Asia's ten greatest street food cities

So here's what I spent most of November and December working on. 9,000 words about 100 street foods in Penang, Taipei, Bangkok, Fukuoka, Hanoi, Singapore, Seoul, Xi'an, Manila and Phnom Penh.
Read more: Asia's 10 greatest street food cities | CNNGo.com

The Kimchi Field Museum in Seoul

The museum suggests that you can take a picture here,
in case you don't already have any photos from your trip to Korea of traditional Korean women feeding you kimchi.

On my last day in Korea I hustled over to the Kimchi Field Museum, the thought of which I had been salivating over for days.


It's a pretty big place, all things considered, and they even have a library where you can study books and movies about kimchi and other traditional Korean foods.


Koreans love red pepper, but also garlic, leeks, green onion and anything else that is guaranteed to make their breath stink and their gums tingle.


The Kimchi Field Museum is located, as it appears food museums generally are in Asia, inside a mall. The largest underground mall in Asia, in fact, COEX.


I am not sure if I understood the point of this, it was this giant thing on the wall showing very small pictures of different types of kimchi. I'm sure someone was like, "Damn, everything in this museum is so old-fashioned. We need something high-tech, something futuristic! Let's make a big white kimchi hole!"


"You think that's high-tech? Check this out. This is science."


The museum brought together two of my great loves: kimchi and plastic food.




This was a display on how healthy kimchi is. They were trying to make the point that it's great for losing weight, but I thought this image also accurately acknowledged kimchi's gas-creating properties. She can't keep her skirt down!


Worldwide pickled vegetables


Kimchi tasting. I never like any of the ones made of greens as much as the cabbage, radish and cucumber ones. Making it green is just a step too healthy for me.





Although I'm a huge fan of kimchi, I wouldn't normally spend an entire afternoon dedicated entirely to fermented cabbage. However, the Kimchi Museum was really interesting and I'd highly recommend it for anyone buzzing around Seoul. In terms of actual information, it was definitely the best food museum I've been to, and they get extra points for providing information on everything in English. They even suckered me into buying a DVD with 59 kimchi recipes on it. Considering that it only took one kimchi recipe to get me kicked out of my flat in London, I shudder to think of what I may be able to do with 59.

One more Korean BBQ

Korean BBQ in Korea

Now, I know this may sound stupid, but when I first sat down in a Korean restaurant in Korea I thought to myself: I can't believe I am eating Korean food in Korea!

So here it is folks, bulgogi in Korea. Yum.

Cooking class at the Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine

While I was in Seoul I took a cooking class at the Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine.





This was a good cooking class--first there was a lecture and demonstration done in Korean buy a woman in Korean traditional dress, and a translator who was relaying it to us in English. Then, we broke up into groups of three and cooked the dishes she had just demonstrated.

We made:
Dehachim: cooked shrimp tossed with vegetables in pine nut sauce
Kaktugi: spicy radish Kimchi
Dodokui: grilled dodok root (dodok is a kind of bellflower)
Yangji Gomtang: clear beef brisket soup





The instructor was a tough cookie, and I got the sense that the translator was softening things up for us. When she came by our table she freaked out because we didn't have enough salt on our radishes. She really looked angry. The translator was trying to convey the depths of her horror to us--"She says...she says you did it wrong. She says it no taste good when you are done." They both shake their heads at us in dismay. The fact that adding salt was an easy solution did not seem to abate their disappointment in us.







My favorite part of the class was when we sat down to eat the lunch we had just made, and the girl who is living in Korea and was showing off about studying Korean was unable to use her chopsticks. Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of that, but imagine a 3 year old with a claw hand trying to eat with two metal sticks while pontificating about Hangul grammar.

Korean street food

The temperature was below zero in Korea this week, thus making it the perfect weather for cowering inside hostels and when venturing out, street food. I love anything cooked off of a Sterno grill on the side of the road at any time of the year, but when it's cold out I appreciate it that much more.



I was exploring Dongdaemun Market in Seoul after realizing that perhaps my tiny suitcase filled with summer dresses had been more optimistic than realistic, and was desperately searching for a hat and gloves (I'd already picked up a scarf in Japan). But who can shop when confronted with dozens of street food stands colored like carnivals and with their own portable heaters?

One of my great fears in life is to be caught out cold or hungry unawares. This is why I carry a big purse and generally have an extra sweater in it, and why I eat every two hours. You never know when you'll get stuck somewhere with no food, so you should eat when you can. Street food appeals to me for its immediacy. You don't have to worry where your next meal will come from, you can just eat something on a stick right now.



The places in Dongdaemun Market aren't itty-bitty street food stands that only sell a few things like fish cakes on sticks or ddukbokki (spicy chewy rice cakes). These are full-on minature restaurants that have relatively extensive menus, but are located inside a tent.



The proprietress tried to sell us octopus or even a few giant clams by poking them with a chopstick, but we settled for eel, primarily because it was the most disgusting looking thing she had. She told us repeatedly it was a snake.



I was delighted when we were served on real plates, but inside plastic bags or wrapped in tinfoil.

To be honest, I cannot pretend that I liked this eel. It was too chewy and had a bit of a fecal taste to it, like shrimp that hadn't been deveined. After gorging myself on unagi in Japan I'm spoiled. But who knows, maybe it was actually a snake.



Of course as determined I was to like everything I tried in Korea--which hasn't been too hard so far--I soldiered on and managed to eat a fair amount of snake/eel, a couple of the ddukbokki, and a giant, greasy pajeon (seafood pancake). Afterwards we were intoxicated with the huge quantity of grease we had just consumed. But somehow it makes me feel less guilty when this sort of thing happens outdoors.