Homemade noodle

After my hubby read about the book about the disadvantage of eating snack and instant food, he decided to stop eating ramen. For me, I don't like instant noodle at all since my father always brain-wash me. Only during camping time or group eating time, then we will eat together.

So in order to  keep the loving of noodle, the only choice is to make noodle soup myself. It's very easy.
From the photo above, the meat ball is brought from Malaysia one! (My father bought  me one big pack and hand made by his friend).

With scallop brought from Malaysia too (My mother brought from China and also Kar Lai from HK brought me some whenever she  visits me)  - just put a few into boiling water.

If not, when we cook chicken soup, with some left, we will use it to cook the noodle too.

Put in any vegetable ingredients available, mostly I have onion and carrot, and mostly I will add in  the green vegetable to make it look more attractive. It is  more nutritious too when the green vegetable is  cooked in the soup.

Korean style then sometimes my hubby will just add in the kimchi. :)

Why not you also try some homemade noodle instead of instant noodle?

Food from Taiwan

One of our small group members went to Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday. It was not a good trip because  it rained for the whole trip. She could not take good photos and visit all the places  she planned to. However, she brought back gift for  us - pineapple pie from  Taiwan.

Yes, I think I am the only person feel so excited to see this.

Since it is a packaging one, sure not as chewy as it is sold at the bakery itself. Yet the pineapple sauce is tasty, hard to find in Korea.
A lot of my friends visit Taiwan since last year, most of them went for the food there. If  I have the chance to go there, I think I want to visit the countryside places - which are shown in  the Taiwan MTV mostly. They are so beautiful and calm. :)

kuksuri kuksu (noodle)

This noodle restaurant is near to our school and in school time, we went to the shop quite often. The shop is soy bean paste and it's very tasty.

It makes us warm too when the weather is cold. It is pan-mee type: either made by hand (piece by piece) or by machine (long noodle type).

Another tasty food  in  the shop is the dumpling - 만두.

a little bit spicy with kim chi inside but very tasty when it's hot.

Compared to the restaurants next to it, the price do not increase for the last 3 years. It is still 5000 won. Price is reasonable and a lot of travellers visit this  place. It is located besides the road of Yangpyeong. People go to Gangwon-do and go back to Seoul, mostly will pass by Yangpyeong, and this shop is just besides the road.

국수리 국수집
Tel: 772-2433
everything here is 5000won.
kimchi is self-service and very tasty too.

The food I had in early March

With the photos in the camera, only I realized that I had some fantastic food in this early mid March. I would like to share with you and hope you can try it too.

We got this set of rice cookies from a missionary, whom she herself can't eat food made with flour. It is like the "mooncake" of Chinese style, but this is made in Korea style.

All 12 round cookies are in different flavor (we haven't finished eating it, but until now the fillings inside the cookies we ate were all different.

Roll cake - the one we like it so much - soft and the cream is made with a different flavor from other bakery.

This was bought by one of our church family while we had the lunch gathering at our house this Sunday. The bakery is 가또마들렌 Gateau Madeleine.

The bakery which I like to visit, Aroo Bakery, didn't make any bread recently but only cakes. I'm not sure what happened but I think may be I should pay a visit and ask them about it.

Ok... this is the white day chocolate bought by hubby.
Happy it is a dark chocolate, but ... it is high calory oh! :P

It is packed individually.

It is made in Korea. erm... not really as good as cadbury anyway. :)

And last but not the least, the food I had for my lunch! All made by me...
tofu - boiled in water, instead of fried.
sauce of tofu (home-made)
raw green vege - 돈나무 Japanese Pittosporum 
samjjang sauce made by pastor's wife
soybean paste stew (tofu, radish)
sliced radish kimchi  (home-made)
and rice...

a totally full lunch.

What do you have  in this March - though it should be spring, it snowed and the weather is still cold. Hachoo! I just kept myself in water and vitamin C most of the  time. Take care of your body well too!

