July 07, 2006
Pojangmacha
I grew up eating this stuff on Sundays after church, at every Korean picnic outing, at home with my grandmother. It is kimbop and it's wonderfully healthy, tasty, filling food. In Korea, you can buy and eat kimbop from street vendors, along with other great foods (click here).
It is time for Mpls to move more to the edge of culinary art and embrace the pojangmacha (Korean street food vendors). It seems a similar trend is picking up for Japanese variants on pub food (click here for food review). All of which follows on the heels of the tapas craze.
Two weekends ago, Hapa9 and I made 100 kimbop rolls with help from friends for Andy's wedding out in Osceola, WI. It was an amazing sight (and tasty too). Hapa9 prefers to use the bamboo rollers but I prefer to use just my hands. It must be genetic because I can roll some tight kimbops (same holds true for fresh spring rolls), just like my mom and grandmom. The best part of making kimbop is when you eat the cutoff ends after you slice the rolls. It's a chef's treat!
Were I to open up a pojangmacha (which I am in serious about), I would include some other specialties, such as Korean style chicken wings (my specialty), fried flour battered whole fish on a stick (with edible bones), and of course tteokbokki (or dukbokee) which is a spicy rice cake treat.
So watch out Mpls for my friends and I when we open up our poja joint!
Posted by richlee at July 7, 2006 09:26 AMooh! can't wait!
Posted by: nic at July 7, 2006 02:16 PMOhhh yeah! I'd fly back to Mpls just to partake in some of that pojangmacha action. There's very little I wouldn't do for good 김밥.
Posted by: Ji-in at July 7, 2006 03:06 PMoooh - please - open it - ange and i will be regulars i promise!
Posted by: jen weir at July 7, 2006 03:37 PMI love kimbap or gimbap or whatever. Anyway, I was in Korea last month and watched an entire expose on how bad the germs in kimbap were from the mass production of these things in street vending areas. They said that something like one out of every three rolls sampled tested positive for known illness-inducing bacteria. After that...I began to wonder why I didn't feel sick, even though I ate enough kimbap to feed an elephant.
Of course, I do have a cast-iron stomach that can process aluminum cans if needed.
Posted by: papa2hapa at July 19, 2006 01:23 PM