Eat. Travel. Eat!

Kobunga Korean Grill, a fast-casual Korean barbecue restaurant, is opening its first brick-and-mortar outlet at the USC Village, a multi-use residential, dining, and shopping complex located adjacent to the University of Southern California's University Park Campus. Funded by Kickstarter , Kobunga aims to make Korean barbecue accessible to the larger population. They recently soft-opened (this Wednesday) and will be having their grand opening this Saturday. Housed in a small storefront, no seating is available inside the restaurant, although ample outside seating is available. Ordering is done at the counter, and one can wait on the side for their order. Menu options include a "Build Your Own Plate" option as well as a salad driven option where two types of greens can be paired with a choice of dressing and protein. The Build Your Own Plate option includes a choice of protein (Short Ribs, Bulgogi, Pork Belly, Marinated Chicken, and Soft Tofu), base (brown rice, white...

Widely known as a bibimbap specialist (their website is " bibimbap.webs.com ," if it wasn't already understood), Jeon Ju is a venerable place to visit for a Korean meal. Not only is their bibimbap well done, but so are lots of their other items.  As we perused the multi-paged menu, cups of smooth, weak barley tea were provided at the table. After ordering, we were presented with a wide array of banchan. There were six common items for the whole table--bean sprouts, marinated potatoes, sweetened, dried shrimp, daikon kimchi, a green pajeon, and napa cabbage kimchi. For each individual was a bowl of noodles in a lightly spicy broth and napa cabbage water kimchi. We found everything to be nicely done, and found the dried, crispy shrimp really fun to snack on. A condiment of green onions, sesame seeds, peppers and soy sauce was also provided for a larger haemul pajeon and yeong yang dolsot that we ordered.

After looking at Ma Dang Gook Soo's handmade noodles and acorn noodles featured on Gastronomy and Buzzfeed / The Actors Diet respectively, it didn't take much more to make our own visit to Ma Dang Gook Soo. When we visited on a Sunday evening, Ma Dang Gook Soo was operating at system capacity. The restaurant was full, but it didn't take much for us to wait in line before getting an open spot. Seated down, lots of people were enjoying the noodle options, seasoned spicy rice cake ( tteokbokki ), and bibimbap. Moreover, the friendly waitresses were eagerly serving the customers. When I wanted to learn more about some items which were only written in Korean on the wall (it was actually soy broth noodles), the waitress took her time to answer, and when I asked her about the soy broth, she even brought a small bowl for me to sample before deciding whether to order it.

In search for some healthful Korean food--soups and porridge--I found out about Jook Hyang, a standalone Korean restaurant on Olympic in Koreatown. An abalone, chicken soup, beef bone soup (cooked for a week), porridge specialist, Jook Hyang offers a wide range of offerings dedicated to the three items--abalone sashimi, abalone porridge, abalone and chicken soup, and a page full of different porridge items. Walking into the restaurant, you'll see an abalone tank and bucketfuls of cornish hens. All these quality items and work spans throughout the restaurant and offerings, which also includes bamboo rice entrees, korean barbeque and seafood, banchan, and other items. It also translates into slightly higher costs--lunch is slightly cheaper if you order the sets, but otherwise, expect to spend around 15-20 USD per person, if not more.

After an eventful seven hours at Incheon International Airport , it was time to go on-board my next flight to go to Beijing. Asiana Airlines Flight OZ 333 June 3, 2014 Service from Incheon International Airport (ICN) nonstop to Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) Travel Class (Economy) The cabin of this Asiana Airlines A330 actually happened to be slightly newer than that of the Boeing 777 I traveled on earlier.     Seats in this case did have an adjustable headrest. Furthermore, there was an in-flight entertainment remote that guided the Audio Video on Demand system, which did have a good selection of movies, music, and games on offer. The entertainment screens may have looked the same, but you could do a lot more with this system. One option was available for lunch: a beef and pepper stir-fry with sweet and sour pork with rice. What was special was that an aloe drink was on offer as a beverage--this was nicely sweet, with a light grape flavo...

After disembarking from the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 , it was time for the next step in my journey: a seven hour layover in Seoul Incheon International Airport! Prior to beginning the trip, I had read about how Seoul Incheon International Airport fuses culture for all passengers through various tours and programs . As I disembarked the plane, this became quickly evident, with large poster boards displaying delicious Korean cuisine and picturesque landscapes. Walking down the walkway, a transfer sign then directed me to the next step in the transfer process: a quick security screening. Given that the Asiana flight arrived so early in the morning (around 5 AM), there were barely any passengers other than those on my flight, and as I was one of the last to disembark, I barely even had to wait! A looser screening took place-- no need to remove belts and shoes, and no full x-ray scan-- and I was off to explore the airport. *Note: If you wanted to go on one of the ma...

Earlier in 2014, I went on a trip to Asia, namely Beijing (some of the posts already written are: McDonald's China: Sweet Taro Pie , Wuyutai Tea- Wangfujing, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China: Jasmine and Matcha Soft-Serve Ice Cream (and a comparison to McDonald's version) ). Asiana proved to be the most cost effective option at the time of booking, with only Eithad as the only other choice that was less than $2000 roundtrip! This was initially shocking to me and travel agents, who were surprised that Chinese carriers had an exorbitantly high cost for the dates I wanted. With Asiana and the costs that I wanted, I ended up with two flights in order to get to Beijing: LAX-ICN, and ICN-PEK, with a seven hour layover at ICN! (shock, but also a good opportunity to do some fun things) This blog post covers the LAX-ICN sector.

Young Dong Garden is back again, after a long renovation. The changes are quite major: a repaint of the interior and the exterior, a freshening of the interior with higher quality furnishings, installation of televisions, system controlled air conditioning units, and barbeque cooking platforms at the tables, and a refreshed menu. Some say the owner has changed as well, but I can not confirm that; it does seem to be family owned however, with some locals recognizing the owner on our last visit.

Last time we talked about Orange County , now it's Los Angeles for a twist before I go back to restaurants in San Gabriel Valley again. When we were going back from Steinway and Il Piccolino last time, we drove by Tahoe Galbi, and a thought came into my head that Wandering Chopsticks had wrote about it before . We went back to LA in hopes of trying Spago after visiting the places we needed to go, but when we saw the customers going in, they seemed as if they were dressed very formally, and we were not. My dining companions did not feel right eating there in casual clothing (although that was permitted), so we decided to find a casual option based on Korean food since Koreantown was close by! After driving by Tahoe Galbi again, we noticed a small, dimly lit restaurant with plenty of customers, but with problems on finding parking we just went to Tahoe Galbi. After getting our car in the valet (2 USD), we went in, only to find a long waiting list plus the smell of barbeque. No ...

Face it: we forget things. We were seeking to find a Korean BBQ place that one of us had been to before during a trip to Rowland Heights. Problem was, we forgot where it was or what it was called! So, when we thought we arrived at the place we had been to before, we just went in immediately to the restaurant and had a seat. Was Ong Go Jib the restaurant we thought we had been to? Nope. Not at all! In fact, it was quite empty being at around 11AM. There was one table with a chatty teen which I will talk to you about later, and another table with some seniors eating some food. That was it! No one else was there. None of the grills they said they would use for BBQ were on either at the tables. It was all quiet, with the teen (or college student, I don't know) making all the noise on college, food, and travel to his grandma. :) After ordering from their lunch menu, multiple dishes of panchan were placed onto our table. This was different than our usual whereabouts but it was good! Very...