English explanation of the Yogiyo app

Do you like food? Do you hate leaving your apartment? Do you hate speaking Korean on the phone? Well, thanks to the Yogiyo app, you can finally be the lazy person you secretly fear you already are. There is a really great app for ordering food called Yogiyo. Generally, I try to avoid using Korean apps, because most of them want an inappropriate amount of information from you and Korea doesn’t have a great track record of keeping your information private for long. It’s all in Korean, so someone was nice enough to explain how to use it. The above description is specifically for paying with your cell phone (the charge just shows up on your phone bill). You can also opt to pay with a card or cash when they arrive. If you want to pay with a card when they get there, click the first yellow option in slide 9 (it should say 신용카드 결제). If you want to pay with cash, select the 2nd yellow option in slide 9 (현금 결제). I would recommend using the “pay when they get here option” and you don’t even have to worry about the last two slides in the picture. Using the app still requires you to have some command of Korean if you want to know what you’re ordering. I mainly use this app because it freaks me out to order food on the phone. I just want a pizza, not a panic attack. Hope this helps.

I Love Cookie Foreign Grocery Store, Yeongtong, Suwon

It’s a hassle to go to Itaewon to buy stuff you miss from back home…and sometimes you don’t want to order stuff online. If you live in Suwon, especially the Yeongtong area, then you should check out I Love Cookie.

Even though it’s been around for a while, it’s in a strange spot and so people sometimes post things on the Suwon facebook group asking where they can find baking supplies or something. I think they may have more baking supplies than Home Plus. I usually stop in once a week to pick up a few things and I’ve found them to be reasonably priced. It might be cheaper to go to some shops in Itaewon for some items, but for the convenience I don’t mind paying a thousand won extra for some things…it’s also 5 minutes from my apartment. Anyway, the staff is very helpful and they have some good stuff, so I’d highly recommend dropping in.

Some of the good stuff: Doritos, Cheetos that taste like cheese and not steaks, Reese’s, Butterfingers, Caramel TimTam’s, chicken broth, cake mix, icing (if you’re lazy), Pillsbury biscuits, deodorant, lots of soups, cheeses, deli sliced turkey, etc. And like I said, there is a ton of baking stuff and they had a slow cooker today (the official kitchen gadget of Winter).

How to get there:

1) You know where Starbucks, Spoin, and Outback are? It’s across the street from those.

2) It’s between the World Mark building and Caffe Bene/Baskin Robbins/ABC Mart

3) If you are facing the main entrance of Home Plus, turn left and walk for a few blocks and it’ll be on your right.

Sorry, no map right now. My Skitch is “updating” and I have no idea how to make a map without it.

 

 

Cooking With Josh Teacher: Chicken Chili

I haven’t had much time to cook lately, but I was super happy with some chicken chili I made. I altered a recipe from Chef John at FoodWishes. Chef John is great, by the way. Not only is he pretty funny, but I’ve never made any of his recipes that weren’t complete successes. The only things I change are:

the ancho chili powder (we don’t have such fancy things in Korea)

the chicken broth

the cornmeal and the sugar

the beans

chipotle chili

I use regular chili powder (not red pepper powder, but chili powder you buy in Itaewon). Chipotle chili is impossible to find in Korea, so I had some I brought from America. We don’t have many places to buy chicken broth and I don’t want to make it from scratch, so I rely on bouillon cubes. I don’t use the cornmeal or sugar at all. I don’t use white beans, instead I use 1 can of black beans and one can of chili beans (I rinse the can gunk off of them). I also don’t use garnish or green onions because I’m not fancy when I cook for myself. Sometimes, I get a little crazy with the cayenne and cumin because they are the best flavors. An important thing to remember is you need to use a stainless steel skillet; if you use a non-stick pan, you’re going to have a bad time. You can use it, but you won’t develop a fond on the pan and will have nothing to deglaze. Deglazing is wonderful for getting all those delicious burnt cancer-causing flavors off the pan and making sauces. When you add the dry spices and flour to the onions and garlic, it will look bad. It will look like you’ve ruined it, but you haven’t. This is not a dish about how pretty it is. You can also throw in some diced bell peppers with your onions and it will fill it out a bit if you want to stretch it. It makes “four” servings, but it actually makes 3 if you treat this as a meal and not as something to eat with a sandwich. I usually eat it straight away, but sometimes I’ll get it going and transfer it to a crockpot for 4 or 5 hours and it makes the chicken disintegrate. It’s definitely worth a shot, especially during the bleak Korean winters.