Long time no see... long time no eat

I haven't updated my blog lately, busy of house moving after I returned back from Malaysia, and finally almost settled everything, and now I have the time to blog again. There is also another reason that we have only 1 notebook that 2 of us share, and hubby is going to buy me a new laptop soon... yet, must save hard after buying that.

Anyway, the topic today is that: we ordered chicken today... long time no eat, though we're learning to be vegetarian lately.

I checked online that which fried chicken branches at our new area, Guui-3-dong, and the list is long in Naver search website. The rates given by the customers  was my consideration since it was hard to choose. And I found this new brand - Home Chicken - baked chicken shop.

The difference from other shop is:
the chicken is not fried,
pickles and radish provided do not add in chemical ingredients.

The price is also reasonable too.
We ordered sweet lemon chicken this time - 15,800 won for 1 bucket.

It came with lemon sauce and black spicy sauce.
Also, it came with a mini box of vegetables! Special! I love it!

not the normal salad with dressing, it's just nice - raw vege!

We had this with rice and it made us so full!
It is different from the chicken style of lemon chicken.

This shop promotes home chicken campaign. The price range is as follows:
Baked wings:
Black spicy wings, Hawaiian Teriyaki Wings, Original Garlic Wings, Sweet Lemon Wings, Barbecue 17 Wings, Chinese Chili Baked Wings.
   1/2 basket: 8,200 won
   1 basket: 16,400 won
Plain Baked Wings
   1/2 basket: 7,900 won
   1 basket: 15,800 won

Baked Chicken  (original garlic chicken, spicy garlic chicken, plain chicken)
  15,800 won

new menu:
herb garden chicken 15,000 won per basket
wings & chops 15,800 won per basket

side menu:
baked chops, spicy chops 7,800 won
meat sauce potatoes 5,200 won
baked wedge potato 3,200 won
baked tortila 1000 won
french biscuit 1,900 won
mexican side 1000 won
soft drinks 1000 won

Coupons are given too for the next order.

Website is here.
Tel: 1588-5111

Bakery Aroo

We get to know about this bakery when it has a cafe on the first floor of the building same as our church. It is actually one of the bakery which sells delicious cakes and cookies at the Departmental Stores of Korea (I saw one at the Lotte Departmental Store, Jamsil branch).

Every morning the smell of baking is so strong and always makes us hungry when we walk in the building. The cafe here sells breads mainly and cakes too.

Order cake from the counter.
From 7pm - 8pm the bread has 20% discount price.
Both dining and take-out drinks are available too.

The cheapest bread is this - garlic bread stick 1000won for 4!

I also like to eat their pumpkin cheese bread. Recently I found out this bread (photo above) is also good! The bread is so soft!

Their well-being bread. They keep producing well-being bread, and one of them is made with the ingredient mainly for diabetes patients.

I saw this cookie but we never try it before as the price is unaffordable for us. But I think it is also yummy!

Their cakes are marvelous! Special and yummy, especially their cheese cake. (Japanese-style cake)

This Aroo Bakery is at Seoul Gwangjin-gu, Guui-dong, 254-86.

서울특별시 광진구 구의1동 254-86 아루빌딩 1층

(Beside Gwangji-gu police station)

Ox Bone Soup 설렁탕

Korean beef  soup is yummy! It is  not oily, not too many meat inside the soup and the taste is just enough to feed our stomach for a full meal!

There are mainly 2 kinds of beef soup, one is with bone 갈비탕 galbi-tang and another is without bone 설렁탕 seol-leong-tang. Since Korean beef is expensive, most of the time Korean restaurants serves Australian beef. 

The bowl consists of soup with meat, lots of sliced onion spring is a stainless steel big bowl.
A bowl of rice is served too.

We went to the Guui branch of Sinseon Seolnongtang 신선설농탕 beef soup restaurant. Here serves very nice beef soup, high efficiency and very good service too. The servants will help you to cut the kimchi and serve on the table. The spoons and chopsticks are put in a special made box attached to the table. Kimchi are also served with 3 types: cabbage (old and new) and radish.

The above paper on  the table is prepared by the  restaurant. It is to put your spoon and chopsticks.

