Burgers at Salt and Butter on Apgujeong's Rodeo Street

I rate burgers in four categories: bun, patty, toppings, and sauce.  Recently I visited Salt and Butter on Rodeo Street in Apgujeong.  I ordered the Dallas Burger and the Spicy Chicken Burger.  This is how they did.

Bacon Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese

This post is for my brother who got engaged recently - very happy for him and his soon-to-be bride!  Hey Linde! I have a cute little story to tell you about Peter from his grimy school days.

My heavily whiskered brother and his fiance

Peter read a lot of books growing up.  Actually, all of us Kong kids did, but while my sister and I would yield to our bodily needs (like, ya know, going to the bathroom and eating), Peter was a complete literary ascetic.  Sound noble?  Ermm...I'm not saying he got to the point of storing jars of urine around his room a la Howard Hughes, but god help anyone uninformed enough to open his bedroom door.  I think my college gym, gone unrenovated for 15 years, smelled about the same.  Perhaps prison gym wouldn't be too far off either.

Things got especially dire during summer vacations when the structure of school life collapsed into one lazy river of days melting into days.  Peter would disappear into his books, which was fine for me and my sister because, if it's not already obvious, Peter was not much fun to be around during this particular phase of his life.  Anyway, a few days into his hermithood, Peter's bedroom door would violently bust open, and rattle-boned Peter would come stumbling out muttering, "Food.  I need food..."

He'd hobble determinedly to the kitchen, and I am not exaggerating when I say I've seen placenta-covered, newborn giraffes have it more together more than Peter in this state.  But somehow he'd manage to throw together one obscenely large stockpot of mac and cheese.  As children, we didn't have the most discerning palates, and my younger sister and I would actually sit there puppy-faced, hoping to score just a wee bowl to share.  Surely skinny mean older brother would not eat all of it?  Oh, we were naive, little babies...Peter would chew down every last elbow noodle as our eyes grew wider and wider in heartache wonder.  Had I known people made money from eating weirdly large amounts of food, I would have told my mom she can save the college tuition on that one 'cause he is the next Kobayashi.  But I was ten and knew nothing of the colorful pockets of culture America had in store, so just like that, Peter would retreat back to his kingdom of books for another few days.

So there you have it.  Peter and his bounties of mac and cheese with the lowly younger sisters hanging onto the bottom rung of the cheesy pasta ladder.  The moral of the story, Linde, is that little sister and I should have overtaken starved and feeble older brother and had ourselves a mac and cheese feast!  I encourage this behavior from you should any mac and cheese materialize in your marriage.

Anyway, story time over.  Fast forward to today, and I am making my own mac and cheese.  What's more, I loaded it up with bacon that used to be a slab of pork belly which I marinaded and home-cured to elevated bacon status.  Hopefully, I can get going on a post about that soon because it's not hard except for finding a chemical plant that would sell me sodium nitrite, and it tastes better than any bacon you'll find in Korea...or wherever.

MangoPlate - New Restaurant App in English

For the past 7 months, I've been trying out this thing called working.  By trying out, I mean that there's been zero room for anything else in my life, and this includes this blog and my poor cat who now hates me and tried to piss on me the other night.

My terribly mannered cat trying to filch a cube of chicken.

So my current job stems from annoying experiences as an expat, namely eating.  Is anyone surprised?  I mean...I do like to eat.  What I always found frustrating is the path of discovery for restaurants.  Most good meals I've had in Korea found their way to my face through haphazard happenstance.  There's never been one single way, or even a few solid ways, of discovering a good restaurant.  A Facebook post here.  A magazine article there.  A random conversation.  With no organized method of how I came across these tasty tidbits of info, I felt something like an ant feeling around without antennas.

Pizza alla Norma (Eggplant Pizza)

When I was little, I used to make my own pizzas.  Slap me some tomato sauce on a slice of sandwich bread.  Sprinkle on some white-colored cheese.  Toast it.  BAM!  Pizza.  You're welcome.

