea and Japan. If you look it up online you will see the flavor described as “something like iodine” and “rubber dipped in ammonia”. This seems pretty accurate and luckily they served it with some alcohol (Soju) and red pepper paste (Gochujang). You’ll need it! Combined with the peppery and burning taste, the flavor of the sea pineapple is somewhat neutralized. I did not like the taste and would not recommend it to anyone. However, you’ll have to agree with me that sometimes you just have to try the unknown, especially when it looks as intriguing as this sea pineapple.

3) Chicken Feet (닭발)

At Gwangjang Market in Seoul, you can try chicken feet. If you are from Asia, this may not seem very exotic to you, but for me, this is something I cannot order at home. Chicken feet are a little spicy and chewy with a bite. There are no bones in them. It can be a challenge for amateur chopstick users!

If you order from one of the restaurants in the market, you can also order Tteokbokki, Mung Bean Pancake and Gimbap and try many popular Korean street food snacks all at once!

4) Sea Cucumber (해삼)

Sea cucumbers are found worldwide at the bottom of the sea, but I doubt many people from my country are aware of it. A sea cucumber has an elongated body and a leathery skin. You can buy them in most fish markets and they are on the menu in Chinese restaurants in South Korea. It was one of those things I saw everywhere, didn’t know the name of, and ended up ordering randomly from a photo. Combined with pork belly in one dish, the sea cucumber by itself didn’t have a very strong flavor. Do try this one!

5) Makchang (막창)

Instead of pork belly, you can also grill pork intestines on the Korean BBQ. This is called Makchang and the city Daegu is famous for it. You can find many Korean BBQ restaurants serving Makchang near Anjilang (안지랑), a street in Daegu filled with restaurants specialized in Makchang. It is a bit out of the way, but don’t worry: most Korean BBQ restaurants around Dongseong-ro also serve Makchang. You can often also order samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly) if you or one of your party prefers to eat something else.

6) Dotorimuk Acorn Jelly (도토리묵)

Dotorimuk is a jelly made from acorn starch. It is often eaten as a side dish, seasoned and mixed with other ingredients such as carrots and sesame, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, red chili pepper powder, and sesame seeds. This is necessary because the acorn jelly does not have an interesting flavor by itself; but it does charm you into trying it at least once with its smooth flubby texture.

Now you also know what the little brownish cubes or slices are called that you sometimes get as a side dish. If the jelly is white in color, it is made from mung beans; if it is light brown, it may be made from buckwheat or acorn starch.

Have these dishes left a bitter taste in your mouth? Then look for Korean desserts or sweet snacks to restore the balance.

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10x Korean Sweet Snacks and Desserts

Kim — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:00:00 +0000

What are the most interesting Korean sweet snacks and desserts to try in South Korea?

Eating dessert in South Korea is a little different than what I’m used to in my country. Where I live, dessert is the last course of the meal and you usually eat it at the restaurant that you’re having dinner at. In South Korea, you have to go to a restaurant or cafe that specializes in desserts or to a street food stall. In a way, this is very good for your health: moving around promotes digestion and you get a chance to reconsider your intention to eat dessert. After all, you have already eaten a delicious main course with many side dishes.

Read on for the sweets and desserts to try during your trip to South Korea.

1) Shaved Ice Dessert (팥빙수)

Shaved ice is the dessert that most comes to mind when you think of Korean desserts. There are many places that specialize in serving shaved ice with all kinds of toppings. The most common toppings are fruit and red bean paste.

The portions are very large, so people usually share one dessert. Except for first-time visitors to South Korea, who start by ordering one per person. I’ve been there…

You can find this dessert all over the country, for example at Suncheon Wetland Reserve (the one on the picture) or Jaman Mural Village in Jeonju.

2) Honey Bread (허니브레드)

This sweet snack will tempt you every time you have a drink at a café and feel slightly hungry. When you order Honey Bread, you basically get a brick of pre-cut toasted white bread, with honey, whipped cream and maybe some chocolate sauce, fruit and seeds on top. If the cafe attendant is adept at toasting bread, the result is delicious.

