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Friday night, I kicked off my birthday weekend with a late dinner at Sanchae Dolsot Restaurant (산채 한정식). K. and J. wanted to introduce me to their favourite place in Koreatown, a family-style restaurant they stumbled across during an evening of misadventure that included aborted visits to both Smoke and Chicago Kalbi (시카고 갈비). Apparently, they're regulars, and despite some chatter about trying something different (I pointed out the presence of summertime cold noodle specialities on the menu), they went with their regular order: pork belly with kimchee (김치삼겹살볶음), deep-fried mackerel, and bulgogi dolsot (불고기 돌솥).
Obviously, we had to get a dolsot ("stone bowl") dish, as it was apparently a speciality of the house. (Although "dolsot" is absent form the Korean name, which can be translated as "Mountain Herb Korean Table d'Hôte".) As a bonus, of course, it allowed me to discourse on the lack of a proper term for "rice crust" in English. The mackerel was awesome, the projecting tines fried so hard that they became a kind of crispy snack rather than a choking hazard. I had to be sparing with pork belly because of all the gochujang it was swimming in, but it was hard.
The next morning, Turtle and her wife picked us up and drove us to the Korean Street Festival on Bryn Mawr. It was hot away that far from the Lake, but at least you couldn't hear the damn jet planes. Events hadn't really started yet, so there was nothing to do but eat.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu kicked us off with a dish of crispy mandoo and I tried to sell the girls on bindaetteok (빈대떡), albeit with limited success. Then the eating got serious.
As my neighbour said later, "Everything with Asian food is family size." So my little box of blood sausage (순대) was easily enough for four people. (Or rather, four people who like blood sausage; as it was, half your party was vegetarian and it was all mine.) The spicy rice cakes (떡볶이) were so fat that you were stuffed after three or four and there was a truly ludicrous amount of vegetable tempura piled atop the Old Man's plate. Yet somehow we managed to leave enough room for a bit of green tea kintoki (그린티 氷水) at the Art Zone Café (which we were chuffed to see is still a going concern) afterwards.
Obviously, we had to get a dolsot ("stone bowl") dish, as it was apparently a speciality of the house. (Although "dolsot" is absent form the Korean name, which can be translated as "Mountain Herb Korean Table d'Hôte".) As a bonus, of course, it allowed me to discourse on the lack of a proper term for "rice crust" in English. The mackerel was awesome, the projecting tines fried so hard that they became a kind of crispy snack rather than a choking hazard. I had to be sparing with pork belly because of all the gochujang it was swimming in, but it was hard.
The next morning, Turtle and her wife picked us up and drove us to the Korean Street Festival on Bryn Mawr. It was hot away that far from the Lake, but at least you couldn't hear the damn jet planes. Events hadn't really started yet, so there was nothing to do but eat.
monshu kicked us off with a dish of crispy mandoo and I tried to sell the girls on bindaetteok (빈대떡), albeit with limited success. Then the eating got serious.As my neighbour said later, "Everything with Asian food is family size." So my little box of blood sausage (순대) was easily enough for four people. (Or rather, four people who like blood sausage; as it was, half your party was vegetarian and it was all mine.) The spicy rice cakes (떡볶이) were so fat that you were stuffed after three or four and there was a truly ludicrous amount of vegetable tempura piled atop the Old Man's plate. Yet somehow we managed to leave enough room for a bit of green tea kintoki (그린티 氷水) at the Art Zone Café (which we were chuffed to see is still a going concern) afterwards.
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We were on our way to Wisconsin for the third time in a week.
I found the message about the gaming group. How often do you get together? And BTW, when's the next bear night? I'm so completely out of touch with the local bear community.
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Bear Night at Touché's is always the first Saturday of the month, so the next one is Sept. 4th. You boys are always welcome to stop by for a drink beforehand. (Last time we probably wouldn't have even left the deck and gone over if my powerlifting coworker had announced his pressing need to get laid.)