Gaonnuri

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I stayed in Koreatown when I was in NY for Fashion Week. Despite all the tempting offerings that surrounded my hotel, I kept my consumption of Korean food to one meal. And what a meal it was!

Gaonnuri is on the 39th floor of a building at 32nd and Broadway. The sweeping views of the city are only somewhat distracting from the excellent food. With a menu full of tempting Korean dishes like haemul pajun (scallion and seafood pancake) and japchae (stir fried glass noodles) plus the option of tableside barbecue, I had a hard time making decisions. I wanted it all, so that's what I had - the tasting menu. Eight courses, including dessert, plus an amuse bouche. Washed down with Hite beer.

The rather bland amuse was a thin rice porridge, perhaps to clean the palate of any previously consumed flavors.

PORK TROTTER NAENG-CHE 족발 냉채

Thinly Sliced Steamed Pork Trotter Wrap With Vegetables And Soy Mustard Dressing

If I didn't know this dish was pork, I would have thought it was beef. The medium-thin slices were served chilled, and were somewhat difficult to eat with chopsticks and a spoon (traditional Korean tableware). I managed. The dish, though meaty, was a light and refreshing start to the meal.

DUMPLING SOUP 만두국

Steamed Dumpling Soup With Mushroom

Two kinds of Korean dumplings and shredded beef and egg floated in an intensely beefy consomme-style broth. I'd take this over won ton soup any time.

MODUM JUN 모듬전

Pancake Sampler – Oyster, Perilla Leaf With Pork, Beef Shortrib

I'm most familiar with crispy, lightly greasy, haemul pajun and we almost always order the seafood and scallion pancake when we eat Korean food. I was not at all familiar with the three varieties served in this course. None were crispy, and the oyster and perilla/pork versions reminded me more of omelets than pancakes. The beef one, wanja jun, was similar to a meatball. Or in the case of my pancake of ground shortrib, beef tartare. The outside was browned, but the inside was close to rare. It was mildly seasoned, so the beef flavor shone. I think it was my favorite of the three.

GALBI JJIM 갈비찜

Traditional Korean Braised Prime Shortribs

One normally finds galbi (or kalbi) in cut in thin slices across several bones, but at Gaonnuri, the short ribs were western-style, served in big meaty chunks, off the bone. Easily the best short ribs I have ever eaten, the meat had a perfect fat-to-meat ratio, and were melt in the mouth tender, with that lovely sweet galbi flavor. Gorgeous.

BLACK COD GUI 은대구 구이

Broiled Black Cod in Caramelized Bean Paste Sauce

If you've ever tried misoyaki butterfish at restaurants like Morimoto or Roy's, then you have an idea of what the black cod gui was like -- tender, very fresh fish with a sweet, caramelized skin. A little bean paste and gochujang on the side could be employed to add variety to individual bites, and the lightly cured kimchi added tartness to the dish.

SEAFOOD DOLSOT BIBIMBAP 해물 돌솥 비빔밥

Mixed Rice With Seafood And Vegetable Served In Hot Stone Bowl AND

DOENJANG JJIGAE 된장찌개

Korean Bean Paste Stew With Beef, Tofu & Vegetables

I love dolsot bibimbap, a dish of rice with vegetables and protein served in a sesame oil-slicked screaming-hot stone bowl. The bowl and oil lightly fry the rice, making for mouthfuls of varying textures once the ingredients are stirred together. This version had shrimp, squid, and a little fish roe, and it was as good or better than any other I've tried. The final savory dish, served at the same time, was a lightly spicy stew with chunks of zucchini, beef, and tofu, and also among the best versions I've tried. A big bowl of it would be a great choice on a blustery night, warming and soothing.

A LA MODE 된장찌개

Frangipane-Apple Galette, Huckleberry Compote, Mascarpone Ice Cream

By the time dessert arrived, I was stuffed, so I couldn't do the lovely crisp apple galette justice. I felt the huckleberry compote to be a little on the sweet side, but otherwise I enjoyed the few bites I was able to eat.

All that for $105, with an amazing view of the city. I'd definitely do it again (and take Mr Minx along for the ride).

Gaonnuri
1250 Broadway
Penthouse, 39th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212. 971. 9045



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Be One Korean BBQ

We are carnivores, so we love us some Korean BBQ. We've been going to Honey Pig, which we like a lot, but sometimes we don't want to get on the beltway and eat in another county. So we looked to Baltimore City for a solution. There's a Koreatown of sorts in Station North around Maryland Ave/21st Street with several notable restaurants like Nak Won, Nam Kang, and Joung Kak. We decided to skip the tried and true and try the new-ish BeOne, in the little shopping center on Maryland between 20th and 21st. And with that we found our new favorite Korean BBQ joint.

