Red Bi Bim Bap, I Eat You Up

Hello or should I say, Annyeong haseyo to everyone out there!  I have officially moved to South Korea, and I have already tried one of their signature dishes:  dol sot bi bim bap.  This blog post is going to be a bit different since you can basically get this dish anywhere in Korea, so instead I’m just going to provide my general impressions of the dish.

My precious

We just went to a really small place right by the hotel we’re staying in by the Incheon airport, but it was very welcoming.  I decided to get the dol sot bi bim bap because I’ve had it before stateside, so I wanted to see how it would taste in the heart of the motherland (preview:  delicious).  If you’ve never heard of this meal before, it is a hot bowl that is filled with rice, carrots, bean sprouts, assorted greens, zucchini  and cucumber to name a few ingredients.  Plus, it had a raw egg on top that I had to stir along the sides of the pot in order for it to completely cook and mix among the veggies.  I even gave it a healthy dose of gojuchang or red chili pepper sauce which supposedly was supposed to be spicy.  Overall, I greatly enjoyed the bi bim bap since the vegetables like the cucumbers were fresh and flavorful.  The rice was cooked to perfection with a slight crispiness thanks to the sesame oil used in the bottom of the stone dish, and the red chili pepper sauce had a slight kick to it but nothing too crazy for yours truly.  I would liken it to maybe a Tapatio or Yucateco hot sauce level of spiciness.  It was also accompanied with this very thin and flavorless broth that was filled with what seemed like green onions, but it was so bland that it was like drinking water.  Oh well, at least I filled up on delicious rice and vegetables.  I had my first Korean beer, Cass, which was not as terrible as I thought it was going to be after trying other Asian beers.  I would liken it to a more flavorful Coors Light.  So yeah, if you’re afraid of Korean cuisine, bi bim bap is a great starter dish.