6th Floor Cafe, Breakfast in Yeongtong!

In Yeongtong, Suwon there’s a lady who does food delivery to your apartment (if you live in Yeongtong) for very reasonable prices. This morning I realized that all my dishes were dirty and I didn’t feel like cleaning up just to dirty them again, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I got biscuits and gravy with sausage, bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns for 10,000won and they delivered it to my door. I’m not sure how they make it so cheaply, but it was really excellent. They usually have 2 brunch items, a sandwich, a main dish or two, sides, and smaller snacks. I definitely want to try their steak and Guinness pie next time. You can visit their website to see the menu and place your order for the next weekend. They also have a Facebook group you can visit. Again, really excellent if you live in the Yeongtong area and I’ll definitely be making a tradition out of this.

Swoyambhu, The Curries of Suwon part 5

I’m continuing my Curries of Suwon series. Today I’m going to give my thoughts on the most popular Curry place in the city, Swoyambhu. To check out the other places I’ve reviewed so far, check out the links here: Dheli Dhaba, Ayesha, Kasam, and Taj: A Taste of India.

So here’s a bit of background about why I have been really critical of this place in past posts: Three or four years ago, Swoyambhu was one of only 3 or 4 curry restaurants in the Suwon area and now we have something like 15 by my count. I used to go to Swoyambhu several times a week with my friends because it was great and a lot of my friends at the time were vegetarians. At one point, Swoyambhu was better than Kasam, but there were problems. We used to wait close to an hour for our food, but that was fine because we knew that it was actually being made to order. So a long wait was forgivable…but then it seemed as though they started using bad cuts of meat and so you’d get a gristly/boney mess in your curry. The last and worst change that they made was that they changed the recipes themselves. I don’t know if they got a different cook or what, but it went from a proper curry to a thick paste and it’s stayed that way to this day. So by this point, my friends and I have almost completely quit going.

Anyway, I decided to go again for the blog. I went last week because one of the regulars at curry night™ (a real thing, mind you) couldn’t make it and he had outright refused to go to Swoyambhu again. The thing that is most striking about the place is that it’s the nicest Indian restaurant you can go to for the price. Taj, of course, is the nicest, but it’s also incredibly expensive. Swoyambhu has put a lot of money and effort into making its interior much nicer. It used to be a very practical/utilitarian place that sort of said “You came to eat, not look at stuff.” They’ve made it much nicer, for sure. Their menu is massive…too massive. When you sit down, you get a 12 page menu. You can think of this as a good chance to try a lot of things, but the truth is that if a menu is 12 pages long then a lot of the stuff is going to taste the same and they’re not doing justice to the individual dishes probably. You can choose from biryani, chow mein, veg curry, prawn curry, lamb curry, chicken curry, some potato dishes, etc. I think the Aloo Achar is really nice (it’s a spicy potato dish with cumin, peppers, turmeric, etc) and I suggest you try it.