We went for a few kinds of meat including bulgogi and pork neck. The bulgogi was scrumptious, tender and lightly fatty, with lots of sweet and garlicky flavor. The pork neck was a completely different animal (obviously), unseasoned and chewy. It's not for everyone.

We also had a pork and squid combo, and boneless kalbi (short rib). Squid gets a little tough on the grill, so again, it's not for everyone.

We also had the dolsot bibimbop (the one in the hot stone bowl) and couldn't resist the seafood pancake. And while we enjoyed the bulgogi the most of the BBQ items, the pancake was the best thing on the table. Huge, packed full of octopus, and super crispy, we couldn't stop eating it. Of course, we're all pigs and managed to eat pretty much everything on the table, including most of the large bowl of tofu soup, the eggs, and all of the various bowls of pickles and whatnot (panchan) that comes with. Among the panchan dishes we enjoyed the most was a rather horseradishy kimchi, and thin strips of fish cake in a spicy sauce. Hell, it was all good.

Service was pretty good, too, but the place wasn't at all busy on that particular Saturday afternoon, so YMMV. Be One didn't have the hustle-bustle that Honey Pig has, so we felt a bit more relaxed while we enjoyed our food. So, to sum up - food great, service pretty good, and we didn't have to drive to Howard County. Win. Win. Win.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Slainte on Wheels

Everybody's favorite Irish pub, Slainte, now has a food truck. Makes sense, as sister restaurant Kooper's has had one (Chowhound Burger Wagon) for years now, and as far as I can tell, it's very popular. Slainte on Wheels offers a completely different selection of foodstuffs from the burger wagon.

There's Slainte's famous gumbo, for one thing. Yes, gumbo on an Irish food truck is weird, but I promise you that it's very very good. It's the same gumbo served at Slainte and all three Kooper's Tavern locations, a spicy, hearty, and very warming combination of seafood and vegetables. I think it's the best gumbo in town.

There's also the Irish bibimbap, which wowed Guy Fieri on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (Clearly the country has run out of all three, so Guy is going to non-diners, non-drive-ins, and non-dives now.) Rice, stir fried veg, cubes of corned beef, pickled cabbage, and a fried egg drizzled in sriracha make up a decidedly non-Korean version of this tasty Korean rice dish. A sweet element and a bit of sesame oil might take Slainte's version closer to Asia, but it's tasty nonetheless, with a generous amount of protein.

There's more of that good corned beef in a spicy version of a classic Reuben sandwich. And what Irish restaurant worth its salt doesn't feature potatoes? Wedge-shaped "chips" play a role in two dishes billed as "munchies," one topped with curry sauce and another with cottage pie filling and cheddar cheese. They also come as a side to Natty Boh-battered cod, and to Irish bangers (sausages) with onion gravy. An arugula salad and black bean falafel wrap round out the menu so the vegetarians have some choices, too.

It's always good to have another food truck on the street, and one that serves a couple of more unusual items. Like that mighty fine gumbo. Makes me wish it were Friday (the day Slainte on Wheels is in my 'hood) so I can have some of that for lunch today....



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pittsburgh!?!?*

* This should be said in the manner of Joe Flacco in a 1st Mariner Bank commercial.

So I went to Pittsburgh. For a funeral, which seemed entirely fitting. It was a quick trip, much of it spent on the road, but my traveling companion, Kim, and I made the experience as fun as possible. And we squeezed in two restaurant meals.

I had quizzed a friend, whose spouse hails from the city that supports the Baltimore Ravens worst enemy, about restaurant recommendations. She offered up several, a few of which came with the caveat that she had not tried them but had heard good things. Another restaurant, the Pleasure Bar, came with praise from both her and her husband. We decided to check it out.

The name conjures up visions of a cozy and dark space that serves up both good food and fine libations. Instead, the corner restaurant in Pittsburgh's Little Italy seemed rather generic and certainly not cozy. The menu comprised Italian-American favorites like ravioli, eggplant parm, and stuffed shells. We started out with an appetizer order of fried calamari. It was ok, nothing special, and possibly not house-made. Lemon wedges would have been more useful than slices.

I wasn't in the mood for Italian food, but was contemplating the eggplant parm. Then I spotted the crab cakes. Yes, I know that it's a really dumb idea to order crab cakes anywhere outside of Maryland, but I wanted to know how badly they could be fucked up in a place like Pittsburgh.

