New York, Day 2

After a late breakfast, we headed to Times Square, followed by the Whitney Museum. By that time, it was 2:30, and we were craving a late lunch, so upon a recommendation from my brother-in-law, we tried to find Momofuku (171 1st Ave/New York, NY 10013/212.475.7899). The 1^st Ave address implied that it was near the United Nations, so we spent a twenty blocks’ walk looking for this noodle house, finally calling it twice. But no one picked up to confirm, and we ended up heading to Grand Central Station as a consolation prize, disgruntled. (It looks like something’s wrong with its directory entry – it may be closed?)

Grand Central Station had a huge food court with smaller versions of “unique New York” (try saying that fast) culinary establishments. I shared and quickly gobbled down a tomato and parmesan foccacia from Zaro’s Bread Basket ($4.95), only made better by the temporary heat from the panini grill. I imagined it as an yeasty, herby upgrade of a pizza.

We then headed to Rockefeller Center and picked up pseudo-lunches from ‘wichcraft, in the basement. The gourmet fast food sandwich bar was pricey, though the sandwiches were good. Plus, points for presentation.

The slow-roasted pork sandwich ($8.50) with red cabbage and jalapeno had enough – if not too much – of a spicy kick. While the grilled fontina ($9) was fairly small, the makers had the great idea of including chewy black trumpet mushrooms (I am fairly certain these are the mushrooms labeled “black fungus” in Chinese supermarkets) and truffle oil on the moist-but-crisp white bread. A better choice was the soup ($4) – pureed cauliflower that was only apparent in the aftertaste, with colorful chive oil on top. It came with two thin, crunchy breadsticks to dip.

A quick stop for Dean and DeLuca’s coffee was next – we had been looking all afternoon for one. The coffee was hot and pungent – while the scent did indicate its bitterness, most of the aftertaste evaporated quickly.

On to Pinkberry! We searched online for the nearest location – and it happened to land smack-dab in the middle of Koreatown. Given my fondness for Berryline, I was eager to compare Pinkberry to it. Perhaps that is somewhat irreverent, however: Berryline is actually a Beantown knockoff of Pinkberry. As a result of the recent froyo craze and the fact that Starbucks is actually putting a little of their brew into Pinkberry, it seemed that Pinkberry was a little paranoid. I was yelled at for taking photos in the crowded space, which looked like an internet café meets teenage-girl Starbucks.

And what do I think about Pinkberry’s froyo? To some extent, it might have been Berryline withdrawal (I found out that they had mango – plus Oreo – while I was gone), or simply the factor of being first, but I found Pinkberry to be refreshingly good. Other customers walking out of the store called it “yogurty,” and that was indeed the case. It was also surprisingly creamy – I had expected something icier. The fruit – I ordered raspberries, blackberries and mango – was for the most part, fresh. My mango was unripe (another point for Berryline!) and green tendrils were protruding from one blackberry, but the raspberries were ideal.

During our brief stay at Pinkberry, we planned out the remainder of this non-stop noshing day. Our original plan was to eat at the Peking Duck House in Chinatown but we were sidetracked by the Korean eateries. (Incidentally, the NYT published an article about the Koreatown that same day, which we only found later that evening.) We finally settled on Hyo Dong Gak (51 W 35th Street/New York, NY 10001/212.495.7167), a few blocks' walk from the center of Koreatown and the recipient of a few favorable online reviews.

Upon walking into the restaurant, we waited for seats to open. The restaurant looked comfortable, in a good way…but so did the menu, in a bad way. I scanned up and down the pages, but all I saw was “sweet and sour pork,” “Mongolian beef,” and more of what looked like to be generic Chinese take-out dishes. Not that I’m morally against “sweet and sour pork,” I just prefer to eat it only when necessary. (And by necessary, I mean once a year.)

My sister reassured me that “really, that’s the special thing about this place – they’re a Korean/Chinese hybrid restaurant,” but really, I struggled – and still do – with this conception.