3) Honey Glazed Walnuts & Walnut Cookies

When I went to eat Buddhist temple-style food at Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, I was very surprised when they served two honey-glazed walnuts with some tea as the last course of the meal. This turned out to be both a brilliant memory and a savory experience. I have never been so happy with a dessert; it was the perfect way to end a well-balanced meal.

Another sweet snack with walnuts is Walnut Cookies/Cakes (호두과자). These round mini pancakes are filled with red bean paste and walnut pieces. You won’t find these in a traditional Korean restaurant, but you will at street food stalls.

4) Rice Cake

When you visit a traditional Korean tea house, you can order rice cakes as a snack. This rice cake comes in many varieties. After first trying the steamed rice cake that many teahouses serve, I soon discovered that there are also very tasty other kinds.

My favorite was the grilled rice cake at Seochon Hanok Village in Seoul. The most daring by far was the mugwort rice cake at Ganghwa‘s Jeondeungsa Temple. Made with locally grown mugwort! If you’re looking for something completely different – although it doesn’t go so well with pu-erh tea – you can look for rice cake with cheese and honey sauce in Eungpyeong Hanok Village.

5) Dried Jujube Chips (대추)

Dried Jujube is used as an ingredient in traditional Korean tea, but can also be served as a snack in cafes and tea houses. This sweet, crunchy snack goes very well with many drinks.

The picture above is from a tea house at Bomunsa Temple on Seokmodo.

6) Hotteok (호떡)

Hotteok is one of the must-try tourist snacks in South Korea. This Korean pancake filled with sweet rice and sugar is what you might be craving after eating spicy rice cakes. The hotteok on Myeongdong Street is a bit bland, but you can find pancakes with more delicious fillings elsewhere.

In the city of Busan, you can eat a special Busan-style hotteok: one filled with a mixture of nuts and seeds. If you are heading to the Gogunsan Islands (I know, small chance), you can visit 호떡당커피 to try their hotteok filled with nuts, cheese or vegetables.

7) Strawberry Rice Cake (딸기 모찌/찹쌀떡)

Strawberry Rice Cake is a Korean Glutinous Rice snack stuffed with red bean paste and a strawberry. This street food is perfect if you want to pretend you are eating a healthy dessert. It is fresh and sweet. Treat yourself to this strawberry mochi at the end of your meal.

Myeongdong Street is a great place to look for this snack. It is also gaining ground in Jeonju’s Hanok Village.

8) Red Bean Paste Bread

A visit to Gyeongju, South Korea’s “museum without walls,” is not complete without having tasted its Red Bean Bread. Is it tasty? Anything with a filling of red bean paste is an acquired taste. I’m not a big fan of the sweetness, but if everyone else buys one so do I.

Like Gyeongju, many other cities sell a local delicacy that domestic and foreign visitors like to take home as souvenirs. One example is Tongyeong‘s Honey Baked Bread.

9) Rainbow Cake

This colorful cake will look familiar to fans of Korean TV shows. Not all cafes sell rainbow cakes – in fact, most don’t – but somewhere along your journey you will stumble upon a piece and be tempted to eat it. It tastes like regular cake, so nothing special, but it is beautiful to look at.

10) Traditional homemade confectionery

If you are staying in traditional Korean homes (for example, in Andong), the lady of the house may pleasantly surprise you with a plate of homemade sweets. On your plate, you are likely to find sugared dried fruit, nuts with honey, and steamed rice cake.

Also read: 11x Delicious Lesser-known Korean Food

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9 Must-Try Korean Street Food Snacks in Seoul

Kim — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:00:00 +0000

These are the Korean street food snacks that all tourists go for. You’ve got to try them once, right? You can find all of them in South Korea’s capital Seoul.

You can find most of the street food snacks on this list in Seoul’s tourist hotspot and most famous street food area Myeongdong Street.

If you’re looking for a more substantial meal, then take a look at Korea’s most famous dishes or some delicious lesser-known Korean meals.

1) Tteokbokki (떡볶이)

Spicy rice cakes are a must-try for anyone visiting Seoul. The cylindrical rice cakes are cooked in an anchovy broth along with fish cake, red pepper paste and red pepper powder to create this spicy snack that is one of the most popular street foods in South Korea. If you’re making your own, you can add scallions, sesame seeds and boiled eggs for an even richer flavor.

