A Whole Stretch of Korean Food

It's hilarious that I had a whole stretch of Korean cuisine! I'm generally not a fan of Korean food or their stews, but I will find things that I like and will eat. It's just that our restaurants here are rather limited in their offerings, so I seem to keep ordering the same dishes at different restaurants. Sure, my favorite is still Nae:um's menu and vegetarian Korean dishes, but those are generally not often seen. 

I do watch some Korean shows (not the full-on ditzy romances of course), and many are quite fun, and some are surprisingly good. 'Our Blues' reminded me how a decent script (penned by Noh Hee Kyung), strong acting, a brave casting director and a steady producer could result in a thoroughly enjoyable show about a Jeju island community and their not-too-cringe stories. That made me want to eat the hairtail again (cutlass fish / silver belt). Also, Netflix's 'A Nation of Broth' really made me feel like checking out all available broths in our local Korean restaurants. I do enjoy a hearty bowl of broth.

Had a late lunch after gym at the noodle outlet of Noodle Star K (they have another BBQ outlet) at Tanjong Pagar Road. The banchan and meats here are middling, but the noodles and the mandu are lovely.  I only like the naengmyeon though. Not the jjajangmyeon or jjampong. I refuse to even taste jjajangmyeon. I heartily dislike the Chinese version of it. Looking at the Korean iteration, it doesn't change my mind. 

This time M and I weren't ambitious and shared the food. We were hungry but we each had separate dinner plans, so we couldn't stuff our faces either. We got the thinly sliced pork belly in soy, chik naengmyeon, and the gogi mandu. These came with two small cups of piping hot thin beef soup. That was super satisfying. Lunch filled us up sufficiently, but leaving plenty of space for our dinners later. 

Then it was to dinner at Chang Korean BBQ at Dempsey. People do pay for the BBQ items, but I'm not hot about them. I totally skip the seafood, and the $35 platter of vegetables (which aren't tasty). I can do ox tongue and a short rib or something, and that would be really rich and greasy. I wouldn't mind some nicely grilled pork loin, but for their pork, every cut (belly, collar and jowl) is fatty > UGH. I don't want their ribs either.  

Their banchan is awesome. I could totally eat that as a meal. Hahaha. The cost of the ingredients is definitely worked into the menu prices. The a la carte menu works fine for me. They have gorgeous salads, japchae and pajeon. The table had some grilled items and chicken breast, as well as stews.

Tonight, I wanted yukhoe and bossam. The restaurant's dipping sauce for the bossam was not exactly spicy — it was salty and briny. Nice. Passed on the bulk of the generous serving of kimchi. I liked bits of the pork wrapped in lettuce with pickled chives and perilla leaves. I happily washed all that down with makgeolli.

Popped by to SBCD Korean Tofu House at Millenia Walk. I often grab a bento to-go from its basement restaurant at Tanjong Pagar Center, and have never dined in. Nice to sit down with J for lunch that day at its Millenia Walk restaurant. I love it that the restaurant makes their own tofu and its banchan held a small piece of ikan selar. What a nice surprise!

This restaurant is known for its 'soontofu'. I like tofu, but I don't know what to feel about tofu in spicy stews, especially as soondubu-jjigae. My problem is with the gochuchang and gochugaru. I'm not a fan of gochuchang and the gochugaru used in red kimchi and jjigae. It's not sambal spices. I prefer white kimchi, but spicy please.  

I opted for Original Pork soontofu, with a 'mild' spiciness. That made the gochuchang and gochugaru levels in the stew extremely acceptable. J ordered hers  as 'standard'. The 'standard' level of spiciness was a lot stronger in the gochugaru. I shall stick to mild levels all the way at SBCD then!