The way of having the beef soup is also written there:

1. The new made kimchi can be eaten with the soup or mix with the soup - both tastes have their own special taste.
2. You may ask for the water of the radish kimchi to put in your soup. The taste is different again.

Newly made kimchi has high fibroid material and lactic acid  bacteria which is good for our health.

Do you see the meat? They are thin slices and easy to chew.

If you think ginseng chicken is too full to eat, get this one. This one is also very full indeed but will not too much because you will sure eat a lot of kimchi with this  one.

The Guui branch is at Subway line 2 Guui station, Exit 1, walk about 500m. You will see it which is in  the middle of Gwangjin city hall and Police station. The car park is available.

Tel: 02-454-7944.

순대국 Soon-Dae-guk

순대 a sausage made of bean curd and green-bean sprouts stuffed in pig intestine (from naver dictionary)

This is the food that I was rejected to eat for the past 4 years I have been living at Korea - I felt uneasy with the smell when I tried for the first time. However, I started to like it after I ate it with 떡볶이 spicy fried rice cake once. So I asked my husband to bring me to the restaurant to eat the soup with soon-dae.

We passed by this restaurant which is near  to our house. However, I saw the same signboard at other areas too. I think they have a lot of branches throughout the country.

Inside the restaurant always have traditional Korean stuff exhibited.

Calligraphy writings

Korean traditional stuff

Ok... now let's see the side dishes prepared on the table before the soup was served.

2 types of kimchi: cabbage and radish kimchi are served. You  have to cut it to smaller pieces which a pair of scissors are given.  The fresh green pepper and spring onion are important ingredients to add in  the soup. (Smell the pepper before you put it in your soup - assometimes  it is very spicy that even you put little, it already makes your hot!)

Sauces  and onion.

The soup contains soon-dae (one is with noodle and another one is with meat), and meats. Put in the rice and mix it well. You also can choose not to put the rice into the soup if you like solid rice.

This restaurant serves very good soon-dae-guk. Thumbs up!

How do I know? Because we went to another restaurant the week after the trip above, and it was not so good. Howevr, I found this useful information in this restaurant which located at Guk-su-ri, YangPyeong area.

How to eat soon-dae-guk?
1. Put in the spring onion and sliced chilli pepp.
2. Put in the sesame poweder and sauce.
3. Put in the mini shrimp - amount with your own liked taste.
4. Lastly, add in little salt.

Koreans do not have soup like we Chinese who already add in all ingredients in the soup. They prepare the raw vegetables and the sauces so that you can make it your own taste of soup. Amazingly cool!

Found the website online:
http://www.yonginsoondae.co.kr/
Yong-in-soon-dae at Namyangju, Doekso branch
남양주시 와부읍 월문리
Tel: 031-576-5588

Please have a try if you really want to know what Korean likes. :)

Delivery service

Korea has a famous thing that everybody should know - delivery service - efficiency and effectiveness! Fast and good service! It applies to almost everything!

Internet service - shopping mall for clothes, daily necessities and even food. Even you no need to walk in to the mart to choose the things you want, but choose online and on the day you order (morning), you can get it in the afternoon/evening.

What I want to say here - is home food delivery service - almost apply to every food too! From pizza, chicken, Korean main dish like pork leg, noodle, even cold noodle and etc. 15-30 minutes they will reach your home. Cash is needed while some can offer card payment.
Tips: If you order from chinese restaurant, there is a plastic bag given to you too - after finishing your meal, put in the plates in the plastic bag, put it outside your house so that they can take it back later.

We order chicken once in a while.
Today we chose a shop which sells chicken cheap - 2 + 500ml cola + coupon = 19,000 won. However, it was not very delicious.

It's 촌닭치킨 shop. The special is that it has rice cake mixed with the chicken. Not bad. Anyway, I don't think I will order from them again. :P

VIPS restaurant mania !?

oh... another visit to VIPS family restaurant again. I think we're mania.

