Quick weekend Korean fix

My mom invited us to come to H Mart for dinner on Saturday night. It's something I love to do because it's close, there's lots to choose from, and it's good. Now we did not eat in the H Mart but there is a food court above it. There's good variety, including Korean, Japanese, and Korean/Chinese. I hadn't eatn any Korean in awhile, so I opted for something very Korean - dolsot bibimbap. Bibimbap literally means mixed rice. It includes veggies and some meat mixed with rice and a spicy pepper paste (kochujang), and you just mix it together and eat. The dolsot part means it comes in a burning hot stone bowl, so that everything is hot, hot, hot when you eat it, and if you let your rice stick to the bowl, it will crisps up nicely into a burnt crunchy snack. You can make it as spicy as you want or not, by adjusting how much of the kochujang to put in. I like mine spicy! It also came with the obligatory kimchi (which was very bland) and a couple other banchan, plus some soup. The soup was quite good!

My mom opted for some seafood udon from the sushi place. She wanted something healthy. Z also opted from the sushi place, getting a couple of avocado and cucumber rolls and a shrimp tempura roll. They made it fresh for him, and it was all quite good. There's a stall there called "Monsieur Tong Tong", which makes "fried chicken" and certain other more fried dishes. They have an excellent Japanese tonkatsu. It's HUGE and the sauce is quite good. And you get a bunch of side dishes. It's definitely for sharing. At "Chew Young Roo" they have alot of dumplings and buns and specialize in Korean-Chinese noodle dishes, like champong (spicy seafood noodle soup) and chajangmyun (noodles in black bean sauce). I often pick something from them as well. It's nothing to write home about, but it's good for fast Korean food!

Friday was pizza day for lunch, but I was in a training class all day so they catered some sandwiches for us. They had one of my favorites, chicken salad on a croissant, and they also had some of the best grilled green beans I'd ever had. They were smoky, crunchy, and had a slightly asian-esque flavor. I wanted to eat the whole giant bowl! Speaking of eating the whole giant bowl, ESPN2 showed a bunch of reruns on professional eating competitions on Sunday. Sometimes, I dream of getting into competitive eating. Perhaps it's something I'll have to try out once in life. I'm just not sure what I would pick as the food of choice!

So so sushi lunch

Went out to lunch today, which is a rarity. I always bring something on the days that we don't get fed. Our new training queen (as my boss calls her) took us out to Spamps Restaurant. It's a strange place, with an even stranger name. Swanky and definitely geared towards the professional crowd. It labels itself as Steaks, Seafood, and Sushi. And they're right, they don't have Japanese food, they just have sushi.

I didn't really want sushi, but everyone at work had been raving about it, so I decided to give it a go. I had a spicy california dreaming combo, which came with soup, salad, and 2 rolls. Not a bad deal for only $10. It wasn't bad, but not nearly as good as others said. But I guess it's good for Conshohocken standards. Sagami it is not! The soup was ok, but a little too strong and salty. The salad was not really what you would typically get at a sushi restaurant. First off it was mesclun greens. We all know that a house salad with ginger dressing at a sushi restaurant means iceberg. Iceberg people, simple iceberg. The rolls themselves weren't bad either. But nothing to write home about. So all in all, ok.

So for dinner I got extra lazy and decided to make a frozen dinner. Not a microwave meal or fish sticks, but one of those new Bertolli frozen pasta dinners. I'd gotten a few while they were on sale (I'm always willing to try anything once, provided it's on sale!) so I gave it a go. Just threw it in a skillet onto the stove for 10 minutes and I was done. I went with the Chicken Alla Vodka & Farfalle. For the second time today, it wasn't bad. Much too salty for my liking (I'm not a fan of salt). The asparagus were surprisingly fresh tasting. The chicken was real strips of chicken breast, and also tasty. The pasta was nice and al dente. So for me, I would even say I liked it, except for the overly salty part. I think these things have the commercial where the Italian restaurant chefs/workers are sitting around at their empty restaurant. Annoying ass commercial, but they're not half bad. I have one more to try and I'm looking forward to it!