Peanut Udon Noodle Salad
Meh. Just okay, not great.
Lemon Basil Pasta Salad
Not good.
Truffle Mousse Pate
Yes. A million times yes. This one is made with chicken. Since Chan was not feeling well, I ate this entire thing over the course of the trip. Yeah. I did. Ate it with some golden round crackers (think Ritz Crackers). No regrets here. Chan told me probably get this kine in Hawaii but I haven’t tried it locally yet. IT WAS GOOD AND A GOOD PRICE AND I LOVED IT.
From the last trip, no trip to Vegas is complete for us without a visit to Hell’s Kitchen. Previous post here. Yup, you gotta pay expensive parking to be on the Strip but the food is well worth it. Chan and I both ordered the prix fixe menu – I think next time we should order one prix fixe and just one entree cause it’s too much food!
Hell’s Red Infusion (Mocktail) | $12.95
apple, strawberry, rhubarb puree, simple syrup, fever-tree ginger beer
Mocktails are my treat! Got this last time and this time did not disappoint, delicious!
Steak Tartare | $26.95
piedmontese beef dijon mustard aioli, black truffle caviar, sous vide egg yolk
Another repeat dish. Not the biggest fan of these big triangle crackers haha but I guess it’s just a vehicle to get the beef to your mouth! I like raw beef, I know it’s not everyone’s thing.
Pan Seared Scallops
corn, prosciutto di parma, maitake mushrooms, citrus beurre blanc
I know it says prosciutto but it really just tastes like bacon bits on top of the scallops and I’m saying that in the best way possible. Super crunchy salty bits that off-set the soft and sweet meat of the scallops. Delicious!
Beef Wellington add Foie Gras ($22.95)
potato puree, glazed root vegetables, red wine demi-glace
We went a little bougie with the first sit-down meal and both added foie gras to our dish. Oh boy, was that rich and delicious. As you can see the beef wellington is perfectly cooked as usual. Winners dish but definitely share-able.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
speculoos ice cream
This is probably the star of the show every time and I’m not usually a big dessert person but this beautiful toffee cake…hot and ready for that scoop of speculoos ice cream to melt right into it. Man, Chan and I love this dessert but once again – for future, we should just share it. It’s a lot of food! So the scallops, beef wellington and dessert is part of the lunch prix fixe menu which is $105.95 a person. It’s pricey but a good deal if you were planning to get these dishes anyway. Yummy! Great start!
Been back from Vegas for about a week, it was nice to take a breather. I pre-scheduled 3 weeks worth of blogs and it worked out very nicely. I was super looking forward to this trip, not just for the eating and gambling – but just to get away. I’ve been working non-stop with no vacation since early November. I know that sounds like a spoiled statement but especially after my dad’s health scare, I was just deflated.
Unfortunately, poor Chan came down with food poisoning on this trip. I felt so bad for him! That’s awful enough to go through but for him to go through it during travel…awful. No worries, I played nurse and even drove out on my own in Vegas to get nourishment for us. Gotta love navigation on phones – and thankfully the places I had to go didn’t require jumping onto a freeway lol. I enjoy driving but I guess I feel more comfortable with someone if I’m driving around some place unfamiliar. Vegas is pretty good to drive around – anywhere is better than Hawaii to drive around.
Anyway! The night of our arrival, of course gotta go In-N-Out! Just a short post today.
Double-Double!
Animal Style Fries
Long John Silver’s
LOL – yup we went to Long John Silver’s. I had a hankering for some fried seafood. Namely fried fish and shrimp. This didn’t disappoint! I enjoyed it a lot! Yummy…! Too bad we don’t have this here anymore.
Marron & Tiramisu Cream Bread
Were you folks into the Culinary Class Wars craze when the show first premiered? Chan and I was, it was a great show! I am so excited for season 2. I liked Edward Lee but I was actually happy Napoli Matfia won – though I wonder how he would have fared if he had to take part in the tofu challenge. Sorry, are these spoilers? You should have watched it already!
Anyway, one of the dishes Napolia Matfia won was for his chestnut tiramisu recipe where he utilized ingredients from a convenience store. Korea is so smart, they were able to turn it around and create the dishes for sale in their stores real quick. Of course it was always sold out. I never found the tiramisu dessert but found the bread and had to try it!
How was it? Eh, just alright. It’s a very rich and dense chestnut cream in soggy bread. Not great. I wonder if I would have liked the actual tiramisu dessert if I found it. Maybe I should have just tried the cheetos ice cream (lol).
We drove up to Jirisan for some scenic pictures. It was beautiful up there, a perfectly crisp Autumn day. I just did some quick research and it’s the second highest mountain in Korea!
The trees were all different autumunal colors and it was gorgeous. Nice and chilly up top too! I don’t know how many mountain pictures you want to see so why not share the cafe we went to there!
Cafe Yodojae
It’s a cute space but not a cafe I would recommend to go to out of your way, just to pop in if you’re already in the area.
Chan’s Drink – I forgot what it is haha
Affogato!
Affogato for me because I love affogato. Did you know that the ice cream has no calories when it’s renamed a coffee drink? Don’t check on that.
Cranberry Nut Bread
I think that’s what this was. I didn’t realize it was a whole freaking loaf of bread haha. I just wanted to try their clotted cream and it sounded like it would go well with this bread. Well the workers were not so friendly and this bread was basically cold. Wish it could have been warmed up a bit because I was trying it with….