Actually, things got pretty bad with my "pizza-making."  Think ketchup on Wonder Bread with a yellow square of American cheese on top.  I made this as breakfast on Mother's Day for my dear, sweet mother.  Even brought it in on a lego board breakfast tray accompanied with a Capri-Sun and package of Fruit Gushers.  I know we expats think we have it bad in Korea when we find corn sprinkled in our pizza, but my mom nearly vomited when she ate my rendition of "pizza."  This is when I first learned the prudence of Papa John's maxim: better ingredients, better pizza.

Like anything, master the basics before stretching the boundaries.  Have you seen Picasso's earlier works?  They actually look like something.  So he showed everyone he can paint, then he went crazy and showed them what painting is going to be from now on.  I am not a Picasso of paint or pizza, but I don't make pizza with squeeze bottles anymore.  To a degree, I think I've graduated to a level where I can be somewhat interpretive with pizza.

Yangjae Flower Market for Fresh Herbs

I've never had fresh herbs.  If I needed some parsley or something like that for a recipe, I'd use the bottle of dried parsley that came with the spice rack that my mom got when she first came to America twenty plus years ago.  It tasted like shaved cardboard, and apparently, you can't do that.  Dried herbs should be used within 6 months, and they should look perky and eager to be used.  Dried parsley should still be green, and cayenne pepper should be fiery red.  As I've started to cook more and more, I've slowly raised my standards on spices.  Though dried spices are better for certain kinds of recipes (i.e. ones that require long cooking times), I got sick of spatting jealously at recipes that called for fresh sprigs of this and that.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I'm a skins-on kind of gal.

My mom has a great pet peeve.  She hates it when my siblings and I order food at a restaurant that we could easily make at home.  I loved ordering macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes.  I had the palate of a 7 year-old ('cause I was).

As we grew older, we learned to make the foods that had caused my mom so much exasperation at restaurants.  My brother learned to make some awesome mac and cheese.  I remember one summer, he stumbled out of his room, having not eaten in three days (he'd been reading all the J. R. R. Tolkien books in succession).  He'd knock everything out of his way and make enough mac and cheese to feed Bangladesh.  Then he'd eat it all and disappear again (to read some more).

My sister and I learned to make some super-garlicky mashed potatoes.  We even had mashed potato cook-offs to the sheer detriment of our familial relationships.  I believe our house was once divided by a meridian of mashed potato preferences.

Al Matto in Haebangchon

It's Halloween.  They don't normally hang spiders around their restaurant.

As someone who knows nothing about business, but knows what to look for in a restaurant, I have a lot to say about Al Matto.  I'm going to need a soap box.

As a new restaurant in Seoul, especially in the Itaewon area where there is a large foreigner population, you should really be supplying a need - a niche if you will.  In other words, there needs to be a food that is different or superbly well done.  Why would I go to your restaurant if I can do it better myself? (Eh hem, Hungry Dog).  I really detest the whole bandwagoning concept behind restaurants.  I feel like some restauranteurs walk into a restaurant and see that it's doing really well selling pizza or kebabs or brunch items, and think, "I can do this too."  *dollar signs*  I have nothing against making money.  Money is fantastic.  But it's painfully obvious when it's the driving factor behind a restaurant.  Such restaurants never last long.  I'm also okay with restaurants that serve food that's not particularly original (pizza, kebabs, or brunch).  But if you're going to do what someone else is already doing (especially in the same neighborhood), do it better than them.  Do it AWESOME (i.e. - Pizza Peel).  

When I walked by the freshly-opened Al Matto, I was excited.  It looked Italian (who doesn't love Italian?), and there was an open kitchen.  Open Kitchens are my reality TV.  

It was also clear that they were still getting things organized.  The menus were on sheets of A4 computer paper stapled together.  All it needed was a coffee stain to look like the kind of crappy paper I would submit in college after an all-nighter.  When I went back a second time, the menu was in an actual booklet though the content had not changed.

Upon closer inspection, none of the food stood out to me.  I was so completely underwhelmed.  Eating at a restaurant is a dining experience.  Believe it or not, a well-designed menu speaks to that dining experience in a big way.  It helps the diner to get a feel of the chef's vision, style and direction.  In that sense, a good menu is not so different from a good resume.  This resume was bad.  I can forgive the misspellings, though it would cost almost nothing to have a native English speaker tick through the menu and save the restaurant the embarrassment.  This menu left me more questions than answers.  One item was simply "pancakes."  What kind of pancakes?  If you're selling just plain, ole pancakes, why am I at this restaurant?  I make fantastic pancakes.  Spruce it up with blueberries, ricotta, chocolate chips, buttermilk...something.  I also think Al Matto would benefit from having the menu in three different translations, especially since the co-owner is Italian.

