Introducing Korean Food to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Introducing Korean Food to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Once my family had been to Orient Express in Seaside (California) and liked the barbecued beef called bulgogi and the array of little dishes called pan ch’an of sour vegetables flavored with sesame oil, I wanted to take my daughter Florence out for some more Korean food as an early dinner meal after picking her up from school.

My husband worked late hours at the time, so I treated early dinners with Florence as a cultural field trip when we went to ethnic restaurants.

I did some more background reading on Korean cuisine and called my editor at The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000).

I asked my editor, if I could review the Hidden Korea Restaurant in Marina to introduce Monterey County residents to some other restaurants that serve Korean foods in the County.

The editor agreed to let me review the restaurant for that reason.  My review follows:

Hidden Korea: Marina’s New Korea Restaurant is off the Beaten Path, but Worth a Few Wrong Turns

The New Korea Restaurant in Marina is tough to find.  But, its elusive location has not kept customers away for the past thirty years.  Word-of-mouth brings in most diners.

My husband’s Korean colleagues recommended it.  I immediately liked the place when I walked in and saw the wood tables and Korean script poetry on the walls.

We started our meal with what I dubbed a Korean pizza: the haemul pajon pancake, containing scallions and seafood.  The rice flour used to make haemul pajon gives it a chewy texture.

Sesame oil and soy sauce give the pancake a savory taste that accents the seafood flavors.

Golden crust covered in the haemul pajon , which was cut into squares for easy dipping in soy sauce.  I thought the Korean pancake was delicious.  Like pizza, this dish can easily serve as a main meal for two.

My husband Laurent alternated eating between the two main dishes he ordered:

-maemal soondubu and bulgogi

-the spicy, dark red soup that no doubt gets its kick from the addition of gochu jang : Korean hot chili paste made from melted glutinous rice, soybean cake, red hot chili, and salt among other items.

Laurent stifled a few snuffles as he ate.  He said the soup was delicious as his cheeks turned pink.

He especially liked the pieces of tobu (Korean tofu).  Fresh mussels, octopus, and shrimp made up of the seafood contingent in his soup, but they were more like condiments than the main ingredient.

The thin filets of beef were very tender and some of the best that I have tasted on the Peninsula.  Every cook has his or her own secret for this dish, but the meat typically marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, and sugar before getting broiled.

The meat comes steaming to the table on top of brown onions.

Korea is unique in East Asia for its beef consumption; the Chinese favor pork and the Japanese favor fish.  In the 13^th century, Ghenghis Khan’s Mongol hordes overran the Korean peninsula and brought their taste for beef with them.

Koreans are picky about their meat looking for all cuts to liven up to the reputation of the beef on Korea’s southern island of Cheju.

With their country surrounded by water on three sides, Koreans have always featured fish and seafood in their cuisine.  My main entrée, nakji bokum, octopus stir-fry, was one such dish.

This dish is a spicy mixture with lots of hot, green peppers, so the faint of spicy foods should beware.

Spicy gochu jang paste goes into the stir-fry along with chili powder, sesame oil, strips of red peppers, carrot ovals, and onions.

I loved the hot spicy taste with the chewy octopus.  Some of the thinner tentacles were a little tough, but that happens when you cook thin and thick pieces together.

My favorite part of a Korean meal is the mixture of side dishes called pan ch’an.  Usually they consist of pickled vegetables seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil called haemul.

I liked the kimchi, which left a nice tingle in my mouth as did the cucumber kimchi.  The cucumber kimchi had a slight fish flavor to it.  Several Korean cookbooks note that the oysters used to season kimchi dissolve, leaving only their briny tang.

The chilis and chili powder that seem so typically Korean have not always been part of Korean cooking.  Pickled cabbage has been around for 4,000 years.

Chilies, an American agricultural product, entered Korea beginning in 1592 according to food historian and cookbook author Copeland Marks in his book The Korean Kitchen: Classic Recipes from the Land of the Morning Sun.

It was during a seven-year war between Japan and Korea that Portuguese Catholic priests, who were accompanying the Japanese troops, took the chili seeds and/or plants to Korea.

The Portuguese got the plants from the Spanish, who had brought them from Central America to Europe.  Koreans adopted the chilies just like the Italians adopted the American tomato.

We drank Korean barley-corn tea with our meal, which is different from black and green teas.  The Koreans prefer decaffeinated brew made by boiling barley and corn and, then, straining the liquid.

The tea soothed our tongues from the spicy foods.  I felt like picking some up in a Korean grocery store after we left this restaurant that definitely deserves a detour.

End of Article

Since I wrote that article, a very good cookbook on Korean food has been published called Growing up in a Korean Kitchen by Hi Soo Shin.

Before going to a Korean restaurant now, I would recommend reading that book, so you would know what is on the menu.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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