Rachel Yang of Joule Restaurant is coming to Seoul!





7th Seoul International 'Tteok' Fair


The 7th Seoul International 'Tteok' Fair, held on May 8th and 9th, will be a celebration of a time-honored Korean delicacy. Tteok has significant importance in Korean culture. The rice cake is eaten on the wintry, New Year’s Day to signify luck, purity, and another year of life. It is decorated with flowers to welcome spring. To battle the summer heat, rice cake pearls swim in honeyed water with pine nuts. In fall, red bean tteok is eaten to ward off bad luck.


This year's fair will have seminars, exhibitions, and activities for all ages. This year will truly be an international competition because it will have the first international rice cake competition. This competition will be open to non-Korean nationals and the first place contestant will win 2 million won. This competition will be on May 8th at 3pm. There will be competitions for Koreans as well on both days.

Plus, there will be over 50 international trading companies and business consulting services for those interested in the rice cake business. There will be something for all ages. And the festival will start with the cutting of the world's largest rice cake.


The special guest for the event is Chef Rachel Yang. Her Seattle restaurant Joule (www.joulerestaurant.com) was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal. This graduate of Brown University has worked at the prestigious Alain Ducasse restaurant in New York and she has also had the good fortune to work with Chefs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller. This French-trained chef will be giving cooking demonstrations of her Korean inspired dishes on both days of the fair.


The Event Zones

There will be several event zones on both days of the event, which will be fun for all ages. The event zones will let participants make flower shaped rice cake, taste different rice cakes and rice wines, and make rice flour by pounding a large traditional wooden mallet.


The free rice cake making classes will be held throughout both days of the fair. The classes will last 50 minutes and the instructions will be in English. Spots are limited for the classes so be sure to make a reservation by calling 02.741.5477 or e-mail Soo-hyun at soochoi@paran.com


Doors open at 10am and the event will be held at the aT Center in Yangjae. Go to www.kfr.or.kr for more information.


Contact Soo Hyang Choi at soochoi@paran.com or call at 02.741.5477 / 010.4272.1900 to ask questions, and to make reservations for the rice cake making classes.

Popular posts from this blog

5 of the Best Jajangmyeon 짜장면 in the City of Seoul, Korea

Image
The Best Jajamyeon in Seoul by Daniel Gray Jajangmyeon 짜장면: Korea's favorite hand pulled noodles in an black sauce is also a favorite dish of mine. It's so famous they even have a holiday for it. It's filling and hearty like a bowl of spaghetti but with Asian flair. It's one of those dishes that you can get whenever you need a quick meal and it doesn't break the wallet. It's a pretty ubiquitous dish and every Chinese restaurant must have it. If it does it well, the place becomes famous. If it is just alright, it is just a meal and gets classed in with all of the other places in the city. I can't say I have had any seriously terrible jajangmyeons except maybe some delivery places (where the noodles are overcooked and terribly clumped together so it takes like 10 minutes to get the sauce mixed into it) but even then it is still edible. With the noodles, I love to get fried dumplings and a place is good fried dumplings or some other sides like tangsuyok
Read More, See More >>

5 of the Best Gamjatang Restaurants in Seoul: Korean Potato and Pork Stew

Image
Seobu Gamja-guk One of the dishes that came out of necessity is gamja-tang or pork-bone potato stew. This dish has its origins from the Incheon dock area where laborers that were working in the construction wanted to have a cheap and hearty food after a long day of work. The soup consists of pork spine that is slowly cooked with potatoes and topped with sesame leaves. The result is a satisfying dish that goes great with a bowl of hot rice. This was often cooked throughout the day and then eaten at the end of the work day. This dish goes perfectly with a chilled shot of Korean soju. After the first train line was built that would connect the Incheon area with Seoul, one entrepreneur decided that he wanted to make a restaurant focused on this dish. The first restaurant of this type was built near Noryangjin station, which was near the end of the han river railway construction. The dish became a big hit and soon many copycat restaurants started popping up all over Korea. The name gam
Read More, See More >>

Calories in Soju and other things I Know about Korea's Famous Swill

Image
Just in case you were wondering, one bottle of Soju contains 540 calories. That's like 4 beers. So to put it in perspective, you would need to walk about two hours to exercise it off. (Walking two hours with a soju hangover is not an easy task.) Soju originally was made from rice but whenever there were rice shortages, people were forbidden to make Soju. Alcohol producers the started to use sweet potatoes and tapioca to make an ethanol based alcohol. Overtime they doctored up the taste so it has a smooth, crisp taste that goes great with raw seafood and grilled meats. The world drinks a lot of Soju. 61.38 Million cases of soju were produced in 2012 with Korea consuming about 2.75 billion bottles of Soju a year. You would think that everyone would be falling over drunk in Korea, but this is not the case. The alcohol is only about 17-19% so a bottle won't wreck you (but two or more might.) Koreans judge how good of a drinker you are by the number of bottles o
Read More, See More >>