This time before chuseok (mid autumn festival) we visited with 6 other female Korean church family. They ate more than us! We learnt from them a lot how to eat more in buffet style restaurant. :P

We went to the branch near to Grand Children Park at Seoul. If you go at the lunch time, you're expected to wait at least 10-15 minutes. However, you're free to have a cup of cold juice and cookies or snacks. It really helps when you bring children along with you. Also there is computer which is free to use.

This branch has wider space and the interior design is nice too. See the love shape made by the wine?

This is the salad bar view... ok... not spain food but just a  Korean wore a no. 3 Spain soccer t-shirt.

Let's see what we had this time!

They change their menu again.
salad -  add on mushroom salad, soup add on ginseng chicken soup, and the rice noodle change back to soup style. Finally I tried the taco this time, yummy!

They serve 2 types of  pizza at this branch too.
Do not miss their ice-cream - both yoghurt and green tea ice-cream are available. Also, yoghurt!

ChuSeok - Mid autumn festival

3rd Oct this year - also is the 15th of 8th month of lunar year - is 추석 chu seok, an important festival for Koreans, and Chinese too. Korea has 3 days holidays for this festival every year, similar to 설날 New Year.

Since this year it fell on Saturday, in order to escape from the traffic jam on the highways, we did not go back to my husband's hometown - Pohang to celebrate the festival with my parents-in-law. We feel sorry that we could not go home to visit them and spend time with them. Yet, my mother-in-law did not forget us and sent a lot of food to us.

We went to Traditional Folk Museum and Gwanghwamun Plaza on the day of ChuSeok this year. I will blog it later. On Sunday, we celebrated together with our church family. For those  who celebrated at home, they brought food from home and shared together.

I was so excited to see the festival food though I don't really like fried food.

The food had already been fried the day before - 전 fried.

The Koreans had fried pancake , fried mushroom, fried minced pork meat, fried fish, fried octopus, fried crab meat with ham, and etc. All things are fried!

So how to reheat the food? Do not add any oil in the fry pan again. Just put it on the fry pan and reheat it! Otherwise it will be fried in double oil.

Another food should be eaten in this  festival is 송편 SongPyeon, a kind of rice cake. I didn't take any photos for that, but I took this - a kind of snacks made from rice. My mother-in-law can make this herself.

Food is important in the festival. Chinese eats moon cake, and I miss the mooncake this year.

Bibimbap - must try Korean food

When my friend and her husband visited Korea last month, she asked me what food that she must take. I say, Bibimbap - Korean mix rice! You just can't reject this food after you try it, believe me!
This is also the  food mostly that can be seen in  the Korean drama or movie.

We went to this restaurant before we shopped at Namdaemun market. It is just next to the subway station.

Shinsaegae Department Store (main branch - myeongdong)
10th floor
Restaurant: 산민들레 San-mindelle
Menu:

Jeonju style traditional rice topped with wild vegetables and meat 전주전통비빔밥
9,000 won

and

Rice topped with vegetables, cheese and grilled beef, served with hot stove pot 치즈불고기돌솥비빔밥

9,500 won

There are other menus like the

rice served with hot stove pot like above, without cheese; 8,500 won

rice topped with octopus; 9,500 won

with kimchi and fish roe; 9.500 won

and etc.

Having Korean food is an enjoyable thing. It is because they don't only serve the food you order, but they serve you with other side dishes which will also make you so full!

2 kinds of soups: spring sprout soup and seaweed soup. Both is too cool down the heat of our body.

no miss kimchi

 

a kind of raw seafood, and peanut

You see, whole table is full of food! - Not only  the side dishes I had taken photos one by one, but also the 전 fried vegetables, bulgogi - korean style fried meat, and a bowl of jelly soup 무.

As a whole, this restaurant serves nice food.

If you want to have bibimbap, you can try it at anywhere. Just the matter is - even you can eat at the restaurant serves kimbap and normal Korean dishes. They are not as  professional as the restaurants which serve only bibimbap. If you really  want to try the delicious bibimbap, go for the restaurant which only serves bibimbap. It is served in more traditional way.