(Warning: I am a moderate version of my friend Hank, who refuses to eat the (reputedly) “awesome” steak at Waffle House because he only eats waffles at Waffle House. That said, I do agree with him on the Cheesecake Factory – if you must, only get the cheesecake there. My take, however, is that the entrees there are not only generic but laced with sodium.)

Back to Hyo Dong Gak. I looked skeptically at my sister. First of all, the menu clearly stated Chinese restaurant. Second of all, one of the posted reviews on the restaurant’s bulletin board was from a local newspaper who championed the fact that their Japanese reviewer liked some sort of seafood delight. Awkward was an understatement, but just when I was about to leave, a table opened and we obligatorily sat down.

With a little help from Yelp, we chose our order: the noodles in brown sauce (called jajang-myeon - $5.95), an bowl of seafood noodle soup (with extra seafood), and tang soo yook, described on the site as a Korean version of sesame chicken. We looked around at all the other tables, and it looked like they ordered the exact same meal as well. Good call; we patted ourselves on the back.

The first thing that arrived was the tang soo yook. It did look like generic sweet-and-sour chicken, but it was surprisingly good. It had been deep fried in the same style, but the chicken came out hot and the oil tasted clean. Granted that when you bit into it, hot oil burst out, but it was quite tasty. The sauce was somewhat flavorless and the vegetables were definitely of the sweet-and-sour chicken genre (peppers, water chestnuts, snow peas), but the dish’s freshness made up for it. It wouldn’t be a repeat though; upon picking up the check, we found out that the chicken was almost double the price of the other dishes ($12.95).

The seafood noodle was tasty – the broth was flavorful, but also delicate, with a hint of ginger added to the seafood brew. The noodles were chewy, and there was a good deal of seafood in the bowl, which on its own, probably could have manhandled two of us. As for the noodles with brown sauce, it was my favorite dish. This traditional Korean dish – thick soy-based paste over diced pork, onions and other vegetables – is my mom’s favorite (and even has a Chinese equivalent) but the Minnesota restaurant rendition could not compare to this. The noodles were the same as those used for the seafood soup, and they complemented the sauce nicely. And oh, the sauce. It wasn’t salty and it definitely didn’t lack ingredients – rather, it had a bacony flavor that melded to and a thickness that clung on to the noodles.

So I ended up having to walk about fifteen blocks before my stomach felt less full…and that concludes my second day.

Review: Dong Yang

735 45th Ave NE, Minneapolis (Google Maps tells me that this is in Minneapolis, but I know better...well, it's somewhere in or between the towns of Columbia Heights and Hilltop, next to Fridley.)

When you drive into Dong Yang's parking lot, you're immediately confronted by a giant hardware store next door. That's okay - because Dong Yang is just as big. In fact, Dong Yang's official name is Dong Yang Oriental Foods and is the largest Korean supermarket I know of in the Twin Cities.

Walk in and don't take a cart. You should probably shop after the meal, when you're not hungry. (But Dong Yang has a lot of food - from the Korean equivalent of Pocky to aloe vera juice.) Head to the back of the store and turn left at the meat counter. You'll find an opening with tables, chairs and a counter. This is Dong Yang's restaurant: the decor is lacking, but clean. On Sunday lunches, it's full. It's also self-service, so choose what you want from the signs on the wall surrounding the counter that comprise the menu and pay up.

In general, when I go to a Korean restaurant in the area with friends (for example, King's, Mirror of Korea, or Shilla-turned-another-name-I-can't-remember), I order at least one of the following three dishes because they tend to be friend-pleasers:

1) Bibimbap. This is the dish pictured above: it's a large serving of rice covered with cooked vegetables and thin sliced beef, then topped off with an egg. If you request it to be served in a stone bowl (which usually amounts to a $2 price increase), it's a showpiece as it sizzles in the pot. You would also be required to do some cooking work by adding hot sauce to your taste and stirring the rice in the bowl so that it's evenly browned and not too wet.

2)Bulgogi. Thinly sliced, it is Korean barbequed beef with a slightly-sweet marinade of mainly garlic and soy sauce. The secret ingredient, though? Grated Asian pear. At times it is also stirfried with sliced white onion for additional flavor. With large orders, it is often grilled tableside. Bulgogi can be eaten by itself, or wrapped in a lettuce leaf with hot sauce.