Turns out, pretty fucked up.

Before I ordered, I asked our waitress about the origin of the crabmeat. When she went off to the kitchen to ask, I predicted she would tell us that it came from such-and-such distributor. And indeed she did. She said something about the meat being combined with their crab cake mix, which should have set off warning bells in my head. Instead, I chose to believe that it referred to breadcrumbs, egg, seasonings, and mayonnaise. After I explained that I wanted to know where the crab lived before being caught, she apologized for her mistake and ran back to the kitchen. When she returned, she said it came from "various parts of the Atlantic." She even added that she didn't really like crab cakes, but the ones at the Pleasure bar were soooo good, she would eat them.

I ordered them anyway.

In all honesty, they didn't taste bad. They did taste of bell peppers, which I don't care for and which do not belong in a Maryland crab cake. But this was Steeltown. It was the filler that was the real problem. I found a number of spongy, red-tinged objects in the cakes, and after careful analysis, I determined that they were...fake crab meat. That surimi crap that comes in cheap California rolls. I can almost forgive this, since it still sorta kinda is at least a seafood product. But the overall texture of the crab cakes was unpleasantly mushy. Had the ramekin on the side been filled with a nice remoulade sauce, there would have been a bright side. Alas, it was grainy "Alfredo" sauce.

Please indulge me in a small side rant here. The Italian chefs I know all rail on serving cheese with seafood; I just roll my eyes at this. So why is this Italian restaurant serving "Alfredo" sauce (that is, a bland white sauce with some cheese thrown in, and nothing like the real thing) with crab cakes?

Sigh. Serves me right, dunnit?

Kim ordered the rib eye steak, which, at the same $19 as my crab cakes, was a steal. You can't really tell from my cellphone pic, but it looked like it had been steamed rather than grilled or pan fried. And a goodly portion of it was gristle.

Oh well, better luck next time. Guess we should have stuck to the Italian-American food.

The next day, after the funeral, we headed back downtown to a gastropub called Meat & Potatoes, one of the recommended restaurants that had the "but we haven't tried it" caveat. We've tried it, and I have to say...we'd try it again. (Not that we ever plan to revisit Pittsburgh, but stranger things have happened.)

Burger - Caramelized onions, havarti, tomato jam, arugula, french fries

We were those terrible people who walk into a restaurant fifteen minutes before the kitchen is scheduled to close. But we ordered quickly! It was lunchtime, so their menu offerings weren't quite as interesting as those at dinner, but we quickly settled on the burger and the bibimbap.

BiBimBap - pork belly, black fried rice, pickled cucumbers, carrots, korean hot sauce, sunny side-up egg

The burger was huge, delicious, juicy (despite being cooked to medium well, as requested by Kim) and the accompanying fries were crispy and nicely browned. The tasty bread and butter pickles on the side were likely house-made. My bibimbap was outstanding. While I'd have liked more rice to absorb all of the hot sauce and pickle juice from the cukes, the flavors were bold and the huge slab of pork belly was moist and nicely fatty. (My mouth is watering as I'm typing this.) The egg yolk could have been runnier, but overall, this dish was terrific.

Cinnamon panna cotta

We splurged on dessert, because, well, we were grief-stricken (not by the previous night's meal, but by the funeral) and needed comforting. There were three choices, including a chocolate pot de creme, but I went for the cinnamon panna cotta and Kim chose the unpleasantly-named peanut butter Oreo dirt.

Peanut Butter Oreo Dirt

The panna cotta had a nice cinnamon flavor and I really enjoyed the fall-ish caramelized fruit topping, Kim's evil concoction was pretty tasty, too, and almost large enough for two servings.

So....

The Pleasure Bar wasn't pleasurable, but I'll cop to making bad choices. Meat & Potatoes was delicious, however, and I wouldn't mind checking it out again. If I didn't have to go to Pittsburgh to do so.






Posted on Minxeats.com.

KoCo Korean Food Truck

A new-ish truck that seems to do pretty bang-up business (at least when I visited and saw the crowd already waiting at 11:45am), KoCo Korean Fusion doesn't even have a proper sign on their all-white truck, just one that says KoCo taped over the logo of whomever owned the truck before them. It's a fancy truck too, with a full-length window and customer-side bins for dessert and beverage offerings.

The offerings are sparse, but they hit all the Korean dishes most familiar to Americans: japchae (translucent noodles with vegetables and meat), bibimbap (rice with vegetables and meat and an optional fried egg), and Korean tacos or burritos. On my first visit to the truck, when they were still very new, I ordered a vegan version of the bibimbap, which came with kimchi, lots of vegetables, and spicy gochujang sauce, but no protein. Now they have tofu, which makes it all the better.

