B for bibimbap!

Bibimbap consists of rice, assorted vegetables, beef and topped off with an egg. It's pretty on the eyes.. but not for long! Haha. To serve, you add hot pepper paste/sauce and mix it all up. Mmm. Dolsot bibimbap is better though, as it's served in a cast iron/ceramic bowl and continues to cook as you eat. Too bad I don't have one. :(

Anyway, it's simple to make. Preparation time is longer than cooking time but that's all because presentation matters. Hehe :)

Bibimbap

cooked rice
carrots, peeled and sliced into thin strips
cucumbers, sliced into thin strips
shitake mushrooms, sliced
spinach leaves
soybean sprouts
gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
sesame oil
eggs
soy sauce
sesame seeds, roasted
beef, marinated in bulgogi sauce

Blanch all vegetables separately except for the cucumber.
Season with soy sauce and sesame oil.
Cook beef. Set aside.
Put cooked rice in the bowl.
Add vegetables and beef.


Fry eggs sunny side up.
Place egg on top and serve immediately.

Oriental Spoon

I wanted bibimbap. I haven't eaten it before, but I wanted it. Haha. It's a Korean dish of rice with seasoned vegetables, egg, beef and chilli sauce/paste, in which you mix through before eating.

I went to Oriental Spoon for dinner. I haven't been there before but I've heard about the place from several people. (I don't eat out much anyway.. probably because I'm a bit picky with food. :P)

So we all got beef bibimbaps except for one person, who got the special tteokbokki.


This is the "Special Dokbokki". What's so special about it, you ask? Well.. there's the 2 pan fried dumplings and the 2 halves of boiled egg sitting with the normal composition of tteokbokki (rice cakes, sliced fishcakes, ramen, chilli sauce). But. There was something more to it.

I'm not sure if it was intentional or not.. but.. from where I was sitting (and L noticed this too)..

What does this look like to you?


Hehe. We flipped the eggs around so that the crab would have some pupils on it's eyes. Haha :P

I thought that was so cute, intentional or not. Hehehe~ :D

And this was my "Beef Bibimbop".


Such pretty colours~ OH. And not to forget the chilli sauce!


You have no idea how much sauce I put. What you see here is only about 25% of the amount I put in. I was craving for something spicy. I used to not like chilli but now I seem to like spicy things. Anyway, it's perfect for Winter! Yes, it's the season to eat spicy! :)

I don't have a photo of when I mixed the whole thing through. It doesn't look like much, but under all of that is a heap of rice. It's a pretty big serving and I did get full before I reached half way though. But I finished it all in due time (as to not waste food.. I've been brought up this way. Haha). Yes, I was the last to finish my bibimbap. -__-

Oriental Spoon is now my favourite Korean food restaurant. The prices are okay and I like the taste of the food. I like their kimchi and side dishes also. Plus, they speak Korean there. Haha. I wish I were Korean. :(

I'll most likely be back there when I want Korean food. ;)


If you were wondering, the "Grape Bong Bong" is the green canned drink in which appears in the photo with the tteokbokki. It's a carbonated grape drink with real grapes inside. I don't know what it tastes like though.

Tteokbokki (Spicy rice cakes)

Sometimes, I wish I were Korean. I'm quite fond of Korean things. It all started with Korean dramas. I've watched quite a bit in the past 7 years. So much that I've picked up words and phrases, here and there.

One day, I'll travel to Korea. See the palaces, the scenery, eat the food. And one day, I'll get around to learning the language. Haha. I have a Korean learning kit. I haven't read it yet though. I bought it last year. (Not to mention the Cantonese learning kit that I also have and yet to finish reading.. which was purchased about 2-3 years ago.. haha.)

Tteobokki are spicy Korean rice cakes. My history of tteokbokki started when I first saw it in the Korean drama 'Goong', when it first aired about 2 years ago. I loved the series. It was so full of culture and tradition. And it was then when I first saw tteokbokki and wanted to try it. So when I saw it at a Korean restaurant, I tried it. And now, I tried making it. Hehe~

I tried to make rice cakes the other day. I decided that I didn't want to go out just to buy them, so I tried making them instead. (You can find them at Korean grocers, for about $5 a tray or something. The amount of rice cakes that I made probably equated to about 2-2.5 trays). They turned out okay. I had them freezing in the freezer for the past few days. And with a few ingredients that I had on hand, I made tteokbokki for dinner. Not quite the traditional Korean tteokbokki, but good enough for me.