It became very clear to me what the strong points of Al Matto were when the food came out.  This became even clearer on my second visit.  I didn't think it fair to write a review based on only one visit, especially as they were still in their first few days of opening.  Anyway, strong points - pizza and personality.  The first time I had visited, the Italian waiter (also the co-owner) seemed really quiet; I honestly felt like he was hiding from us.  On the second visit, he was a totally different person - outgoing, charming and accommodating.  It really turned the dining experience around.

Though I was excited about their open kitchen, it's not really open.  The shutters remain closed most of the time.  If they have the option of an open kitchen, they should make it open.  It makes me wonder, "What're they hiding?  Are they washing their hands?"  If the shutters were open, you'd notice that Al Matto has an actual brick pizza oven.  It's a beauty.  And it churns out some excellent pizzas.  It's a shame that their menu is so unfocused.  To give you an example, my sister ordered chili cheese fries while I ordered breakfast and Noel ordered pizza.

Peek-a-boo.  See the pizza oven?

Their standout items are brunch and pizza.  They have a beautiful oven that churns out some beautiful pizzas.  Thin, Neopolitan-style crusts with simple, well-married toppings.

The second pizza, 'Norma', was a surprise.  Eggplant, olives, and a wee bit of Parmesiano Reggiano over some rich passata.  It was a concentrated, piquant combination - one I loved so much I went home and made it.

Their brunch wasn't so good the first time around.  The Al Matto breakfast (12,000 won) is advertised to be fried eggs, French toast, bacon, sausage, beans, grilled tomato, grilled mushrooms, and hashbrowns.  The first time around, they seem to have forgotten the French toast and the beans.  The second time around, the plate has everything, and everything tasted fine.  The hashbrowns are clearly from Costco, and they may need some practice making eggs.  The portion of beans was a bit small, but the mix of mushrooms was great.  The proteins were cooked well, and the sausage was amazing.  They use good-quality sausage.  Anything with egg in it (french toast, fried eggs, and omelette) wasn't cooked very well.

 The omelette was slightly overcooked on the outside, but the omelette itself wasn't bad.  The accompanying potatoes weren't seasoned.

Overall, the dining experience only improved with consequent visits.  I would recommend their Al Matto breakfast because it offers a better value than competing brunch sets in the area (Hungry Dog, Indigo's, etc.).  I liked having French toast with my breakfast in addition to the yummy sausage they use.  If not brunch, I would definitely check out their pizzas.  They're not amazing, but they're delicious and offer slightly more creative options than other pizza joints.

Directions: From Noksapyeong Station, Exit 2, walk straight until you reach the kimchee pots.  Veer left as you enter the neighborhood of Haebangchon.  Keep walking straight, passing Phillie's and Jacoby's Burgers.  On the left, you'll see Al Matto right across the street from a butcher.

Al Matto can be found on MangoPlate, a restaurant discovery app available in English and Korean.

Caramel Apples From Scratch

Sometimes I buy things I truly regret.  One time, I bought an inflatable raft while I lived in Boston.  One time, I bought a pair of Dolce and Gabbana boots that were so hot I was too scared to ever wear them.  One time, I bought a car and crashed it into a tree, twice.  One time, I bought miniature apples that were too cute to eat.

Unfortunately, apples are perishable, and with the clock ticking down, I made the decision to make caramel apples.  It was a gloriously delicious decision.  I know most of you are like EFF the apples, let's go back to the car in a friggin' tree.  TWO TIMES?!  REALLY?!  What kind of psycho is behind this blog?!  Come on, y'all...I mean...we all go through stages...

Buttery Delicious Peanut Brittle

Christmas is the season for tins - tins of shortbread, peanut brittle, holiday cookies, and, of course, flavored popcorn (whose terrible idea was that?).  As a tasty munchie for a hotel party I was hosting for a dear friend of mine, I thought peanut brittle would be a perfect snack.  I've never made peanut brittle, but my mom used to make Korean bobbki which is a kind of Korean snack/candy of burnt sugar and baking soda.  The burnt sugar has a wonderful caramelly taste and the baking soda gives it a nice airy crunch.  After looking up several recipes for peanut brittle, I've discovered that the two are pretty similar.

