Live Octopus

Live octopus (San Nakji) is a delicacy in Korea. They pull it out of the tank, humanely kill it, chop it up, and serve it with sesame oil and salt. I had it once in Incheon about 20 years ago, and finally got to have it again in LA. We went to Masan Restaurant, which I assume is named after the coastal city of Masan. Here's the video:

It's very tasty, but it's hard to pick up because the suckers stick to the dish. I had to use my chopsticks and my hands to encourage them to let go, then dip them in the sesame oil-salt mix, then pop them in your mouth. The texture is chewy and crunchy. They'll stick briefly to your mouth but come off easily. And they're very tasty to me.

Kalbi Tang

(By Jim)
We haven't written about Gamasot lately. We still go frequently, and I think it's still one of the best places for Korean soups and some other dishes. With the kitchen project underway and Barbara suffering from a cold we decided to head there for dinner to get some restorative soup.
The sollongtang is still fantastic. They add some tendon as well as the sliced beef to it these days. Barbara tried it, and didn't dislike it, but it doesn't have much taste. It's more of a texture food.
My favorite these days is the kalbi tang, beef short rib in beef broth with some egg, green onion, and I think radish. The broth is seasoned with black pepper and is soothing. The meat off the rib is tender, and is supplemented with some thin slices of brisket.
The pan fried dumplings (mandoo gui) are a treat. They can be a little greasy, but I don't care. They're delicious.
The kimchee has been very good lately, having that fizzy feeling on the tongue from the natural fermentation. They've recently added goat to the menu, although I haven't tried it yet.

I'm surprised that the place hasn't been more crowded lately. With fall coming on, it's time to have some soothing, warming soup to sustain us. Go, and go often.

Chap Chae

After we got home from our trip, I was tired and jet lagged. I didn't have the energy to do a lot of grocery shopping either. Thankfully Jim hit Trader Joe's before he picked me up from the airport and got essentials like coffee and pizza fixin's. Plus we had a few things in the freezer that held us over until the end of the week until my day off on Friday.

I went to El Grande off Backlick Road in Springfield to stock up on some fresh veggies and to snag a few ingredients I needed for a beef rendang recipe I wanted to try. Just inside the front of the store to the left is a small food court connected by a little area filled with fresh Korean foods like kimchee and various panchan dishes. After looking through all the choices nothing appealed until I spied a package of Chapchae (also spelled japchae). I could smell the seasoning through the package and almost drooled. It was full of cellophane noodles, wood ear mushrooms, watercress, carrots, bean sprouts, red pepper and onion as well as lots of sesame seeds. This would would be a nice dinner once I added some cooked meat.

And it was so easy to serve! I sliced some chicken and cooked it in a skillet until done then tossed in the chapchae noodles and veggies, added a sprinkle of soy sauce and sesame seeds and dinner was served. The flavors were very good, especially for a packaged precooked meal. I'll be sure to look for this item again when we need a quick and easy meal for the week.

You say Donkatsu, I say Tonkatsu

Either way you say it, it's good. This version was made for me by a co-worker. She's from Korea and knows that Jim and I love Korean food. In fact, Jim even spent 8 months in Korea while in college studying abroad. He has lots of good memories from his time there and many of them involve food (and beer) .

To make this tasty dish at home, try this recipe.

Tonkatsu

4 boneless pork chops, 1/2 inch thick
2 tablespoons flour
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
Vegetable oil (for frying)

Pound pork to 1/4-inch thickness. Coat with flour, then dip into egg, and finally coat thoroughly with Panko. Deep fry in 1 inch vegetable oil, heated to 350º, 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.

Top with tonkatsu sauce and serve on rice with some shredded cabbage and sliced pear.

Gamasot revisited (With pictures)

Just a quick post about our latest trip to Gamasot. We stopped there Saturday night for dinner armed with the camera. The word gamasot means iron pot and is used to make soups in Korea.

