4 posts tagged “korean food”

that I shared my half-eaten lunch from my favorite restaurant with you! Victoria's dad and stepmom were supposed to be picking her up around 1pm to take her down to North Carolina. (They are moving this weekend.) So anyway, I decided to just let her stay home from school and take her to lunch.

Northern Geek gets a gold star for guessing what I was eating. Yes, that was bulgogi in the bottom left corner. There was also a ginger salad, shrimp and vegetable tempura, kim chee (sp?), california roll, and a measly orange slice. MW, there wasn't much meat because I had already devoured most of it. Bulgogi is so yummy and I was very hungry. Didn't think about taking a picture til I had already dug in. Not sure if that would be considered a Bento box. Anyone else know?

As for using the chopsticks, Jamie, I'm not one bit fancy. I'm weird. I'm the kind of gal that doesn't like to make requests, so if there are only chopsticks on the table, I only use chopsticks. I wouldn't dare make trouble for the waitress by asking her for a fork. What if I was the first person that had ever asked for one?!?! Oh the horror! Oh the embarrassment! I also hate calling in pizza or any other carry out. I would also rather just eat a messed up order than let the waitress know she got it wrong. So, um, because of this, I have actually become quite good at using chopsticks. It helps that Steve knew how to use them from years of living in Japan. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd still be flinging food when I tried to use them.

So yup, that was my lunch at the Korean/Japanese restaurant. It's not only good, it's family owned, comfy and cheap too! By the way, Melissa, they do not serve hamburgers there, but they do have a very impressive sushi menu. I highly recommend the squid. Heh. I'll have to take you there if you ever get down to my neck of the woods!

I'm sure by now, you all have realized what a "foodie" I am. I just love the stuff. More recently my taste for cheap fast food has diminished. Find myself not only passing up McDonalds, but Chick Fil A too. Give me Panera Bread at least. Better yet, how about a good Thai restaurant or Korean even? Mmmmm.

My mom spent the night after coming down for Josiah's birthday. She made an awesome chocolate cake for his birthday. She used applesauce and egg whites instead of oil and whole eggs. She also added a box of instant pudding to the mix. The result was a moist dense cake like you wouldn't believe. It's been calling me from the kitchen, but I have my fingers in my eyes while yelling, "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" And yet, I can still type. I amaze myself.

Anyway, my mom spent the night. So she was here at lunch time. She wanted to go to Wal-Mart to get new curlers. I wanted to take her to my new favorite restaurant. We went to the Korean/Japanese restaurant. I made her get the Bulgogi lunch box. She also wanted sushi. She saw the squid and wanted it. The waitress came over to the table and asked what we wanted. I said, "We'll take the bulgogi lunch boxes." Then I looked at my mom and said, "And you wanted some sushi, right?

She opened her mouth and I was expecting her to give the girl her sushi order, oh no, she launches into this complete story. "When I was a little girl, my dad used to cook squid. He would put it in our spaghetti sauce and cook it all day. It was really good." I wanted to bust out laughing. The poor waitress looked perplexed. She went on. "I loved it when he would cook it with squid. So I think I'll have the squid." She pointed to the word "squid" on the sushi menu. Like my Pop making spaghetti sauce with squid would have any bearing on whether she liked sushi made with raw squid. Makes perfect sense, right?

So we had squid. Uncooked squid without the spaghetti sauce and over rice. We loved it, luckily. And the waitress, such a sweetheart, when we went up to the register to pay, she asked, "So how was the squid? Was it as good as when your father used to make it?" Bless her heart.

I am so tired of certain kinds of food lately. Hamburgers, steak, chicken, ribs, french fries, all those staples of American restaurants just haven't sounded appealing to me for quite awhile. I am tired of all the chain restaurants, even chinese seems just so everyday.

Today, I found some new stuff to wake up my taste buds. First I rediscovered bulgogi. I used to go to church with this wonderful lady, who also happened to be Korean. Boy could she cook bulgogi! Any pot luck, I would always be sure to ask her what dish on the table was hers because I knew it was sure to have bulgogi and sweet sticky rice. The restaurant we ate at had lunch boxes (reminded me of the bento boxes Brown-eyed Girl once wrote about. I chose the bulgogi box. It came with kimchi, miso soup, 3 pieces of vegetable tempura, 1 piece of shrimp tempura, 6 pieces of california roll, salad, and of course, sticky rice and bulgogi. Not realizing how much food came in the box, we also ordered gyoza (a fried pork dumpling) and edamame (soybeans in the pod). Let me just say, it was divine. I am completely stuffed. And I wasn't even miffed that they don't have forks, just chopsticks. 3 years ago I would have freaked out if there wasn't a fork on the table. Thanks to Steve I can actually use chopsticks and get the food in my mouth too!

Ok, the kids just walked in the door from school. I need to get dinner started and get homework done. I'm taking all five kids with me to choir practice tonight. Just say a prayer that they all behave and sit quietly. The less I have to shoot them the evil mom eye the better.

I guess I'm like my Mom-Mom. Nothing makes me happier than being taken out to lunch. Steve has to drive down to North Carolina for a business trip tonight. I am going to drive him to get his rental car. Before that, he is going to take me out to lunch. I've been wanting to eat at this newer Japanese/Korean restaurant. I've got a bad craving for edamame and gyoza (sp?), maybe some bulgogi and japchae too. I just love food. Is that so wrong?