You can usually find tteokbokki at the street food market of Myeongdong Street (Myeongdong neighborhood) and markets such as Gwangjang market (Dongdaemun neighborhood).

2) Hotteok (호떡)

This Korean pancake filled with sweet rice and sugar is what you might be craving after eating spicy rice cakes. The hotteok on Myeongdong Street is a bit bland, but you can find pancakes with more delicious fillings elsewhere.

3) Mung Bean Pancake (빈대떡)

Another delicious Korean pancake is made from mung beans. This is the most famous snack to try at the Gwangjang market in Seoul. At the market, you will find many stalls that make this pancake before your eyes. Take a seat right in front of the stall or order a pancake from a restaurant on the side. The restaurants will collect your order from the stalls in the market.

4) Chicken Feet (닭발)

At the same Gwangjang Market, you can try chicken feet. If you are from Asia, this may not seem very exotic to you, but for me, this is something I cannot order at home. Chicken feet are a little spicy and chewy with a bite. There are no bones in them. It can be a challenge for amateur chopstick users!

If you order from one of the restaurants in the market, you can try Tteokbokki, Mung Bean Pancake, Chicken Feet and Gimbap all at once!

5) Gimbap (김밥)

Gimbap looks like Korean-style sushi. You can buy gimbap-to-go at markets, food stalls and convenience stores. I described this snack as “looks like sushi” because that is how it probably looks to tourists, even though this dish has been around for a very long time in South Korea. Koreans have a habit of eating rice rolled in dried seaweed.

In Korean Gimbap, cooked rice and many other ingredients are rolled in dried sheets of seaweed called gim and flavored with sesame oil. This snack comes in many varieties: you can buy gimbap with cheese, bulgogi beef, and lunch meat, for example. The specialty of Gwangjang Market is 마약김밥, a gimbap filled with carrots, spinach, and yellow pickled radish.

6) Fish Cake (어묵)

If you’ve ever watched a Korean TV drama, you’ve probably seen the characters eat fish cake on a stick. Does it taste good? It’s probably an acquired taste. I don’t think many tourists will like it, because it can taste a little bland. The broth plays a big role. But as with all the snacks on this list, you just have to try it, right?

You can buy fish cake at many food stalls throughout Seoul, such as on Myeongdong Street. Service points along highways and stores in tourist hotspots (like the Sokcho cable car station) also sell fish cake on a stick.

7) Strawberry Rice Cake (딸기 모찌/찹쌀떡)

Myeongdong Street is a great place to look for this snack. It is also gaining ground in Jeonju’s Hanok Village.

8) Twisted doughnuts (꽈배기)

The name says it all: donuts that are twisted instead of round. They are a bit firmer than the round donuts most of us are familiar with. You can often buy them at markets and festivals. I pretty much ignored their existence in Seoul, but I did eat one from Namdaemun Market. Later, I saw them everywhere, for example at Suncheon‘s market and Jinan’s Red Ginseng Festival.

9) Sweet Potato (고구마) and Chestnuts (군밤)

Sweet potatoes are often used in South Korean dishes, desserts and drinks. You’ll find them in pizza, cakes and lattes, as well as on their own as a roasted (군고구마) or steamed (찐고구마) snack at a street food stall. The same street vendors often sell roasted chestnuts and other nuts.

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11x Delicious Lesser-known Korean Food

Kim — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Have you already tried all the famous Korean dishes? Then it’s time to try other delicious dishes that many foreigners have never heard of.

1) Chuotang (추어탕)

Chuotang is the Korean nickname for Mudfish Soup or Pond Loach Soup. You’ll also find it on the menu as 미꾸라지탕. This is my favorite dish! The boiled and afterward sieved loach is added to a beef or chicken broth and boiled again. The seasoning consists of gochujang (red pepper paste), doenjang (soybean paste), ginger and black pepper. The vegetables vary per restaurant.

Although Namwon is famous for this dish, you can also order this on islands like Jeungdo and Ganghwa. In the mud on the terrain of Jeungdo’s Salt Farm, you can see the mudfish in action.

2) Raw Marinated Crab (게장)

With this dish you are in for a challenge. Unless you are a pro at dissecting crabs.