This is Soondae, a Korean blood sausage mixed with pork, rice, and spice. I'm sure there are other things included as the link above will show. It is served with a little dish of salt and ground red pepper that you dip the sausage into. I like it a little although I don't think I'll go out of my way to get it. Biscuit Boy doesn't care for it.

When you first sit down at a table in a Korean restaurant, you suddenly have little plates of food come to the table called Banchan or Panchan. Variety and the number of banchan you get varies from restaurant to restaurant.

We ordered a plate of Mandoo Gui. Biscuit Boy says these are the best he's had outside of Korea (he spent 4 months there as an exchange student at Yonsei Univeristy).

One of our friends ordered Yook Gae Jang, a soup of spicy broth, egg, shredded beef and vegetables and noodles.

Biscuit Boy ordered Bi Bun Naeng Myun. This is a dish of buckwheat noodles, sliced beef, and vegetables served with a cold broth and very spicy.

I ordered the Sul Leung Tang, a beef bone broth served with rice and beef slices.

And if you ever wondered what a gamasot looks like, well here ya go. The mother of all gamasots right in the middle of the open kitchen.

Gamasot Restaurant

Biscuit was cravin' some seolleong-tang so he asked around online for some good places to go here is the DC area. Someone on Don Rockwell's suggested Gamasot, a small restaurant in a strip mall just off Backlick Road in the Springfield area of Northern Virginia. It had a limited menu and I was hesitant about going. Why? Well, I didn't know how limited and if any of the choices besides the seolleong-tang would sound interesting.

But I'm glad I decided to give it a shot. The place is very nicely decorated inside, clean lines with light colored walls, dark tables and a tan slate floor. There are a few traditional tables along one wall that are partially screened off from the rest of the place. These tables are low to the floor and require you to sit on cushions on the floor. And towards the back of the place is a glass wall that looks into a kitchen.

On the table is a table tent with the menu options with the Korean and English translation. But if you're like me and know a few things like Dol Sot Bi Bim Bop or Seolleong-tang, the lack of a brief explanation of the dish is needed. If that's the case, the waitress will gladly give you a bigger menu that tells you what is in each dish.

There were about two dozen choices ranging from soups to rice dishes. Biscuit Boy got the seolleong-tang and I got a bi bim bop that was served in a hot stone pot. After we placed our orders, the waitress brought out about a half dozen panchans, small dishes of tasty treats like kimchee, a pickled veggie, mini vegetable pancakes and soondae (a Korean blood sausage). A small pot of cabbage and radish kimchee was also brought out and cut up tableside. Biscuit rating for the panchan = 3.5 biscuits

Biscuit Boy's soup came out in a nice sized stone pot. It was loaded with noodles and sliced beef. It's usually garnished with salt and sliced green onion which were already on the table when we arrived. Biscuit rating = 5 biscuits!

My dish came out sizzling like crazy. A bed of rice with veggies and some ground beef placed on top followed by an raw egg dropped on top of everything. The heat of the pot and it's contents actually cook the egg. Two little bowls of hot bean paste were also on the table for me to add as I needed. And in addition to my hot pot, I got a small bowl of the seolleong-tang broth. Nice. Biscuit rating = 4 biscuits

The soup was the best that Biscuit Boy's had since he was in Korea many years ago. It was rich, flavorful and slightly thick. A little salt and a sprinkling of green onions completed the dish. The bi bim bop needed the hot bean paste to help perk it up but it was probably the best I've had of all the Korean places I've tried. Because the bowl is so hot, the contents stay warm down to the last bite. And the best part is the little bit of rice that gets stuck to the sides of the pot. Scrape them away and enjoy the crunchy goodness.

