Originally published in the May Issue of Seoul Magazine. Pickup a copy at reputable places or at Seoul Selection Book Store. You can follow Seoul Magazine at their website at www.seoulselection.com Congdu: The Simple Bean, Transformed Rating 3 Stars: Highly Recommended (Local, artisan ingredients, creative chefs, excellent setting.) The restaurant Congdu focuses on the simple bean. After all, the plain soybean is a versatile ingredient. It can be steamed and fermented and then put into brined water to make soy sauce. It can be ground, boiled and strained to make tofu. Full of protein and essential vitamins, it can take the place of meat and many vegetables. Modern approaches transform the soybean into meat substitutes, drinks, and even ice cream. Vivian Han started Congdu in 2002. She said, “My concept was to take authentic Korean tastes and use high quality local ingredients and creatively prepare them to titillate modern tastes and sensibilities.” Located at the Seoul Nation...

Hi Folks, Between tours and work, my schedule hasn't left me a lot of time for blogging. Don't worry, I have still been taking pictures. Here is the dinner course that I had at Congdu Restaurant. It was a great dinner made even better by sharing it with friends. Once I can get to my computer, I will write a description of what I had. Congdu 50 Jongno-gu, Saemunan-gil Seoul National History Museum #02-722-7002 www.congdu.com Open from 11:30-2pm and 5:30pm to 10pm Cost: 20,000 lunch and 35-100,000 a person for dinner. Getting There: Go out Gwanghwamun Station (line 5) Exit 7 and walk straight for 5 minutes. Cheers, Dan Carrot Puree, Spring Salad Beef Tartar with caviar marinated with 5, 10, and 15 year old soy sauce Seaweed Chicken Consumme with Rice Cake Fried Tofu with Soybean Sauce and fresh kimchi Braised Snapper with orange soybean sauce

 Sunday was a good food day. After finishing up some paperwork at the office, I was lucky enough to find that we had some amazing salmon in the fridge (leftovers from a catering event we held). We had the fish delivered from the fish market on Friday. It was so fresh that we sliced it and had it as sashimi. Sunday, when I panfried it, it was still delicious. I had it plain with some fig compote that our chef had made for a cheese plate. It was an excellent lunch. Later that afternoon I met my friend Suji and we went out to Gwanghwamoon for a coffee. We went to the Olleh center and had a coffee. The coffee was not bad, the waffle was. These were Liege Waffles that cost 3,000 a piece. Sure, not expensive but they should taste natural. These tasted like the yeast was left to sit for a while so it had a chemical aftertaste. I hope that the cafe will correct this problem. The Olleh center has a nice porch and it was wonderful to sit outside and have coffee. After our coffee, we dec...

On Thursday, I helped organize an event for the chef's association in Korea , LTB. At the event the chefs learned how to make makgeolli from scratch and then made their own batches of makgeolli. The event was a big success and the Chosun Ilbo, Korea's largest newspaper, did a story on the event. Now before the event, I had an opportunity eat at the venue, Congdu Restaurant (Located in the Seoul National History Museum). The concept of the restaurant is healthy, new, and almost everything is made from beans. Green Menu Soybean milk Soup We started out with a soy bean milk soup (kongguksu) flavored with green herb (mugwort) with angel hairlike threads of crunchy turnip noodles with a citrus dressed salad. This dish was very refreshing and refined. Then we had a pumpkin soup with a hint of soybean and garnished with roasted walnut and a chestnut. This dish was very subtle. The main course was very Korean as well. We had the green menu (25,000 per person) and the opti...