grover

Oh, there's tea as well...Koreans love bori cha and I guarantee it will be there.

Bori Cha means roasted barley tea. Some restaurants use roasted corn instead.

Both of them have earthy flavor.

One more drink will be served: rice drink called sik-hye.

fermented rice from dried barley sprout.

It helps digestion.

Mr. Escoffier,

Do you think that our kitchen is big enough for 5 people and us to cook?

I don't mind having people around but I want them to have really good learning experience.

Speaking for Grover, (she lets me do that sometime), would you be interested in doing shopping and then returning to our house, preparing sushi with the groceries that Grover and I bought and then having that sushi for lunch?  Korean sushi that Grover prepares doesn't use fish and isn't spicy but certainly is good to eat.

So, to recap, shopping, preparing sushi, eating same...good?

I usually make a california style roll with avocado, marinated ground beef, egg, tobiko fish roe and pickled radish (but ingredients can be changed) and handrolls with radish sprouts and cucumber (either fresh or pickled).

My hubby and I became a fan of Restaurant Eve since they opened.

Food is always fabulous and service is great. Having a bistro and a tasting room separately is also wonderful strategic idea to draw customers.

We know most staff there... Chef Cathal, sweet Meshelle, rooster hair Todd, gorgeous Brandy, smoothy Torrence, la belle Margaret, nice Anice and so on.

(please pardon me I forgot some staff's names but they are all included here)

What I want to tell you is that we had a weird experience there on New Year's eve.

We (My hubby, me and his friend) were at the tasting room.

My hubby and his friend ordered wine pairing with the course.

(I am not a good drinker but I enjoy so I decided to sip his wines)

We could see all the staff were extremely busy on that day.

In the middle of course, they've got gewurtztraminer paired with food and my hubby didn't like the wine because it was too sweet. (He likes dry wine)

He told Todd that the wine was too sweet and Todd answered us that that is the best wine among the pairing. I felt the nuance as "what are you talking about? the wine is the best!" We expected he could replace some other wine but we didn't get anything. People who went Restaurant Eve probably know that Todd visits his serving area and has a short chat with customers. Later on, he shortly stopped by for pouring wine, explained what wine it is and left. No more chatting with us but with other tables. We didn't know what hurt his feeling.

At the dessert course we got great sauternes. Unfortunately, I finished it and he wanted it more.

He asked the wait staff if he could get a little bit of sauternes but somehow there was a miscommunication and he didn't get it. I thought he deserved it because we are the enthusiastic patron there.

Food was fabulous as usual.

I left there with bittersweet feeling.

My hubby wrote an email to Meshelle about this.

Oh, my sweet Meshelle, (I like her very much)

she replied the next day, apologized and she would let Todd see the email.

We still didn't hear from him.

And we made a reservation for Valentines Day.

P.S. Please pardon my English.. I am not native here. I hope you understand what I wanted to tell you.

FYI

If you get sweat easily or love cold weather, I wouldn't recommend ginseng at all.

Ginseng is known for stamina booster but raises body temperature.

Count me in! I'm there every weekend and generally spend $20 just experimenting. Love the kim chi section and would show up anytime for a guided tour.

A weeknight might be better, as unless it is early Sunday morning the place is insanely crowded on the weekends.

Please be my guest!

A weeknight might be good because it wouldn't be crowded, but sometimes Super H staff don't fully re-stock during the week.

Anyway, remember! We can always adjust the tour hour.

I had dinner there last July, and lunch sometime a few months after that, maybe October.  Has it changed?  I hope they didn't change the little bear.

My hubby and I used to go there around 2001 (?).

We like that place because they serve a low price / light dishes and menu is combined with Korean and Chinese style.

All of sudden they changed the place for beef soup.

So, I wonder what kind of menu style they are serving now...

If you feel like trekking to Annandale, try Annangol for BBQ (or Il Mee Buffet if you're really hungry and not so much worried about quality), Choong Hwa Won for Chinese-Korean noodles in black bean sauce, or Gom Ba Woo for good, informal homestyle cooking such as stir-fried kimchi with pork.

Cheers,

Rocks.

When was the last time you went to Gom Ba Woo?

Just curious...

A lot of the food in Super H supermarket in Fairfax is strange (I almost said foreign) to most American shoppers.  My wonderful +1 (Grover here on DR.com) would like to know if up to 5 people would like a guided tour of the foods at Super H and a bit of help in shopping for Korean food and vegetables.