I ordered a standard chicken tikka masala, not very Indian, but it’s sort of the litmus test now for meat options. It was indeed a thick paste, but I thought about it more and I think the flavors were nice. You can taste each individual ingredient since it’s a bit chunky and the vegetables are roughly chopped, whereas some places put their stuff through a blender first to make it smooth. I still don’t like the texture, but I thought the flavor was fine. They were still using less than good cuts of meat, but I didn’t get any bones and it wasn’t too gristly this time. My friend ordered a vegetarian set, because he’s Irish and is all about value (take that, Ireland!). I tried some of his…man, it wasn’t good. It was all pretty bland, with the chana being the best thing about it. The mixed veg curry that came with the set was obviously made from canned vegetables. No one should have to eat canned vegetables. Mine was much better and was an appropriate amount of food. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered it, so maybe I had built it up in my mind and was too harsh. It is maybe not the worst curry in Suwon, but it’s not the holy grail either. It’s fine.

The prices are a little more than some of the other places in the area by 2,000-4,000won, so it’s not terribly overpriced. You can expect to eat there for 14,000-17,000won. They also have a nice little market area where you can buy all the spices necessary to attempt your own homemade curry (good luck, you’re going to need it). It’s pretty easy to find. If you are at Suwon station, walk up the road away from the station (the main drag) and take a right after you pass the Maesan Sijang/매산시장 bus stop. It’ll be on your left after about a block on the second floor above a norebang. I put a picture of the shop front so you can find it. Here’s a map just in case.

Dheli Dhaba, The Curries of Suwon part 4

Let’s continue our curry adventures, shall we? Today, I’ll tell you about Dheli Dhaba, an Indian restaurant with a Turkish spin on it. We used to call this the Turkish place, but it seems like their kebab options have dwindled and they’re focusing mainly on curries now. They’ve also changed locations sort of. They used to be down an alley and they had a huge basement area as well, but now they’ve moved the whole operation downstairs and they have an entrance on the main road.

Let’s talk about what they do right first. For one thing, it’s by far the cheapest Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. You could easily eat here for under 10,000won. We ordered 4 curries, 5 bread things, rice, a kebab, samosas, and drinks and it was 42,000won. Incredibly affordable. The three of us who went there all thought the vegetarian dishes were amazing. We had the daal (lentils), aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower), chana masala (chickpeas), and butter chicken. The Irish particularly liked the aloo gobi, which was good, but I have a weird thing about the texture of cauliflower. So sue me. I thought the chana masala was the best dish. Considering that it’s typically not a main dish, they really did it justice. It was really floral and had a really prominent ginger taste…or was it cardamom? I’m not exactly sure, I’d have to have it again.

Now for the bad. I’ve been here a couple of times and ordered meat things both times. Their meat just isn’t good. The chicken butter was described as “a chicken that died a buttery death.” It really did taste like you were eating a stick of butter. That was the worst thing we had. The daal and that were really too salty. When your curry tastes like salt and not lentils, it’s a problem. We tried chapati, naan, and roti for the breads and they were all passable, though nothing special.

They have quite a big space and can seat large groups. I went one time with around 20 people for a birthday party. They also have a nice little mini grocery store, as is common for a lot of Indian restaurants. If you ever need 20kg of Jasmine rice, you can get it here. So this is a great place for poor vegetarians, and it’s good if you’re not poor as well…but meat eaters steer clear. It’s on the main street near Suwon station. If you just walk up the street it’s on the right in the same building as Bean’s Bins Coffee and it’s across the street from places like Tom and Tom’s/Pizza hut/Starbucks/etc.

post destruction

Ayesha, The Curries of Suwon Part 3

Here is my third installment in “The Curries of Suwon” series, in which I am attempting to give every Indian/Nepalese/Pakistani restaurant in Suwon a fair shake. In part 1, I reviewed Taj A Taste of India in Yeongtong. It was nice, but a bit over-priced for the common man. In part 2, I went to Kasam at Suwon station. I asserted my belief that it was the best curry in town and brashly implied that all the people who like the big curry joint wouldn’t know a good curry if it smacked them in the mouth. Now we’ve come to Ayesha.

