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...

I so want to hulk out right now because Google Korea doesn't make any sense. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! In order to pay for google adwords, you have to use IE6 with active x using a windows XP machine. WTF. Is this 2005? Actually, I gave up on Google Adwords years ago because of this very issue. But... Recently, we had some smart students from Seoul National University approach us and they wanted to advertise our company using adwords for a contest they were entering. We were like sure...great! After we saw that our bookings did go up a bit, we realized that it wasn't a bad advertising option and we even hired the student to work for us. At first we didn't have a problem adding money but the second time, because we upgraded our machines, we found out that we couldn't add money anymore. So...then I tried calling them on their contact number. No, answer.   We tried emailing them and we got a detailed email in Korean. My coworkers and I tried to follow the instructions. Th...

It's alive! I am so proud. It is bubbling and yeasty and has a acidic, vinegary taste (yes, I tasted it) in two more days my starter should be strong enough to make some great bread and pizza doughs ( I have plans for you my pretty). Like I had mentioned before, it is easy enough to do. I think this is how the first bakers started making bread. I can't wait until I start baking with it. Dan

Daily Delights Shopping day in Dongdaemun Breakfast: Waffles and Coffee at Beans Bin If you are going to climb the epic shopping mountain of Dondaemun, them you have to get a hearty breakfast with lots of coffee. Beans Bin coffee in the shopping complex of Doota is a great first spot. They have freshly made waffles with many different toppings. Get your sugar and caffeine fix here. Beans Bin Coffee Location: Doota 3rd Floor Cost: 12,000 Lunch: Mongolian Buuz and Khuushuur at Darkhan The Dongdaemun area is the central point for many different ethnicities such as Mongolian, Uzbekistan and Russian. Darkhan offers authentic Mongolian fare such as steamed meat dumplings called buuz and fried meat stuffed pastries called khuushuur. Their lamb platter with rice and vegetables are good as well. If you are brave try their hot (sour) yogurt tea. Darkhan Cost: 7,000 Seoul, Jung-gu, Gwanghuidong 1-ga 188-5 02-2278-4633 Dinner: Marinated Pork Trotters at Pyeong-ando Jip Pyeong-ando Jip is famous fo...

Pork Belly For many Koreans, from common laborers to the upper-class, the perfect evening out with friends involves sizzling grilled pork belly in a bustling restaurant over good conversation and many shots of Korean alcohol called soju. In Korea, pork is the primary meat and the most popular cut is the belly called samgyeopsal. Samgyeopsal means 3 layers of fat and meat. The thick cuts of pork belly are not salt cured nor seasoned. They are simply grilled over a grill. In order to make the meat crispy and the fat poppy, it is usually cooked on a cast iron hot plate or even a stone grill. While many countries associate pork belly with bacon, hence deem it unhealthy, many Koreans think that occasionally eating samgyeopsal is actually healthy. During the yellow dust season which fills Korea’s air with unhealthy fine sand and silt that drifts over from Korea, Koreans believe the fat in the pork belly is good for cleansing the lungs. So did such a health-conscious country a...

This place is located in one of the little side streets of Insadong. The place is pretty popular. We got there about 1145 and it was already pretty full. By the time we left there was a line 10 people deep. The place is famous for their Sujebi which are handmade flour dumplings in an oyster broth with a ton of garlic. The dumplings are amazing here. They are silky and with a keen al dente bite. The atmosphere is great here as well. It is just a hanok with a wall of clay bowls. We also ordered the kong guksu: noodles in a soy milk broth. This was not as good. I mean the milk broth was tasteless regardless of how much salt we put in. The noodles were cooked correctly but the flavorless broth rendered that pointless. They are famous for their wild sesame seed Sujebi here and their seafood pancake. I will have to get that next time. Dan

Folks, I think we need to be more aware of the food that we eat and have more control over our needs and desire. These days I am in a good place. Business is good. I have met a person I love and there is plenty of press, accolades, and invites headed in my direction. The only problem is my weight. I am losing the battle here and it is becoming too apparent. No, I am not in the 100 kilo category yet but I know if I don't make some changes, I could easily get there. So being a food blogger shouldn't mean being a glutton. It should mean that one should be a lover of food and a storyteller of food. It should mean being a curator of restaurants. I feel I have lost focus of that for a while and I need to get better to do that. I changed the blog format so it would help people find good eats around the city without me having to post everything I eat. It's tiring to do so. I am hoping with this new format that it would give me a chance to share my thoughts that were not in the form...

Readers, these days, I have been recording with KBS World Radio about Korean food. Each week, I go on to talk about some of my favorite Korean foods. I have gotten permission to share the stories with you on this site. You can hear me on Wednesdays at 10am. Kimbap is for Koreans like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are for Americans, fish n chips for the British, Crepes for the French or marmite and margarine sandwiches for Australians. It is a nostalgic everyday snack food that many Koreans associate with school picnics and festivals. It is a simple dish. It is just rice seasoned with some roasted sesame oil placed on a sheet of seaweed stuffed with various vegetables and meat like yellow egg, orange carrots, white cucumbers, green spinach, pink ham, brown burdock, and yellow turnip. They are then wrapped carefully, yet firmly, brushed with some more sesame oil (to prevent the seaweed from ripping) and then sliced into rainbow disks that tastes best when eaten from the fingertips. ...

Friends, Thanks You! It is our 3rd Year Anniversary of O'ngo Food Communications Culinary School. I can't believe we have how far we have gone in such a short time. 3 years ago we were taking apart our small studio cooking space and then moved to our new cooking school in Jongno 3-ga. We had to do most of the renovations and cleaning ourselves in our new space because we wanted to save money. That first August we opened I think we had like 10 bookings all month. LOL. I almost thought I had made a grave mistake. September got better and so was October and then December hit. In December, North Korea attached Yeonpyeong Island and then we lost all bookings for that month and it was slow to pickup for a while. Luckily we got some projects to promote Korean food, but that first year we really struggled. After a while, we gained a strong reputation and our cooking classes and tours really picked up. Now we are one of the top things to do in the country and we have chefs that fl...

After our 10 hour drive of death north from Manila into the Mountain Provinces (this is the actual name of the district) we went straight to bed at the Banaue Hotel . This hotel is an 81 room hotel and boasts the unbeatable competitive advantage of being state owned and the hotel in the moderate vicinity. Overall the hotel was very nice. The rooms are comfortable, the food is good, and the view is phenomenal. I'd say the only real downside is that it was a bit old. Because we arrived at 1am the night before to complete darkness, this view from our balcony was a very pleasant surprise the next morning:   Finally! Some standard Filipino food! Some of my fellow travelers ordered the 'American style' breakfast with toast and pancakes but I chose to go Filipino. The difference being that the American style comes with bacon instead of this meat, and toast instead of rice. This is typical of the breakfasts we ate in the Philippines. Rice, eggs, some veggies, and some oversalted me...