Thunk yuoo, bork bork bork!

I think that weekend will be a good idea for most people, and I prefer Saturday morning around 9:00 AM because it will be crowded later.

As you noticed, 6 people with shopping carts will create a quite big circle so I try to avoid the crowded hour.

However, we can adjust the tour hour for more flexiblity as needed.

Since I am a Korean, I might have limited knowledge about Chinese or other Asian ingredients but I will do my best.

Crazeegirl mentioned the Naengmyun sari and asking for them to go with the Bulgogi broth... So, do you put them into the liquid that is in the "trough" around the grill?  Just wondering what the protocol is for getting them into the broth.

When you order Bulgogi with Naengmyun sari, the wait staff will know the time to bring and cook it for you. FYI, when you finish 3/4 or 2/3 of Bulgogi on the grill, it is good time to ask Naengmyun sari if the wait staff forgets to bring it.

Also, I ordered bibimbap at a restaurant in NYC and it was served with a raw egg on top of it, to be stirred into the hot rice/veg, etc. where it cooked from the heat of the dish.  At Han Sung Oak last week, bibimbap came with a fried egg on top     and I don't think it had cooked itself on top...were they just "Americanizing" the dish for me - what is traditional?  I preferred the first way myself.

Actually Han Sung Oak served correct way. It's quite odd to hear that the restaurant in NYC served you a raw egg with bibimbap. I tried to interprete it this way: You probably ordered Dol Sot Bibimbap (bibimbap in the hot stone pot) so a raw egg can be cooked inside. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dol sot bibimbap is not the traditional way to serve. It was developed for commercial purpose in 80's from the rice cooked in hot stone pot (this one is traditional).

Traditional bibimbap is served in the big bowl with rice, veggies, marinated ground beef and egg toping (neither a raw egg nor a sunny side up egg -- I'll explain later when you come to Korean dinner)

I have a question that has bothered me for a while.  I know that rice is served with some soups.  You add the rice to some of the soups and not for others.  How do you know which soup you should add the rice to?

It is very difficult to answer....

There is no clear line between stew and soup in Korean cuisine.

However, you can distinguish them through tasting.

If the soup is clear, not salty and looks like broth, then it is soup [guk in Korean language].

If the soup is thick, spicy and salty, then it is stew [chigeh in Korean language].

(There is an exception -- Spicy beef soup [Yuk ge Jahng])

Another tip, guk is served per person on the table but only a chigeh is served on the table so you can share it with family.

So, when you get a soup, you can put the rice in the soup but Koreans usually don't put the rice in the stew. How much I confuse you now?

If the duk mandoo guk is good and there is a lot of panchan, I'm happy.

Good point!!

Mandoo (dumplings) is very labor intensive to prepare.

I made dumpling soup (mandoo guk) for Chinese New Year and it took more than 3 hours.

It takes at least 3 hours to make the beef broth and 2 hours for preparing the stuffing and wrapping the dumplings.

Therefore, if a Korean restaurant serves good dumpling soup, then it definitely is a good restaurant.

When Koreans talk about restaurants, the question always asked is; "Do they have good Kimchi?"

How do YOU judge a good Korean restaurant?

Has anyone been to Han Sung Oak?  Any thoughts, particularly in contrast to Woo Lae Oak. 

Woo Lae Oak is a very famous restaurant in Seoul City in Korea which combines northern and mid region (Seoul) cuisine. Food from those regions are not spicy.

For your information, those spicy foods you are tasting at the restaurants are almost southern style. Therefore, Wood Lae Oak's food could be described as watered down or more bland than other Korean restaurants food. Woo Lae Oak cold noodles are the best (Pyung Yang style).

Han Sung Oak serves 70's style beef barbecue which boils broth in a ring around the grill for barbecueing (Bulgogi) so the juices from barbecueing are mixed with the broth. After barbecueing you add the buckwheat noodles (Naeng myun sari).

When I was a kid, I ate this way so it is comfort food for me. This style of cooking disappeared in the 80's so when I found Han Sung Oak I was very happy.

I would say this is Han Sung Oak's claim to fame.

Another thing I would like to mention is seafood pancake. A pancake is made of squid, shrimps, mussels, clams and scallions with flour batter.

I would say Han Sung Oak's seafood pancake is the best among Korean restaurants in DC metro area.

Other dishes are similar among all Korean restaurants. Each restaurant seems to specialize in some specific dish.

I hope this will help you out.