Ayesha is one of the under-appreciated curry options in Suwon and I think it’s poor location could play a part. Most people I know didn’t even know it existed. I’ve only been a few times and it’s always been good. Even 10 Magazine gave it a positive review a while back. I went last week with a couple of friends and we were the only people there. The decor is pretty minimal and it can only seat about 12-14 people, but the food is amazing (probably because it can only seat 12-14 people). One of the Kasam diehards said that he believes it to be better than Kasam, but I just think it’s number 2. The menu is pretty standard and has an equal number of vegetarian and meaty options. I got the Chicken Makhani and asked them to make it a bit more spicy for me and boy did they. My friend got the mutton curry and said it was great. The food is really nice and the flavors are more complex than most of the other places in town, but the downside is that it’s a bit greasy and the portions are a bit smaller than the other places as well. One of the best things I liked the most is that they avoid the pitfall of making their curries sweet. You can have sugar in a curry, but it shouldn’t taste like candy. The naan that you get is massive and has a nice char that really sets it apart from some of the other naans I’ve had. We split a basmati rice, which was really cheap, but you really don’t have a lot of curry left over to mix it with. The price was definitely right though. You could have a curry and a naan for 10,000won which is not bad at all.

As other places will mention, you can also buy some dry goods from their little mini mart that takes up a side of the restaurant. So you can get your basic lentils, ghee, microwave meals, spices, and even lamb. I really intend to go here more often. The more popular places will be open indefinitely, but it’s the little hole in the wall places that need to be frequented in order to preserve uniqueness and variety in the city. Three years ago, the restaurant I now loathe was pretty crummy and no one ever went, but eventually it grew to be “the” curry place. Anyway, you can go to those big places any time you want, but help out the little guy too and be glad you did, because the food is great.

To get there, you can cross the street on the bridge from AK plaza and go right. Take a left at the U+ shop. It’s also the alley behind the bus stop. The 10 magazine article also has directions, so check there if I’m not being clear enough. I’m putting a picture of what the street looks like and the shop front. Ayesha also has a blog that hasn’t been updated since 2009 if you want to see some pictures of the interior. I highly encourage you to try this place and preserve the uniqueness of Suwon’s curry scene.

New Organic Food Market in Seosan

 

On Saturday, I noticed there was a new shop open across from Cafe Bené, under the SLP, and next to Dominos. It’s called “Co-op,” but it’s not actually a co-op where you pay a membership fee in order to shop there; it’s an organic store though. They have a sort of limited vegetable section, but grains…goodness the grains…if you need grains…But seriously, they have a lot in the ways of rice variation, legumes, and things whose identity I was not immediately aware of. I bought some pork chops. 3 porkchops that were free of antibiotics and growth hormones were only 6,600won (6$). That’s a pretty good deal (especially since finding what we call pork chops is more difficult than you would think, considering this is a country that loves its pork. There’s a small coffee shop inside as well. It’s definitely a small place but it has things I have seen in other places, so it might be worth a look. Here’s a map and some pictures I took inside:

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Expat Thanksgiving: Seosan, Korea

Last night, the expats in Seosan got together in a local bar and with the help of about 5 or 6 ovens we threw a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, stuffing, some great bacon and cheese mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, biscuits, and all the other normal stuff associated with a big family potluck. It was a bit chaotic for sure. There were easily over 40 people in attendance, so it was a little hard to get everyone organized, but it turned out pretty well. My girlfriend and 3 of my friends from Suwon. My friend James made a green bean casserole, but he’s Irish and didn’t know that everyone hates green bean casserole (I’m just kidding. There was none left). I made my grandma’s macaroni and cheese, but I didn’t put enough salt in it…I also made an apple pie and a blueberry pie from scratch. The apple pie was beautiful, but the blueberry pie turned out pretty ugly since the blueberries bubbled over the lattice top, it reportedly tasted good though. I will not be making another pie without a pastry blender though. Thanks to Urban bar and all the people who organized the event.

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Why Good Restaurants Go Bad

Here’s a really interesting article by a guy named Gord Sellar. I’ve often wondered about some of the issues he brings up. Give it a read if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

A Bizarre Underground Industry, or, When Good Restaurants Go Bad