Rice cakes
Makes about 45-50 rice cakes

400gm rice flour
200gm glutinous rice flour
salt
water

Combine together until a dough is formed. Be careful not to add too much water, so add a little at a time when a dough is nearly formed. If you add too much water, the rice cakes may turn out soft and sticky.

Boil a large pot of water on the stovetop.
Roll rice cakes out and pop into the pot. I rolled some into cylinders and some sliced.
(They will sink to the bottom, but will float to the top when cooked.)
Leave them in there for a few minutes after they float to the top.
Transfer to a large bowl filled with cold water. (This will prevent them from sticking to each other.)
Drain rice cakes and allow to dry before freezing.
Thaw and cook in boiling water before using.


Tteokbokki (Spicy rice cakes)
Serves 4-8

rice cakes, cooked and cooled (doesn't have to be completely cooled down. Just as long as it's not too soft to deal with)
150gm tteokbokki sauce (see photos above, or similar) (you can get it at Korean grocers and some Asian grocers)
some broccoli, chopped
300gm beef, sliced
2 onions, sliced
*fish tofu, sliced (I couldn't be bothered thawing the fish tofu so I didn't use any)

In a pan, saute the onions with a little oil.
Add the beef and stirfry for a few minutes until half - 3/4 cooked.
Removed from pan, set aside.
Stirfry the broccoli with the tteokbokki sauce, then add the onions, beef and rice cakes.
Carefully combine and cook on low heat until serving.
Serve immediately.


You could have also added some cooked ramen if you didn't have many rice cakes.

Paldo jajangmyun

I watch Korean dramas, I discover Korean food. It was Goong that introduced me to tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes). And I think it was Goong S that introduced me to jajangmyun (Chinese derived Korean black bean noodles).

I like instant ramen. Especially the Korean ones, because their ramen are thicker and taste better. Haha. I found instant jajangmyun one day and decided to try it. I bought three different brands that day, and this one has been the best so far (it was also the priciest of them all. I think it costed about $2.40-$2.80 or so, from an Asian grocer).

Paldo jajangmyun


There was no English on the packaging but it had pictures in the directions, so it was self explanatory. I did find a YouTube clip as well. Haha. It's in Japanese though.



Of course, nothing is always what it seems. And my jajangmyun did not look like the photo on the packaging. It did have some sort of vegetable pieces (but I couldn't tell what they were as they had been soaked in the blackbean sauce) and I think there was even meat! The blackbean sauce was really nice. Not like the Chinese blackbean sauce that you'd find in Asian grocers. It was a very dark brown colour and looked extremely salty.. but it wasn't! It was actually really nice! The best instant jajangmyun I've ever had. Haha. Oh, I don't know what fresh jajangmyun tastes like. I've yet to find a Korean restaurant that actually makes it.. :(

Big Ma Ma, Korean & Japanese

Takoyaki

This wasn't the best takoyaki. A bit on the oily side.

Agedashi tofu

The tofu was smothered in the same sauces as the takoyaki basically.

Tteokbokki (with ramen)

Why.. was there ramen in this? It looked like they added someone's left over ramen from lunch. -__- Oh well. I like ramen anyway, so it didn't matter to me. Haha. It wasn't really spicy though. I've had better tteokbokki before..

Seafood pah jeon (Korean seafood pancake)

Ahhh! There were mussels in here! >< I didn't quite like this though. It was a bit oily.. So I ate it with the tteokbokki sauce. Haha~ Made it taste better actually! :P

But overall, it's an okay place to eat at. The garlic prawn (I think it was with fried rice or something) that they have is nice. It's convenient as it's near uni and we don't have to go all the way down to Chinatown. (I don't like union house food really.)

Prices are average, food is average, servings are average.

Big Ma Ma
Korean Japanese Restaurant
466 Swanston St
Carlton VIC 3053
11:30am - 9:00pm