Fresh crabs are marinated with either a soy sauce to make 간장게장 or a spicy marinade to make 양념게장. As before, the best chance of finding these dishes is on islands like Ganghwa and Yeosu. Restaurants specialized in this dish will also serve tiny raw marinated crabs as side dishes.

3) Beef Patties (장산적)

Beef Patties are a mix of pork, beef, tofu and seasoning. These patties are then broiled in teriyaki sauce. A good place to order beef patties is in Jeonju’s Hanok Village where you will get them with pineapple slices and cheese on the side.

4) Sundae (순대)

Sundae is Korean style blood sausage usually made with pig’s intestines stuffed with rice and other ingredients. You can often buy sundae as a snack on the street or at festivals. Do give it a try! Sundae soup (순대국) is very delicious.

In Sokcho’s Abai village you can try a variety with squid instead of pig’s intestines.

5) Naengmyeon (냉면)

Naengmyeon is a cold noodle dish that is very popular in summer. You will often find thin, long and handmade buckwheat noodles inside an icy broth, though other types of noodles are used as well.

6) Sundubu-jjigae (순두부찌개)

Sundubu-jjigae is a spicy soft tofu stew. It is delicious, easy to digest, and perfect for every occasion. The basic ingredients are soft tofu, mushrooms, onions and red pepper paste or powder. You’ll find this stew in many varieties, for example with seafood (clams, mussels, shrimps) or meat (beef or pork). It is served sizzling hot.

If you prefer a less spicy stew, choose Doenjang-jjigae, a stew flavored with soybean paste.

7) Gomtang (곰탕)

Gomtang is a beef broth soup made with parts of beef like oxtail, ribs and brisket. A healthy soup with a milky (or brownish) color perfect for days when you have a low appetite.

8) Gyeran-jjim (계란찜)

This steamed egg side dish can easily be made at home. Gyeranjjim is made with eggs, anchovy broth, salted shrimp or salt and scallions. You can add more vegetables (zucchini and carrots are good choices) if you like. It is often served in an earthenware pot. Other varieties use chicken broth and fish sauce or soy sauce.

9) Abalone (전복)

Abalone is not a dish but deserves an entry because Korean abalones are delicious. Wando is known for its abalones (and seaweed). If that’s a bit out of the way – it’s in the far south after all – you can also eat abalones in fish markets like Seoul’s Noryangjin Fish Market.

10) Grilled Eel (장어구이)

If you are visiting Busan, then Eel Street near Haeundae Beach should be high on your list. This street is home to all kinds of seafood and I even found a restaurant that served bulgogi as a side dish (for the only non-fish lover in our party). The grilled eel comes in many variations, both in taste and presentation. If you can choose, try to order one that is boned. When I ordered my dish, the bones were still in it and the restaurant owners expected me to wrap them in lettuce and eat them whole. That still baffles me.

11) Bossam (보쌈)

If you order Bossam, you will be served thinly sliced pieces of pork boiled in spices like star anise and ginger; the exact mixture varies. Like Korean BBQ, you wrap the pork with ssamjang (sauce), garlic, kimchi, lettuce or perilla leaves in one delicious package.

Traditionally, this dish is associated with the process of making Kimchi at the beginning of winter: a festive meal to thank the workers.

(Don’t mind the picture: the restaurant wasn’t that fancy. It can look way more delicious).

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Korean Restaurants in Austria (outside of Vienna)

Kim — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Four Korean restaurants in Austria (Salzburg, Linz, Graz, Hard) where you can eat Korean food.

What do you do when you can’t travel to South Korea to eat delicious Korean dishes? You look for Korean restaurants closer to home, even when you are on holiday in Austria.

As I didn’t visit Vienna – 2020 was not the best year for visiting cities with lots of people – I looked for Korean restaurants in other cities.

Let me share my restaurant tips for those of you visiting Salzburg, Linz, Graz, or Hard (near Bregenz).

1) Restaurant Hibiskus in Salzburg

Restaurant Hibiskus in Salzburg is my favorite Korean restaurant in Austria. This restaurant has an extensive menu with at least six options for Korean tea. We ate spicy stir-fried pork and an autumn beef stew with dates, chestnuts, and lots of meat. Plus, of course, a serving of Korean Fried Chicken as a side dish. The quality and taste of the food are very good.

