7 October 2010
Folks, I finally had the opportunity to fly to South Korea to commission a project. I traveled to Ulsan, a town that famous for whales. Again I was working on a steam turbine project. I would not miss the opportunity for great Korean cuisine for my four-day working experience in Ulsan.
I have a beautiful Korean friend by the name of Ji Yeon, who is studying in Scotland. She is one of the best photographer and digital artist I know so far. She is extremely cute, beautiful and talented. I asked her what dishes represented Korean cuisine other than kimchi, she told me that would be Yakiniku (grilled meat), Oritang (soup with simmering duck and various vegetables) and Jajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce, and meats and such of my choosing). She also told me I must tried Yakiniku above all else. I headed for her advise and tried Yakiniku.
I was told that Koreans were not particular about food. Their food were just rice in soup with kimchi basically. The most well known dishes I heard so far in Singapore were Ginseng Chicken Soup with Gluttonous Rice and Yakiniku. I tried the Ginseng Chicken Soup with Gluttonous Rice and I liked the dish very much. The soup was clear and tasty. The abalone added sweetness to the soup. The glutinous rice and the chicken absorbed the flavour of ginseng, abalone and other herbs. I will definitely find a Korean restaurant in Singapore to taste the dish again.
My customer knew that I loved pork. So he brought me to different restaurants in Ulsan for Yakiniku every day. I fell in love with Korean pork. I could see the fats within the meat and these made the meat so beautiful. It could be mistakenly by others that it was marble meat, Tokyo X. In fact the meat is the pork belly. If I grilled it perfectly, the meat was soft and tender. If I overcooked it for too long, it became crispy, just like bacon. The best way to eat with the grilled pork was to warp it with the grilled kimchi and a special sauce together by veggie leaves. The special sauce consisted of sesame oil, fine salt and pepper. The sauce did justice to the grilled pork and perfect the taste. The sesame oil added nice fragrant to the grilled pork, the fine salt enhanced the pork flavour and the pepper added spicy flavour to it. I loved the dish very much. I felt guilty because I had too much pork fats during my four-day trips. But the guiltiness would not stop me for tasting the grilled pork. =P
Who wants to try these? They were Beondegi, the silkworm pupa, and they were quite popular in Korea cuisine as side dish. I guessed my good Scottish friend, Andrew would like to try them.
Folks, time for me to sleep. I needed to go to the dreamland to taste my Korean grilled pork once again. Catch later.
