eggplant parmesan

I was going to combine this post with my trip to the Suanbo zoo, but after looking at the zoo pictures decided it'd be much better if they were separate. Onto delicious foreign, vegetarian food. I just described it as foreign, I've been in Korea for too long.

 It's whats for dinner: eggplant parmesan, couscous and salad.

The finished product. I was in an eggplant mood, but I guess I've got an Italian theme going right now, so I decided to make eggplant parmesan. I thinly sliced two eggplants, dipped the slices in egg and then cornmeal and baked for a few minutes each side in my toaster oven. After they were finished, I spread some tomato sauce in the bottom of a pan and then layered the eggplant slices with red onion, black olives, basil (that I grew myself) cheese and more tomato sauce. Then put it in the toaster oven and baked for 20 minutes. Super easy.

And a shot of pseudo Italian food being cooked:

 Garlic bread and mini pizzas, cooked in a big frying pan. My favourite part of this picture is that everyone has a different weapon of choice; spatula, glove and chopsticks. I think chopsticks would win in this kitchen war.

Nothing like a bunch of food to make you feel like taking a nap.

 

food in cambodia

 Morning glory (water spinach or swamp cabbage) and rice.

 Stir fried vegetables with broad noodles.

 Free breakfast that my hotel provided, cheese omelet and bread. 

What also came free with my hotel room, this little newt/lizard guy who seemed to live in my air conditioner and liked to exercise by crawling all over the walls at night.

 Vegetable curry and rice. I didn't really like this too much. it wasn't really that spicy, more sweet than anything because it tasted like they were incredibly liberal with coconut milk when making it.

 Which resulted in a stop by an Indian restaurant later for vegetable korma.

 Pineapple, spinach and black olive pizza.

And my last meal before leaving, Asian salad; lettuce, bean sprouts, pickled radish and some kind of sea vegetable.

Most restaurants were mainly meat based, but there were always a few vegetarian options and they were all more than willing to make something without meat. I didn't really explore Khmer food all that much, instead drinking a lot of iced and bubble tea (something which Korea is lacking in variety of) and just going with a few western foods that I missed.

But at least I got a good amount of Cambodian beers in before I left.

I can't really say that any of them were standouts, but I'd take them over a Hite or Cass any day.

팥빙수 patbingsu and stew 찌개

Now that it's nice and hot out, I'm incredibly thankful I have an air conditioner and decided today to give patbingsu another go. I don't really like it that much. Usually it brings back bad memories of my old middle school's lunches. Every time patbingsu was served, it meant we were having seafood salad sandwiches. And for me, that meant I would be having a stale bun, radish chunks and patbingsu. Not the most enjoyable lunch.

And here it is in all of its take away glory. Sweet beans on top of canned and jellied fruit, on top of shaved ice and frozen strawberry milk. This is a much more appetizing version compared to what my old school cafeteria produced. They liked to serve it in a frozen, mini, strawberry milk box, topped with jellied fruit, cornflakes and powder. Even though it's a much more appealing version than what I'm used to, I still didn't manage to finish it. I like frozen red bean bars on their own, but the patbingsu combination of ingredients just doesn't work for me.

 And because I know I won't feel like eating it for awhile since summer is here, I decided to make chunggookjang, fermented bean soup. I used a nice Korean bowl that is used to both cook and serve the soup in. Makes for less dishes used and keeps the soup boiling hot.

And then kimchi jjigae, with lots of tofu. Normally I don't go for this in restaurants because it always comes with meat, nor do I usually make it at home because: 1) I don't really like soup. 2) Chunggookjang and dwaenjang jjigae win out on the rare occasion I feel like soup/stew. But I had some kimchi going sour and that's when it's time to make kimchi jjigae.

nice places around chungju

Today I managed to find every place I was looking for and more while biking around the city. I've been looking for the biggest stationary store in Chungju, as recommended to me (with maps) by multiple people. I could never find it before, but managed to today, after passing it by a bunch of times in my previous searches.

 성충문구. There are apparently two in Chungju, this one is in northern part at the edge of the city, close to the road that takes you out to Chungju dam. It's about two blocks west, if you turn left instead of going straight out of the city and to the dam. One is close to the market downtown, but I haven't found that one yet. The massive sign is hard to see if you're on the sidewalk, and the windows are mirrored, so it's easy to miss.

Inside. They've got more supplies than I've found anywhere else, and lots of nerdy stuff like mini trees and people so you can make dioramas if you're into that kind of thing. Lots of neat things to sort through. It's now my new go to place for art supplies in the city.