Hibiskus is quite popular at lunchtime, although most people order the daily menu which was Italian food that day.

Location: Mirabellplatz 1 (Neues Mozarteum), 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Check out their website for the menu.

2) Restaurant DAO in Linz

Another good Korean restaurant, this time in Linz. Restaurant DAO serves most of the well-known Korean dishes plus some dishes that you can’t find in every Korean restaurant. For example, I am still waiting for a restaurant to start serving Jjajangmyeon in my country.

Not surprisingly, I recommend the Jjajangmyeon (big bowl!). We also ate Kim Sam Bok and Da Kang Jeong (which was nothing like Korean Fried Chicken). Delicious food!

Location: Klammstraße 20a, 4020 Linz, Austria
Check out their website for the menu.

3) Restaurant Akakiko in Graz

With this restaurant, we cheated a bit. Akakiko is a Japanese restaurant that serves Japanese and Asian Fusion dishes. You can, however, find Korean food like Bulgogi, Sweet Gochujang Chicken, Bibimbap, and Kimchi on the menu. So I’d say this restaurant counts, even if the taste of the Bulgogi was a little less Korean than what I’m used to.

Just remember that restaurant Akakiko is an option if you are in Graz and crave Korean food.

Location: Sparkassenpl. 2, 8010 Graz, Austria
Check out their website for the menu.

4) Restaurant Okims in Hard

We were about to visit this Korean restaurant when the area turned orange (coronavirus warning), so we skipped this town and drove home instead. At Okims you can order a variety of Korean dishes. This restaurant has some dishes that the restaurants I mentioned earlier don’t serve. So it can be quite a (welcome) challenge to decide what to eat.

Location: Hofsteigstraße 122a, 6971 Hard, Austria
Check out their website for the menu.

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11 Most Famous Korean Dishes

Kim — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000

These are the eleven most famous Korean dishes; the dishes you simply have to try when you travel to South Korea.

And even if you are determined to choose a lesser-known Korean dish, restaurant owners will suggest these dishes to you if you take too long (say one minute) to decide what to eat from the Korean menu. You’d think they’d be impressed that you made an effort to translate and understand the menu….

1) Korean BBQ

The number one spot on this list goes to Korean Barbeque. If you have ever watched a Korean TV show or movie, you will have seen this one. So go find a Korean BBQ restaurant and grill your own meat. If they let you… Restaurant staff are very helpful, and as such, they will go out of their way to help you grill and cut the meat.

The most common meat to put on the grill is samgyeopsal (pork belly, 삼겹살), but you can often buy other cuts of pork, or beef and chicken. On Jeju Island, you can try black pork, and if you go to a seafood restaurant, for example in Boryeong‘s Daecheon beach, you can grill shellfish and snails, or eel.

When the meat is ready, take a perilla leaf or lettuce, add some garlic, ssamjang (spicy sauce), kimchi, rice, the meat you grilled, and whatever else you like to wrap it up in a delicious package.

2) Korean Fried Chicken (치킨 / 닭강정)

The Korean Fried Chicken is a contender for the #1 spot on this list. Ideal for takeout or delivery, but also lots of fun to eat in a restaurant. This dish often comes with radishes and tastes very good with beer. You’ll need the beer and radish if you order one of the spicy flavors. The crispy coating is what makes Korean Fried Chicken so delicious.

3) Bulgogi (불고기)

Bulgogi – nicknamed Korean BBQ beef – is thinly sliced beef marinated in a sweet sauce. It is the number one dish so helpfully recommended by restaurant staff and other customers when you seem to be having trouble deciding what to eat. And by difficulty, I mean that it takes you more than a minute to decipher the all-Korean menu.

4) Jjajangmyeon (짜장면) / Jjajangbap

Have you also spent some time wondering what the noodle dish with black bean sauce (춘장) is called? It is Jjajangmyeon (with noodles) or Jjajangbap (with rice). It is usually served in Chinese restaurants in South Korea, or tiny restaurants that specialize in this dish. You will usually find cubes of pork and vegetables in it, but you can also order a seafood version with octopus, shrimp and the like.