I've also tried the Korean Burrito, stuffed with rice, kimchi, bulgogi, and lettuce and served with lime wedges. It's spicy, moist, and quite delicious. It's nothing like a Mexican burrito, except for the wrapper. I would have liked more meat, but as it was, it's a tasty and filling lunch.





Posted on Minxeats.com.

Korean BBQ

There's a widely-held stereotype that Asians drive badly; anyone who's been in the parking lot of a Korean grocery store will not refute that. Inside, the story is pretty much the same; get out of the way, or you will be run down by a shopping cart - or a person. DH and I were meeting our friend LaRaine to try out Shin Chon Gardens, in Lotte Plaza, and decided to head out early and do a little grocery shopping before dinner. The Lotte mart was small, extremely crowded, and lacking the amazing array of Asian foods we were used to at the much more-interesting Han Ah Reum. We bought a few basics - fish sauce, rice noodles, baby bok choy - and beat a hasty retreat from that madhouse.

If you read the Baltimore Sun review linked to the restaurant name above, you'll see that the service is good and that the staff speaks excellent English. Weeelll...they must have had some major turnover between then and now, because the service was abysmal and the English was just as bad. The food, however, was pretty good.

We went specifically for the barbecue, so requested to sit at one of the special tables with a grill in the center of it. LaRaine and I ordered the bul goki (thin slices of marinated beef ) and pork belly, and also pa jeon (a large pancake studded with seafood and scallions) for the table. Hubby tried the dolsot bibimbap.

In a few minutes, food started to arrive and was placed on the table higgledy-piggledy. Rain and I sat across from each other at one end of the rectangular table with a square grill taking up the center. The location of the grill left little room for the many dishes that normally accompany a Korean meal, and our waitress chose to put most of them in the small space nearest to my end of the table, including Neal's miso soup. There were also two small trays bearing whole cloves of garlic and sliced chiles plus a blob of bean paste; a basket of romaine lettuce leaves; a bowl of thinly sliced scallion greens; small saucers of something that tasted like sesame oil with salt and pepper in it; about eight small dishes containing the panchan, (the vegetables and whatnot that always accompany a Korean meal); two small lidded metal bowls containing rice; a squeeze bottle of kochujang; a saucer of sauce for the pa jeon; and two small casseroles, one containing a beefy soup and the other with steamed egg. We were confused about the casseroles; were they sides for the bbq? If so, why one soup in one bowl for two orders? Double-dipping really isn't a problem for Raine and I - we've shared enough communal Chinese meals in which we've picked up food with chopsticks that had already been in our respective mouths. But still - weird.

A waitron silently brought our meat, cutting the beef with scissors, and placed it on the grill in front of Neal, never indicating what we should do next. Do we cook the meat? Will they come by and tend it? It turned out to be a bit of both. When I decided the beef was probably burning on one side, I started turning it with my chopsticks, and Neal did the same for the pork, since he was the only one of us who could reach it. His bibimbap arrived, prettily arranged with bits of vegetable and an egg yolk, and he dug in, famished, while LaRaine and I busied ourselves with the beef and the pork, the steamed egg and the soup.

I love Korean panchan. The variety of flavors and colors is a delight to the eyes and the tastebuds. At our late, lamented favorite, Purim Oak, the panchan was generous and refilled regularly. At Shin Chon, once the dishes were placed on the table, we were left for dead. There were some tasty things - the omelette-type things with zucchini, the spicy cucumber, the marinated radish - but nothing was special, and I missed my sigeumchi-namul (a spinach preparation).

As we were scraping up the last bits of now-burned meat from the grill, our pa jeon arrived - big as a pizza, and crowded with 2" long pieces of scallion greens and nuggets of squid and small shrimp. It was crispy, greasy, and brown on the outside, and chewy on the inside. The accompanying soy and sesame sauce was too salty, but the pancake itself was delicious, a festival of textures and flavors.

After stuffing ourselves silly, I needed more water, but I couldn't get the attention of any of the waitrons floating by. The one for our section seemed to have disappeared completely, and the others just ignored us. Finally, one came to set the table behind us and I collared her on the way past (she made the fatal mistake of looking our way). I got my water, and eventually, the check came. We did not tip as well as we ordinarily might have, but now that I think of it, the waitron still got almost 15%.

Hmpfh.

I don't think this is the place we'll race to when we have a jones for Korean. But it was worth a shot, and for the most part, we enjoyed the food.