English Clotted Cream
I’ve been wanting to try this for ages and it was disappointing. I think it might have been because the bread was cold and doughy. I’m not out there dying to try clotted cream again anytime soon. If anyone likes clotted cream, please tell me how you eat it! I’ve seen it sold at Foodland Farms.
Yes, you heard it here first folks. Another round of breakfast at the favorite Auntie’s house. I don’t mind SWEATING MY BUTT off for this. Heated floor, home and sofa be damned – we ready for grind! Dare I say…this breakfast might have been better than the first??
Like, even the fried piece of spam as. Although, is fried spam ever bad? I think I like Korean spam more than American spam. I’ll laugh if it’s the same spam lol.
Had to take two pictures to get all the dishes in. Yup, just sliced potatoes fried with spam – freaking good. Simple dishes are always best.
Star dish of the day, stir fry octopus. Man, this trip really awakened my love for octopus. There’s no way to replicate this kind of cooking, I could never find this anywhere else. It tastes as good as it looks folks.
Of course gotta have soup and rice. Gosh, I don’t even know what kind of greens were in this soup. I should ask Chan. There’s my bowl of rice with spam of course. I think the egg omelette had spam too, three spam dishes, no can go wrong! I miss these breakfasts…*sniff*…
Amazing banchan of course. Would you expect anything less?
Could even get all the banchan in one shot! Each banchan was delicious.
Fried Yellow Croaker
Sorry if the eyes freak you out. I’ve always seen this on TV but never had it myself. It’s super good. A bit dangerous since it’s so bony. You really have to be careful when you eat this dish. I guess that’s what makes each morsel taste so good.
Jeju Black Pig
So soft and tender! Delicious.
Miyeokguk (Seaweed Soup with Beef)
Yummy, such a nice warming dish. I know this is traditionally a birthday dish, I don’t think it was anyone’s birthday that night? Anyway, another wonderful dinner. Good times with such a warm and welcoming family, just warms your heart!
I’m going to take a brief break from posting during the holiday week so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you in 2025 and stay safe!
A bunch of bananas
Yup. Dole Bananas. After we returned our car in Jinju, I visited the emart before we loaded into the train to busan (ha-ha). I like bananas so why not. And they already yellow and Dole? Can trust right? The bunch of bananas had a bit of a journey. I may have dropped it here and there but they made it safely to Busan. After all that hassle, I tried a banana the next day and it was AWFUL. Oh my god I have never had a worse banana. Anyway, I think I tried a banana (non-Dole) at the airport lounge before coming home and that one was good. This was a big no-no.
Hawaiian Paradise Coffee Cafe
Look! A cute cafe in the Busan Train Station! It was pretty busy all the time. We don’t even have one of these here in Hawaii. I didn’t get to try it because I’m not much of a coffee drinker and there was a Krispy Kreme right across the way so I of course had to eat donuts.
Perilla Oil
Like I mentioned in the previous post, I learned the power of perilla oil during this trip. Just some oil in a dish with salt and you’ve got yourself liquid gold dipping sauce. We bought a pack of perilla oil at the Costco in Korea and it tastes SO good. I wonder if we have this brand here…
Chan’s Uncle bought us all tickets to visit Hamyang Daebong Mountain Valley Monorail. I knew nothing about this and came into it blind, apparently it’s a fairly new recreation spot with the longest monorail in Korea. If you know me at all, I cannot handle any kind of rides. I get air sick and sea sick…motion sick in general but I popped my bonine and was ready.
Apparently you can zipline here too. Ha I say. Because I can’t.
Monorail
Here’s the monorail. It’s very small and VERY VERY SLOW. I have never wanted a ride to go faster in my life. It felt like you’re slowly clicking-clacking up the rails. It felt so long lol. I didn’t get sick. The ride down was worse because you’re basically squished into the seats in front of you.
Also! They weigh you before loading you into the monorail. Don’t worry, they basically weigh your group of passengers, not just one person at a time. Well, we got placed in a monorail with our own group which was completely fine with me. On the return trip, the guy doesn’t use a scale and said he uses his eyes and added two people to our rail. It’s okay, I came back alive.
Breakfast #1 Spread
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that my favorite meals during the trip was cooked by Chan’s Aunt, particularly this Aunt. She invited us to breakfast twice and both times were immaculate. You can tell the dishes were all made with such love, so much variety and so much fresh options. I wish I could eat like this all the time.
I wish I had the names of all the dishes but I don’t, sorry! This was like stirfried sliced meat dish. There was acorn jelly on the table which I wouldn’t surprised if she made that herself from scratch. My favorite on the table was absolutely the sliced octopus. She serves it up with perilla oil and salt basically. This trip is what made me fall in love with perilla oil. Good perilla oil that is.
Yes, I know, it’s just a bowl of rice. Well not just. It of course has some good beans in it, so good. Everything was so good. Insert crying emoji here because I miss this food so much!
Then she served up sliced pears on the little forks. I really felt like I was in a Korean drama. My only complaint? The heat in the apartment! I guess older folks like it warm so not only is their heater on, the floor is heated and the couch was a heated stone. OMG, us “youngins” were dying of heat. I couldn’t stand it and just wanted to walk around outside to enjoy the actual cold weather!