5) Dakgalbi (닭갈비)

The city of Chuncheon is famous for its Dakgalbi. There is a whole street – Myeongdong street – that specializes in this dish. It consists of pieces of chicken, cabbage, rice cake, sweet potato and, of course, spicy sauce. In the Hongdae neighborhood of Seoul, I found a restaurant that serves cheese on the side.

6) Bibimbap (비빔밥)

Bibimbap is rice topped with thinly sliced vegetables and meat or seafood. You can often choose from different toppings, including vegetarian options. The city of Jeonju is famous for its Bibimbap with raw beef tartare.

What makes Bibimbap such a great choice is that you never know what vegetables are going to be used. In Sokcho I ate this dish with wild mountain vegetables and in Tongyeong seaweed was added to the rice (and sliced sashimi).

7) Stir-fried Spicy Pork (제육볶음)

You will find this dish on the menu in most restaurants and it always tastes delicious. The degree of spiciness and the side dishes vary from restaurant to restaurant, so you can order this dish over and over again.

8) Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup (삼계탕)

This soup is great for your health, so if you feel like you’re about to get a cold, have some Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup (Samgyetang). See if you can find a specialized restaurant because this dish deserves to be eaten at its best.

What makes this chicken soup so special is that you find a whole chicken in your soup bowl, which you then get to dissect with chopsticks and a spoon. The chicken is stuffed with rice, Korean ginseng, jujube, chestnuts, ginko nuts and garlic.

9) Army Stew (부대찌개)

When you lack inspiration, you can’t go wrong with a skillet filled with army stew (budae jjigae) in front of you. This may not be the healthiest dish on this list, but it will fill your belly.

In the stew you will usually find spam, sausages, tofu, enoki, rice cake, and a variety of vegetables.

10) Porridge (죽)

Porridge is a light meal and is therefore often served to sick people. A porridge of pine nuts or one with abalone does wonders for health. It is also a good option for breakfast, as porridge restaurants open early. You can also buy porridge as a quick meal or sweet treat (red bean porridge and pumpkin porridge) at a traditional market.

11) Seaweed Soup (미역국)

Seaweed soup is often served on birthdays, but if you visit Korean islands like Wando and Bogil, you’ll get it as a side dish to your main meal. Nothing beats a seaweed soup with an assortment of locally grown seaweed.

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8 Must-try Food and Drinks in Hong Kong

Kim — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0000

A trip to Hong Kong is not complete without eating dim sum and other Hong Kong specialties. Find out about the must-try foods and drinks in Hong Kong.

1) Tofu pudding

Next to the market in Sham Shui Po you can find a small restaurant called Kung Wo Dou Bun Chong. Here you can eat the best tofu pudding in Hong Kong! Ideal as breakfast or lunch because it will keep you satiated for hours. This place is always busy, but the turn-around time is quick as well.

Location Kung Wo Dou Bun Chong: 118號號地下, Pei Ho St, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

If you happen to visit Tai O on Lantau Island: there is a lovely little shop called Bing Bing selling tofu pudding and other delicious desserts like tea cakes.

Location Bing Bing: 18號 Tai O Market St, Tai O, Hong Kong

2) Spicy Crab

A visit to Hong Kong is not complete without eating at the Temple Street Night Market. From seven PM onwards, the Temple Street turns into a vibrant evening market with pop-up shops in the middle of the street and restaurants at the sides. Dining outside at its best.

One of the must-try foods is spicy crab at one of the other restaurants in this area. I can recommend Tong Tai Sea Food Restaurant. Their lemon chicken is very good as well.

Location Tong Tai Sea Food Restaurant: 186 Temple St, Jordan, Hong Kong

3) BBQ pork / Honey roasted pork

Don’t worry if you don’t like crab (or fish in general). The same restaurant also offers delicious chicken and pork dishes. Another must-try food at the Temple Street Night Market is honey-roasted pork (BBQ pork). The pork you eat here will taste very good, but keep in mind that it has street food preparation and price. If you visit a fancier restaurant it will taste even better.