My mom is a bit of a disaster in the kitchen (as am I).  She's the Korean Julia Child except much shorter, and no one knows who she is.  My mom is a bit like me in the sense that she improvises with what she has.  She'd make hoddeuk using Pillbury biscuit dough and press out bobbki using the bottom of a heavy saucepan sprayed with PAM nonstick spray.  She had a chemistry degree that sat latent in her brain for a few years until she started making her own lotions, face washes, laundry detergent, and even some cosmetics.  I use all her stuff, and I'd like to believe it's the reason why people comment on my skin (in the good way...they aren't screaming "OH GOD!" and handing me plastic surgery business cards).  Anyway, I'm not letting my Umma steal my thunder.  I made peanut brittle.

Before I share the recipe, I have to comment on the final result.  Glorious.  It's the culmination of stripping clean all the best aspects of sweets to just BUTTER and SUGAR, and forcing the sparse marriage between the two (with some peanut babies strewn in).  I could not stop snacking on the "chips-that-are-too-small" or "uneven" or "offensively-phallic-so-I should-just-eat-it-because-no-one-wants-to-eat-penis-shaped-brittle-at-a-cocktail-party."

Graham Crackers from Scratch

Lately, it's been just the right weather to sit outside around a giant campfire and roast marshmallows.  This, of course, requires marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers.  As I was about to buy graham crackers at Lotte Department store for $10, it dawned on me that I could possibly make them myself.  A quick Google search via my phone liberated me from the expensive graham crackers, and I made my way home with visions of irresistibly delicious graham crackers and their sexy cousin, s'mores.

When I told my friends about my great idea, they all looked at me with a face that unmistakably read, "WTF are s'mores?"  Obviously, none of them are American.  S'mores is a weird word.  Apparently, it's a contraction for "some more" and was first invented by some highly uneducated and speech impaired Girl Scouts.

To go back to the graham cracker, they're fairly easy to make.  Just mix together some common household ingredients (brown sugar, honey, flour, butter, salt, vanilla extract, etc.), chill, and roll out.  The result is mind-blowing.  My sister and I couldn't stop eating them.  They have a wonderfully deep, rich molasses-like flavor and a snappy, airy texture.  Words cannot express the level of nonverbal shaming that went on when it was discovered that I had ate the last of the graham crackers.

Pumpkin Pancakes

I shared my Thanksgiving with a very un-American crowd.  My sister and I (Korean American).  Two Koreans who went to school in the states most of their lives.  One Korean Korean.  One Ukrainian New Zealander.  One French Australian from New Caledonia.  One Taiwanese American from Kuwait.  One Frenchman.  And one plain ol' white American.  If Noel hadn't been stuck in Japan, that would have been one more American to the count.

Without Noel, that left me alone in the smallest kitchen in Seoul to cook a massive thanksgiving dinner for 9 guests.  All in all, I was able to pull it off with the help of all my heat-producing appliances.  (Ever used a fan heater to keep your dishes warm?)  One of the dishes I made was pumpkin pie from Japanese Kabocha pumpkins.  I steamed the flesh and mashed it to make the puree necessary for the pie.  I ended up with 5 pumpkins pies (all consumed within two days).

I used two Kabocha pumpkins (on sale for 1,500 won, usually 3,000 won each).  Kabocha pumpkins are also known as 단호박 or dan-ho-bak, which means "sweet pumpkin."  I had about 1/2 cup of puree left.  Pumpkin pancakes!!!!  It's not just the alliteration that excites me.  These pancakes combine the buttery sweetness of the Kabocha pumpkin with the fluffy carbness of the pancake.  The result is a light and airy pumpkin pie-infused pancake.  

