All posts filed under: Taste

Food blogs at your disposal.

Salon de Ddalki | Strawberry Salon

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Strawberry, I ❤ you. There’s an amazing phenomenon that happens in Seoul during the winter strawberry season. The grand hotels of this great city decided several years ago that just buying strawberries in the local mart was not enough to truly enjoy this delicious season. So, as if in protest, they all began having gorgeous strawberry buffets all around the city. Just do a search for strawberry buffets in Seoul and you’ll see examples from the Intercontinental, Lotte Hotel, Renaissance Seoul and the JW Marriott.  And it was at the last one, the JW Marriot,  I found myself last weekend, much to my inner child’s delight! The Salon de Ddalki (Strawberry Salon) was every girl’s  pink paradise. They knew exactly who they were catering to and I have to give them ample admiration for that. Seoul may be the only place in the world who could properly do a retro French theme of Barbie proportions like Salon de Ddalki. The place was covered in girly goo love from the pink color of the server’s princess cut dresses, to the strawberry pillows, the …

Crispy Skinned Fish

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Fish with skin. Who knew that you could cook skin on the fish, eat it AND it be delicious? Like really, amazingly delicious. Seems so wrong, yet it tastes so right. I got this easy as pie recipe from Bon Appetit and was very proud of myself for having followed through on a Bon Appetit recipe. I used a Spanish mackerel for this recipe. BA says you can also use salmon, red snapper or pompano if you can’t find mackerel. I used a grill pan to make crispy grill marks but you can use a regular pan as well. NOTE: You need a non-stick pan. However, if you follow the link to Bon Appetite, you will find how to create a faux non stick surface with oil. Recipe adapted from: Bon Appetit Ingredients: 2 6 ounce fillets of fish 2 TBS of olive oil Sea Salt Squeeze of lemon Pepper Directions: To prep the fish, place it uncovered on a plate, skin side up. Put in the refrigerator for one hour. Salt both sides of your fish. Heat …

Magnolia Bakery | A Review

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Life is short, eat more cupcakes! I have to admit that I get a lot of baked goods as gifts. It’s wonderful to receive them but, at times, there is far too much for me to eat in my singledom. Very often, I share the gifts with friends or coworkers simply because if I bring it home, I will eat every crumb by myself. Then I will be in a happy/sad food coma we all know too well. But these little colorful babies were all mine. You may recognize the name Magnolia from the epic HBO show, Sex and the City, as Miranda and Carrie stuffed their faces with cupcakes in front of the shop and all the women watching swooned at the sugary goodness. The original spot was founded in New York in 1996 and is known for these adorable, pastel cupcakes that are handmade. I even got the “Carrie” cupcake, which is the little pink darling. So exciting! The most important part? They’re delicious. Sugary sweet and a perfect cupcake size. It felt like …

The Food of Paradise

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The trip I took to Bali over Christmas was a once in a lifetime opportunity for a gal from the Midwest. To fully experience the true essence of Bali I decided to join a traditional cooking class and shove food all in my face. The cooking class at Paon is entertaining, delicious and inspiring. For a measley $24 USD, you spend the morning in the Ubud market learning about fruits, vegetables and spices they use in Balinese cooking, are given an introduction to the family and hosts (Who are amateur comedians, I think), directed to the most beautiful kitchen and work together with a group of strangers who become cooking comrades among knives and hot coconut oil. There was a real sense of community and fun as we cut, chopped, fried, skewered, mashed and rolled real Bali ingredients with real Bali spices.   So let me take you through the culinary dream: We were ushered into one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever seen. The Balinese homes are several rooms situated among a type of small compound. Their home …

Bad Farmers | A Review

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Oh~ My~2016! Where have I been? What’s become of me? Why haven’t I updated my once randomly prolificly updated blog? Can I just say that the end of 2015 was a real bruja and leave it? It was. 2015 was a screaming, boozy harpy I could not get off my back that drew the energy from me like a succubus. I was never so happy to see a year hit itself with the doorknob on the way out. Then…I went to paradise (whispers~Bali) and all was right in the world again. So I’m back. I am recharged. I am finally looking forward to the future again now that I can see the daylight. Welcome to my life, 2016! To start off in the most cliche of New Year’s ways, I’m introducing a salad place in Seoul so that we all feel guilty and go eat a salad. Because it’s the start of a new year and, so, like half of us are probably riding the diet train until at least February. 😀 However, Bad Farmers doesn’t feel like a …