4) Dim sum

There are many great Dim Sum restaurants in Hong Kong. My favorite restaurant was actually the Tsim Sha Tsui branch of the Taiwanese restaurant Din Tai Fung. Try their Steamed Black Truffle Pork dumplings; their xiao long bao specialty. I wasn’t very fond of the Drunken chicken in Shaoxing rice wine though, but sometimes you just have to try things, right?

Location Din Tai Fung: 132 Nathan Road Shop 407, Mira Place One, FoodLoft, L4, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

I basically loved all the dim sum I ate. Sometimes at a fancier restaurant and at other times on the street. The best dim sum I ever tasted was steamed rice with chicken (including bones and organs) on my first trip to Hong Kong in 2014. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the location of the restaurant so I couldn’t return to it on my second trip in 2019. Maybe I’ll remember someday.

If you like tea, then you can try the all-vegetarian dim sum options at Lock Cha Admiralty. These go really well with a well-brewed Pu-erh or Oolong tea.

Read more: Best tea houses in Hong Kong

5) Coconut milk smoothie

What’s better than a refreshing coconut drink when it is 30+ degrees Celsius? They’ll make it right in front of you. If your home, like mine, is far away from any coconut tree, then this is a treat. You can find this coconut smoothie drink at the Temple Street.

Location: where Temple Street and Ning Po Street cross, diagonally opposite Tong Tai Sea Food Restaurant.

6) Hong Kong egg puffs

A Hong Kong streetfood original: egg puffs (or egg waffle). So if you see a Mammy Pancake while strolling the Temple Street… Of course, I had to try the matcha egg puffs flavor. With a coconut smoothie in one hand and my egg puffs in the other, I had the perfect dessert.

Location: G/F, 219 Temple St, Jordan, Hong Kong

7) Cheung Chau bao

Your day trip to the island Cheung Chau is not complete without trying a sweet bao filled with for example red bean paste. The bright and colorful stamp on its own should be enough to draw you in. Other nice foods to try on Cheung Chau island are frozen watermelon ice cream, mango rice cake, and very good seafood dishes.

8) Bubble tea heaven

Bubble teas are increasingly popular all over the world, including Hong Kong. In many streets, you can find a bubble tea to try like Tiger Sugar. I didn’t actually like this mix (too sweet), but I hadn’t seen it before so naturally I had to try it.

For variety, you can also buy tea and smoothies with creamy cheese topping or fruit tea with huge chunks of fruit. When will they all come to my country?

Location Tiger Sugar: 70號號地下E舖, Parkes St, Jordan, Hong Kong

These are the foods and drinks I liked best in Hong Kong. I also tried an interesting convenience store bun filled with egg and ham… it didn’t taste bad but not great either.

What is your favorite Hong Kong specialty?

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Fish or meat? The most pressing choice when eating out in South Korean restaurants

Kim — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 16:19:16 +0000

Korean restaurants often specialize in one type of food or ingredient. This makes your restaurant choice more important and also more challenging. Read here about this and other things that will surprise first-time visitors choosing restaurants in Korea.

Assume you’re a party of three. One person doesn’t eat fish unless it is fried fish or smoked eel (just to be clear: not me), the other two like both but really want to try the fish dishes they can’t sample at home. It is dinner time. What do you do? At home any restaurant will do; they usually offer at least one meat dish, one fish dish and one vegetarian and/or vegan choice. In South Korea, most restaurants specialize in one or the other. If you’re in a remote area near the ocean, then fish dishes will be in abundance. Other examples of specialized Korean restaurants are: Korean BBQ, Korean Fried Chicken and Kalguksu. Though there are exceptions, namely those few hard-to-find places that sell both meat and fish. This is where the search for a restaurant in Korea comes in.

Negotiating

Negotiate the type of restaurant you’re going for with your travel companions. ‘We had Korean BBQ yesterday evening, so let’s go to a fish restaurant tonight.’ Or: visit more meat restaurants while sightseeing far from the coast so you build some credit for visiting more fish restaurants when visiting islands and peninsulas. Fortunately, with all the side dishes you get with a meal, one can easily survive on rice and vegetable side dishes only.

Conversing

I planned to do better on my South Korea trip this year than I did last year. I practiced my broken Korean that is pretty much only good for ordering food and supplementing my pointing at the menu. I prepared some sentences to ask if they can make a certain rice dish (bibimbap) with rice and vegetables only, leaving the sashimi out.