Thanksgiving Dinner: Butter Pecan Sweet Potatoes

Candied yams is a Thanksgiving dish I've never cared for.  I love the flavor, but why does it have to be the texture of baby food?  I've grown up eating Korean sweet potatoes.  My mom would poke them with a fork and throw them in the microwave.  I looooooved them like this.  When I went away to college, I'd buy sweet potatoes and prepare them in the same way.  I was the girl walking around eating a sweet potato like it was an apple.  I remember the first time I had a candied yam casserole with the marshmallows on top.  It was mushy and sickeningly sweet.   My friends raved about the toasted marshmallows.  Toasted marshmallows are awesome (as are all slightly burnt sugary concoctions), but they're really just there to trick children into eating the gloppy mess of yams hiding under them.  For this Thanksgiving, I decided to combine my beautiful Korean sweet potatoes with the ugliness that is the candied yam casserole.

Candied yams aren't actually yams.  What Americans know to be yams are actually orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.  If you really care, read this, and let me get back to my dish.  I used Martha Stewart's Butter Pecan Sweet Potato recipe, but adapted it by using a mix of local Korean sweet potatoes.  Pecans are insanely expensive in Korea.  I've paced back and forth whimpering in front of an itty-bitty package of 10,000 won ($10) pecans at Homeplus.  WHY?!  In Texas, they fall from the trees like manna.  Anyway, my point is, feel free to substitute a more economical nut or blend of nuts if you wish.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Green Bean Casserole

My first proper Thanksgiving meal was in the projects of San Antonio where my mother had consigned me to child slavery volunteering for the less fortunate.  It's strange to remember my perspective as a child.  I didn't quite understand how the people we were serving were "less fortunate."  Everyone seemed to be laughing, eating, and having a great time.  No one was sucking on gasoline rags or had flies crawling all over their faces.  Where were the suffering masses?  How was I to live out my Savior complex and practice my benevolent, Mother Theresa face?  As a ten or eleven year-old who wasn't seeing enough sorrow nor grateful teary eyes (god, I was completely delusional and annoying as a kid), I started "sampling" all the dishes.  Needless to say, the Thanksgiving spread wasn't cooked with the love and dedication of an All-American mom bent over her 100% organic turkey.  But, it was my first Thanksgiving dinner experience, and I came to understand the greatness of the Thanksgiving feast.  I also had a bread roll thrown in my face.

If I can get past the bread roll, I remember the green bean casserole.  It was watery and overcooked.  It wasn't until I had it fresh and delicious out of some loving Texan mother's kitchen (can't remember whose but I can assure you, it wasn't mine), that I my fondness for green bean casserole grew.  I love green bean casserole.  The original recipe is so easy - some Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup thrown together with some green beans and topped with French's Fried Onions.  In Korea, all three of these ingredients would be subject to tariffs.  Who wants to pay $5 for cream of mushroom soup?  Not me. Furthermore, French's Fried Onions aren't sold in Korea.  So, I found Alton Brown's recipe in order to make the beloved dish entirely from scratch.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Smoked Oyster and Bacon Stuffing

I chose to make a smoked oyster stuffing because I love smoked oysters.  Oysters have a distinct oyster taste that is delicious when fresh and simple.  When smoked, they take on a whole different smokey, meaty property while still maintaining a subtle lilt of oysterness.  In searching for a recipe to incorporate smoked oysters, I found Martha Stewart's Smoked Oyster and Bacon Stuffing.  I adapted the recipe to be friendlier towards ingredients I could get in Korea (i.e. switching out brown rice vinegar for sherry vinegar).  I also used the rice cooker to finish the stuffing instead of the oven because there were so many other dishes that needed to be cooked in my small convection oven.

This smoked oyster and bacon stuffing was the star of the dinner.  (Some may argue it was the turducken roll.)  The smoked oyster, with the support of some savory bacon, really revived plain ole' bread stuffing.  The result was an aromatic stuffing accented with pockets of smokey, oyster flavor and crumbles of salty bacon.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Turducken Roll

Being Korean American, my family had a lot of learning to do in the American culture department. Peeled apple on a chopstick was my lollipop.  I once heard Oprah say that moms who lovingly cut the crust off their kids' sandwiches - THAT was love.  I needed to know mom loved me so I got her on that right away. Christmas was an awkward time when we'd all sit around and stare at each other before slowly receding to our rooms to read or study.  There was one time we tried to do presents, and I got wire hangers. I don't think I've ever gotten over the trauma of that gem of an experience.  Perhaps the most successful example of how we adapted to the American way of life is Thanksgiving. Once my siblings and I left home to attend college as far away as possible from Texas (Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Chicago), we'd gather at my oldest sister's house in Philadelphia to do the thanksgiving. It was a perfect holiday. No parents and the freedom to cook amazing thanksgiving dishes we hadn't had a chance to cook yet. It's how I discovered how to roast a turkey. We made a green bean casserole that actually tasted good, and it finally made sense to me why people ate them.