The Flying Pan White & Autumn in Garosugil

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We Seoulites can count ourselves lucky with all fingers and toes this year with how long we had a “autumn” in Korea. Some years it snaps by with a “see ya next year!” faster than I can get out and enjoy some colorful foliage. So with the beautiful weather all about and an empty stomach, my friend and I headed to Garosugil to walk through fallen ginkgo leaves and eat some brunch.  We weren’t disappointed with anything that day. The Flying Pan is well known brunch and breakfast spot in Itaewon where it is known as The Flying Pan Blue. But, it’s a chain and the one is Garosugil is known as The Flying Pan White. (There’s also a Red in the GT Tower near Gangnam Station and a Gold in Samseung-dong. ) They all have ALL DAY brunch. Here’s what White is all about: The menu has a great many options. If eggs aren’t your thing, they have pancakes, french toast, sandwiches, salads and dinner dishes. There are vegetarian dishes as well. We ordered two meals with …

Cornbread Waffles with Kimchi & Eggs

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I recently redid my kitchen basically because my toaster oven died. The old girl served me well for three years but it just couldn’t handle my cooking prowess anymore.  My upgrade was exceptionally larger and could no longer go on top of my bitty refrigerator anymore. So I had to buy a new table to fit the new oven. The new island transformed my kitchen from boring to modern and fun. And my new oven came with LOADS of free stuff including baking sheets, a pizza pan, roasting pans, muffin pans, an electric food scale AND a waffle maker! Korean “service” never ceases to amaze me! (service = free stuff!) I have been pinning waffle recipes like crazy and decided that this weekend was the weekend to break that waffle maker in. I was craving savory and so I settled in on a cornbread waffle recipe to hit the- rainy Saturday brunch -spot. NOTES: These are best eaten the day you make them but I froze a bunch to toast up and slather with butter later. …

OM Restaurant & Bar | A Review

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I would love to say that I’m so dedicated to finding amazing food that I traveled all the way from Gangnam to Samcheongdong JUST to eat Indian food I read about on the internet. Honestly, though, I love Samcheongdong so it doesn’t take much to get me up there. Sure its crazy busy but there are just so many shops and cafes and galleries…it’s basically heaven, exactly what I think about when I think about how much I love Seoul. But, lets talk about OM. First off, it’s a great name. Onomatopoeia is always awesome. The foods not half bad either. We had potato samosas, chicken tandoori and palak paneer. We added some jasmine rice, garlic naan and Phil had a strawberry lassi for kicks and giggles. The samosas were very much right up my alley. Lots of spices inside with the potato and a crispy outside. My only gripe is that there were only two. An order should come with at least three. (Opinions are solely my own. No one is paying me to express …

Creamy Tofu Soup

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The air is frosty already and the leaves are beautifully shriveling. Comfort of food is needed. Otherwise, I have to turn on my floor heater (which is ah-mazing) and spend all my food money on heating. Frankly, I’d rather spend it on ingredients. SOUP! It is soup time in the world of South Korea. (Actually, Koreans eat soup all year long for damn near every meal, but I’m working with my sensibilities.) Cold weather means soup to me and since I’ve grown to like tofu and don’t buy cream anymore, it seemed like the perfect consistency for a cream alternative. This was a kitchen experiment so the amount is quite small, perhaps enough for two bowls of soup. You can always double the recipe or add alternate ingredients to bulk this puppy up. The soup is basically a nondairy cream alternative that can be used as a base for creamy soups. And it tastes goo-ood. The trick is to take away the tofu smell-taste. That’s where the garlic comes in! Garlic covers a multitude of sins in the …

Giani’s Napoli Pizzeria | A Review

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Conversation that led to the slight disagreement that led to Phil  conceding to go to Giani’s Napoli Pizzeria. Me: (after searching for a frustratingly twenty minutes on my Pinterest board for a place to eat dinner) I know! Let’s go to that Napoli Pizza place in Garosugil! Phil: B-b-but you said we can’t go there until you have done really well on your diet and… Me: Phil. Phil: You told me last time! You said we can’t go until you are doing really well on your diet! Me: Phil, do you really want to be saying this? Phil: Okay. Let’s go there. He meant well, of course. Phil is trying hard to be my cheerleader of eating better. It’s obviously not an easy task. And while I was not doing terrifically on a diet, I had been good for most of the week. 🙂 That was good enough for me! Plus it’s thin crust pizza. How many calories can it possibly hold?? The pizza is pretty nice. It could benefit from a longer baking time to make …