Another awesome find was this brand new world mart! It reminds me of one in Daegu. They were sadly lacking in Indian foods, but they did have a nice selection of dried beans, including chickpeas! Nothing was priced though, which can be pretty annoying to have to ask how much every single thing costs.
Here's an updated post with more details on how to get there: World Mart

I walked away with ladies fingers curry from Sri Lanka (I haven't had okra in forever), seaweed jelly powder (vegetarian!) from the Philippines and Indonesian iced tea that immediately disappeared. I will definitely be making return trips. They're right by the market, along the river beside the tented areas.

Just look for their banner (it's to the right, too much glare from the sun) and turn right at it. It's right there, but easy to miss since it's 10m from the road and there's really nothing else around it.

 It's along the road with the biggest bike store I've seen in the city so far, close to the orange triangle bridge.

 And I finally managed to find the cool train cafe/bar 기차여행 that I was looking for. I managed to pass by it without noticing it a couple of times. I have no idea how that's possible, it's pretty distinctive.

It's made out of an old train and has a cool bike fence. They weren't open, but coffee, tea, pat bingsu, soju and beer were on the menu outside. Now that I finally found it, I'll have to to make a trip back when it's open and check out the interior.

 And for some reason I've been craving and eating a lot of eggplants recently. I've just been pan frying them with some soy sauce, chili oil, peppers, garlic, and sesame oil and serving over rice. I like eggplants, but I usually don't buy them often. I guess my tastes are developing.

ready to eat military vegetarian meals

I bought one of these my first year, in Korea. There are some places around that sell American military items, not really the interesting stuff I'm looking for, but they do have some vegetarian meal pouches!
This is the first one I tried, cheese tortellini, menu no. 13:

and its contents:

Crackers, peanut butter, cider powder, m&ms, cheese tortellini, spiced apple pieces, etc.
It was good, not amazing, but it's a vegetarian, military meal pouch, my expectations weren't high.

Now, about two years later, I decided to give another vegetarian meal pouch a try, this time, lasagna:

It's a thick plastic bag, that contains more plastic bags!

And the contents. Baby bottle of tabasco sauce!! Along with carrot pound cake, which I took one bite of and decided that it wasn't happening. If I was starving, or trapped somewhere without food, I would eat this. But essentially it's a dry brick imitation of baked goods. It also came with iced tea, hot cocoa, salt, matches, moist towelette, napkin, spoon, gum, mixed fruit, lasagna, peanut butter and crackers. No m&ms this time.

To "cook" the lasagne you need to put the lasagna pouch in the plastic bag with the special heating pad and then fill it with hot water. Give it time and then open and eat!

I decided to pour the lasagna out onto a plate. You know, make it slightly presentable... I took one bite and my first thought was "this tastes like beans." I read the ingredients and sure enough, I found re-fried pinto beans. It's not just any old vegetarian lasagna, it's re-fried bean lasagna!

I'm not crazy about canned fruit, so I figured it was best to skip the fruit pouch. But I did try the peanut butter and crackers.

 They were, shockingly, not stale. I'm not exactly sure how long this food lasts for or when it expires. Or how old it is, or any vital information like that really. All I know is, this is the second pouch I've tried and I have yet to feel any negative repercussions, aside from some unfortunate tastes.

So, it's probably not for everyone, or pretty much all non-military people. But when it's only 5,000 won, less than $5, and says vegetarian on it, it's hard to pass up. It's like those small surprise bags of candy I remember seeing as a kid. I knew that if I picked out what I wanted, for the same price the surprise packs cost, I would have more of what I liked. But it was always too hard turning down the surprise. This is like the surprise pack for vegetarian adults.

vegetarian options at the big chain stores

I used to live in Daegu, and the main vegetarian soy meat type options could be bought at Emart, they were made by Emart and tasted pretty atrocious. Rubbery and bland. I tried a few different ones, didn't finish them and steered clear of their soy meats from then on.

Since moving to Chungju, I've checked out the selection at Emart and Lotte, and here's what I've found:

Emart - canned beans! I've never seen a larger selection. In addition to these, they have kidney beans, a few types of baked beans, and another type I can't remember from fratelli. Cost was under 3,000 won each. The entire Emart soy meat collection was missing from their freezers, so either Emart stopped making them, or they just don't carry them here. Not sad to see them go either way.
Another thing they have (although not exclusive to Emart, I've bought it from the GS25 Supermarket as well) is:

Onion tofu type sausage. It's not as firm of a consistency as I'd like, but it'd be nice to add to a stir fry. I found myself just cutting it up into chung gook jang.

Lotte - Vegefood! Each package was under 5,000 won. They also had a sausage, but it was 8,000+ won, and soy cutlets, but I'm just not ready for those. You can order these products from vegefood.co.kr (if you know some Korean, or have someone that can help you out), but it's really nice being able to pick them up in store. Loving Hut also has a good selection of soy meats, but there aren't any Loving Huts in Chungju...