We did have to ask our waitress what one thing was on the table. She placed another stone pot at the end of the table that contained some rice and a warm liquid. Using a paddle like spoon, she scraped the rice away from the sides of the pot and left it. We looked at each other, then back at the pot. Hmm...... When she came back to see how our food was, I sheepishly asked her about it. She explained that it was for after we finished our meal. It was actually quite nice. The liquid tasted like a barley tea. It was simple, almost too plain in flavor but really helped cool off your mouth. After eatting a bunch of kimchee and hot bean paste, there was just a little heat still lingering when we finished our meals so this was a nice way to help clear things out.

We brought the camera but didn't take any pictures. There weren't that many people there when we first go there and didn't want to make a commotion. We decided to go back on a Saturday night when it may be a little busier so we wouldn't be so obvious.

Overall Biscuit rating = 4.5 biscuits for food and service

Our tab was $22. Not bad at all.

Gamasot
6963 Hechinger Rd
Springfield, VA 22151
703-256-0780
Hours:
Sun - Thur: 11 am to 11 pm
Fri & Sat: 11 am to midnight

Adventures in Korean dining

After eating at home all week, we decided to go out for dinner tonight. We couldn't decide where to go until we both got home from work. Biscuit Boy finally decided for us, we would go to A&J's. I mentioned them in my last post. It's the nummy Chinese place where we can feast on the cheap. So we pointed the car westward and off we went.

While we were driving we remembered this little Korean place that was just before A&J's. We've been curious about it for the longest time but never tried it. We talked about trying it several times but always decided to wait til another time. Tonight was that time.

There is no English on the outside of the building except for "24 hours." Ok.....we knew it was a Korean restaurant that was open 24 hours a day, interest was piqued. A little searching on the Internet yielded a little tidbit of information. Tyler Cowen, a local economics professor at George Mason University is a true foodie. He's compiled an extensive list of restaurants in the DC Metro area organized by country. You can check it out here: Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide. He's usually spot on and we've discovered several places thanks to the list.

But anyway, back to the restaurant. It's called Sun-dal Chung. It's very small with only 11 (maybe 12) tables in the place. The limited menu was printed on the paper placemats. Hmm....so far so good. The menu options were written in Korean (of course) with an English translation that didn't quite match the common names we were familiar with. Thankfully we figured out what the items were when the waitress came by for our orders. In fact, I think it earned us a few Korean brownie points when we ordered using the familiar names. I ordered the duk mandoo guk, a beef dumpling and rice cake soup. It comes with strips of egg, green onion and seaweed floating on top of it. Biscuit Boy got the Seolleong-tang (so-long-tonge), a soup made from stewed beef bones served with sliced beef and thin noodles. And as with most Korean restaurants an assortment of panchan arrived at the table as well. There was kimchi, mung bean sprouts seasoned with garlic, shredded fish cake with sesame oil, sliced pickled eggplant and little squares of fried tofu.

Everything was very good. The soups came out blistering hot so we nibbled on the panchan while they cooled a little. The kimchi was fairly spicy but could have been kicked up a notch or two, the bean sprouts were nice and crunchy with a garlicky tang. The fish cake was my favorite. Thin strips tossed with green onion, sesame oil and some other unidentified spices. The fried tofu was nice, little squares with (I think) a touch of soy sauce and green onions. My least favorite was the eggplant. It had a funky taste. I left those for Biscuit Boy.

Our soups were excellent. Mine (the Duk mandoo guk) had a nice light beef bone based broth, about 6 dumplings, rice cakes, shredded egg, green onion and seaweed. It came in an enormous bowl. I did well to get 2/3 of it eaten. The Seolleong-tang had a rich beef bone broth, lots of slices of beef and a little nest of noodles lying below the surface. After Biscuit Boy seasoned it with salt and pepper he dumped in a little bowl of rice, stirred it up and tucked in. He came up for air after a few minutes and pronounced the soup to be good. We watched as other things came out of the kitchen for nearby tables, made a few mental notes and said we'd have to come back soon. And I'll bring the camera.

Our tab was barely over $17. Good eats done cheap.