In the end I didn’t use those sentences but I did ask the following questions:

Bulgogi isseoyo (is there Bulgogi?; a beef dish)
Samgyeopsal isseoyo (is there pork belly?)

I gained victory upon victory when they understood what I wanted. That went very different from last year when I could only helplessly stare without the skill to create a simple sentence. I remember mistaking a picture of fried shrimps for tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), though that must have been wishful thinking.

Research and explore

The other part of this year’s plan was to explore using Google maps and KakaoMap, clicking on restaurant after restaurant and looking at pictures of Korean food and menus to see if they have one meat dish on offer in a fish lover’s paradise. When visiting the very south and west of South Korea, so basically spending time on the islands and peninsulas, the food on offer is fish. Plenty of it. Lucky me, unlucky travel companion.

But I found some. There is this restaurant on Jangjado that sells Galbitang (beef bone soup) next to its many shells, sashimi, crab and so on. And this restaurant in Boryeong, where you can grill shellfish next to pork belly. Another success. I marked them as my favorites on the map.

Have you tried Korean Baby Octopus? (Don’t worry: it is dead. The nerve system just doesn’t know it yet.)

When going to a Korean BBQ restaurant near the ocean, restaurants usually offer pork belly (Samgyeopsal) as an add-on menu when grilling shellfish or eel. The same restaurants also hand foreigners a simplified English menu with bulgogi on it but every time we order it they don’t actually have it. Samgyeopsal was always in stock though (in frozen form).

Another Korean dish that is often included next to fish dishes in the menu is Spicy Stir-fried Pork, so see if you can spot it on the menu: 돼지볶음.

Vegetarian and vegan

The real challenge comes when you want to eat vegetarian or vegan, good luck to you! Anchovies in the soup stock eliminate even those dishes that seem tofu only. Rice is safe though and many side dishes are too. (There is plenty of choice for vegetarians and vegans, but as I’m not vegan or vegetarian I’ll let others write useful tips for that).

Korean dessert restaurants

Then the next challenge takes the stage: after succeeding in choosing a restaurant for your main meal, you can select a dessert restaurant or cafe if you want to finish with something sweet. Main courses and dessert are strictly separated. Bingsu (shaved ice cream) is popular nowadays. If you order one each you’ll be the model tourist. After doing it once you’ll order one per two people, like the Koreans do. They’re kinda big.

Korean breakfast restaurants

Finding a Korean breakfast restaurant is in a league of its own: the best restaurants to have Korean breakfast at are the small restaurants that are open 24/7. The challenge is in finding them, as they often have no internet presence whatsoever. Read my Breakfast in South Korea special for tips.

Meal size versus price

Meal prices are interesting too. If you see something of 30,000 Korean Won or more it’s usually something that feeds two or three people (unless you order expensive food). If you order one each, as 30k is after all a normal per person meal price where I live, you’ll stare and stare at the table and fail to eat it all. Even all the side dishes you want to try seem to come at you.

To summarize

Choose between fish or meat (Alternatively: don’t travel with someone with a different taste or practice your negotiation skills)
Switch restaurants for every course
Share everything
Be very careful when the price is over 30,000 Korean Won.

Just joking though, you’ll easily get the hang of it in a few days. These are just the things that I didn’t expect when I visited South Korea for the first time. On my second visit, we only ended up in a restaurant without meat on offer once when eating an abalone course in Wando (the beef part of the course was out of stock). There are many places to choose from and unfortunately you can’t try all of them.

Eat Korean food at home

If you can’t wait for your trip to South Korea, then try your hand at cooking Korean food at home!

By now I’m the proud owner of my second batch of Gochujang (red pepper sauce), Doenjang (soybean paste for stew) and Korean Sesame Oil. The Gochujang is essential for making tteokbokki but it is also great to spice up any stir-fried dish or a soup. I use Doenjang for any tofu stew I make and also add it to porridge or a light soup. Sesame Oil is great for seasoning dishes like bibimbap and for your own creative mix of lentils and vegetables.

You can find recipes for Korean dishes in Maangchi’s Real Korean Cooking or online at her website.

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