November 11th, day of the peppero is coming!
November, 2006 Monthly archive
In all my years living in Seoul, I am amazed that I, Mary cheesyddokboggie Crowe could have missed something to interigal to the city’s dining scene, so essential to my culinary wellbeing, and something so, spicy, as Seoul’s Ddokboggie Town.
Yes, that is right. The spicy rice cake, leek and sliced odang snack, a favorite of children, adults, and me, covets an street of Seoul, chock-a-block with restaurants specializing in the fiery mess.
How I could have missed this, I don’t know. A mere few subway stops from my home, lies the key to my ever-expanding waistline. Saturday Kevin and I hit ddokboggie town just before the after school rush, taking in 50 years of ddokboggie history at Mabongnim Halmoni Ddokboggie (Grandmother’s Ddokboggie) Since 1953 grandma has been serving up paella like dishes of slender ddok logs, sliced green onion, thinly sliced fish cakes, ramyeon, chewy noodles, hard boiled eggs and fried mandu (which I think was fried in 1953) in a sweet spicy sauce. Cooked at the table while you wait, it is, as my husband put it, “a lesson in patience management.”
The ddokboggie in its raw form
Cooking the ddokboggie
almost ready
Try as we did, we couldn’t finish.
Disgraced by waif 20 something girls, and children who polished their dish clean, Kevin and I left Mabongnim Halmoni Ddokboggie with hands around our bellies, heads hanging low. We’ll gett’em next time.
Mabongnim Halmoni Ddokboggie
Seoul, Korea
Subway: Sindang Station, exit 8. Walk two blocks and turn right. Look for the restaurant with the larger than life-sized picture of Grandma on it.
Phone: 02 2232-8930
Hours: 8:00a.m.-1:00a.m. Weekdays –2:00a.m.weekends (Friday and Saturday)
Prices:$ Ddokboggie for two 8,000 won
Atmosphere: Fluorescent lights, stool seating, paper napkins.
Triangle Kimbap, or SamgaKimbap, is an easy first staple in a foreigner’s diet. Without our beloved pizza by the slice joints, we are forced to look elsewhere for a shot of carbs and protein. Enter Samga Kimbap.
Found at every mini-mart across the country, triangle kimbab is a rice triangle stuffed with cooked meat, tuna, kimchi, and a host of other tempting treats for around 700won, or roughly 70cents US. I’ve been a longtime connoisseur of the Tuna and Mayonnaise version.
Really, unless you don’t have access to a mini-mart, or are easily coned by smiling ajumas at supermarket kiosks, there is no reason to try and make these at home.
But being the latter I gleefully purchased my own Samga Kimbap kit, and here is how it turned out.
contents of the kit
seasoned rice on the left, tuna and mayo on the right
helpful step-by-step instructions
inside the triangle mold
the seaweed wrapping
the finished product
For the time and effort involved (and price of ingredients) I’ll be sticking with the bounty at my local family mart.
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