Thai Noodle in Gyeongnidan

Thai places always catch my eye.  Just this year, I've made two trips to Thailand.  In Korea, Thai restaurants are generally overpriced, Koreanized, and lacking a great deal of authenticity.  While I don't find that Thai Noodle is a total deviation from this description, it does have some brightness to offer to the Thai dining scene.  The first thing that struck me as inviting and appealing about Thai Noodle is the environment.  It looks clean, simple, and honest.

Moto Japanese Fusion in Gyeongnidan

I've passed Moto many times with interest.  It looks very commercially designed with banners featuring the chef's smiling visage looming over an array of his "fusion" dishes.  It's a bit inset from the street so the orange also helps attract attention like children to a gingerbread house.

I don't write reviews of a place I've been to only once.  This case is different because there were systematic and technical failures in their dishes that I can't simply attribute to "someone having a bad day."  I was probably testing my luck too much after having had several successful dining experiences at Earl Sushi Bar.  Moto was a devastating and pointlessly expensive dining experience.

California Rolls

When I was a kid, I was the pickiest eater.  I wouldn't eat chocolate (as a 7 year old, WTF), mayonnaise, cream cheese (strawberry or plain), avocados, cucumbers, onions (still kind of true), pork (not ham, chops, or even bacon - no, I'm not Jewish), bell peppers, beans...I could go on and on.  As I grew older, my fear of strange foods melted away with each palate-opening episode.  

California Rolls aren't my favorite roll.  Per contra, I appreciate it for how it changed my life towards avocados (black-listed) and cucumbers (black-listed).  My mom's friends own a sushi restaurant back in Texas.  I worked there as a sixteen year-old for two weeks to earn money for my trip to Europe.  Not wanting to embarrass my family (so Korean of me), I dutifully ate whatever was put in front of me.  It's a sushi restaurant.  Obviously, I was obligated to eat that avocado and cucumber stuffed contrivance.  I honestly felt like they had plunked down a platter of boar testicles for me to eat.  I ate it (the cali roll, not the testicles).  I loved it.  Avocados and cucumbers pardoned from the blacklist.     

Ravioli Using Eggroll Wrappers

Ravioli dough is pasta dough made from flour, eggs and a wee bit of water and salt.  Egg roll or mandu dough is made from (rice) flour, eggs, water, and salt.  The proportions are different; pasta dough has more egg and less water than mandu dough.  However, the distinction is not noticeable when substituting mandu wrappers for fried ravioli.

It was so delicious that I bought two packs of ravioli and ventured down the path of plain ravioli from mandu wrappers.  With plain boiled ravioli, I can definitely taste that they're mandu wrappers and not ravioli dough, BUT I really do think it tastes delicious and a little less heavy than pasta dough.  For those without a pasta machine to roll out beautifully even sheets of pillowy, fresh pasta, there are mandu wrappers.

Herbed Ricotta Salata: Pressing Cheese in a Sink Drainer

Making cheese isn't something I've ever been interested in. I've just been interested in eating it. It wasn't until I came to Korea that my interest for cheese consumption collided with cheese production. After realizing I could make my own cottage cheese and ricotta, it wasn't a big leap to making pressed cheeses. The largest obstacle in making cheese isn't the process; it's getting the materials. Rennet can be purchased online in Korea, but cheese cultures are a bit more difficult to procure. The beauty of ricotta salata is that it doesn't require any special ingredients like rennet or cultured buttermilk. The hardest part is waiting for the cheese to cure for at least two weeks.

I've already posted about making a cheese mold and pressing out a ricotta salata. This post is still about ricotta salata, but instead of laboring over making a cheese mold, I've found that it's much easier to use a sink drainer.