3) Japchae. This dish consists of clear cellophane noodles made up of sweet potato flour (like transparent vermicelli). Vegetables (zucchini and mushroom seem to be popular in Minnesotan restaurants) and sliced beef are added, and the japchae is stir-fried in sesame oil and soy sauce. This makes for a smooth texture to the noodles without them being slimy.

In general, these tend to be consistent good dishes to try for your first time at a Korean restaurant. They will also come with a set of small dishes (about six) that you eat with your meal. At Dong Yang, at least two will be some form of the infamous kimchee (one lettuce, one daikon). Another might be mung bean sprouts; all six dishes will have been chosen for the day. If you are lucky, you might get slices of fish paste slices (there is no overwhelming fishy smell to them) in sesame oil. If you're really lucky, you'll get their batch of marinated potatoes, which are coated in a sweet pseudo-crust. Dong Yang does allow take-out orders, but make sure that you specifically request the small dishes; otherwise, they will not be included.

The ordering process at Dong Yang:
1. Pick your meal. In general, dishes are written in Korean with English translations in small text on the side. I've written down these translations below as best I remember.
2. Pay.
3. Get your chopsticks, napkins, etc. from the containers adjacent to the register. Some of you may have qualms about this; they are clean.
4. Make sure you get some of the roasted barley tea from the coffee machine to the left; pour it on your own from the stacks of styrofoam cups.
5. If you order bibimbap (described below), grab a tube of hot sauce from the counter as well for your table; return it when you're done using it.

When waiting for your food, it pays to be observant. Your food will come to the counter and the cook will yell the order, in Korean. The small dishes (read below) will come in a tray just before your actual orders. When in doubt, you may want to ask if that is your order. After your meal, you'll want to bus your trays to the cart in front of the kitchen door.

Over my (frequent) visits at Dong Yang, I've tried about seventy percent of the menu. The bibimbap ("rice in hot stone bowl," $9.99) is excellent; in particular, they tend to give a large quantity of one ingredient, the bellflower root/fern stems (I'm not exactly sure what a bellflower root is, but I'll find out) which adds a tough, crunchy texture to the mix. Their hot sauce is also not too watery but not too thick, which means it evenly spreads throughout the rice mixture (see additional picture).

While the bulgogi ("sliced beef") is reasonably priced at $9.99, flavor (salty/not as much flavor) and quantity tended also to be inconsistent; sometimes, there was a greater proportion of onions versus beef. The japchae ("clear noodles with vegetables," $9.99) was also not a standout. Unlike other restaurants, there was also more vegetables than noodles sometimes, which took away from the dish. The noodles tended to have less flavor and were drier as a result.

That said, Dong Yang is probably my favorite Korean restaurant so far. The quantity is usually quite generous, and if you experiment off the menu, the results tend to be great. My mom's favorite was the noodles in black bean sauce ($7.99); the dish is very similar to another Taiwanese dish. In general, the sauce contains chopped pork, onions and carrots slathered in the dark sauce over noodles. (Warning: if your taste depends on your food's appearance, don't order this dish.) The dish is probably a acquired taste, as the noodles became less sticky and the sauce a little bit more flavorful the second time.

Another notable dish was the seafood pancake ($9.99). Typically, most Korean restaurants create a circular, crepe-like patty with squid, shrimp and onion decoratively placed in a circular design. Dong Yang's rendition, by these terms, was radically good. Think a 9"x13" rectangle cut into 2"x2" squares. Each square is filled with squid and green onion, like the others, but more so. The batter (I believe cornstarch-based) that holds it together is deep fried and served with a soy sauce and sesame seed-onion dipping sauce.

Finally, the mackerel in spicy sauce ($11.99) is a slight misnomer. It's not all that spicy, and it doesn't just contain mackerel. Rather, it is a mackerel covered in a spicy-sweet sauce that goes well with plain rice. Large chunks of daikon and carrot, also marinated in this sauce, surround the dish. It had a complex flavor that I got seconds for.