3307 West Bryn Mawr Avenue, Chicago, IL - (773)539-8377
I think Dolsot Bibim Bap loosely translates to something like "hot stone bowl of mixed rice." You can also order a plain Bibim Bap which is the same thing but doesn't come in the heated stone bowl.
If you look at the picture closely, you can see steam coming off the rice. The stone bowl is piping hot when it arrives and you can hear the rice cackling from the heat. Eventually, this will sort of burn the rice slightly and add a slightly crispy texture to the dish.
The little dish on the left is chili paste and is usually added into the rice bowl and you mix around all the contents within the bowl which included a raw egg (that cooks from the heat of the bowl), lettuce, beef, bean sprouts and some other vegetables I can't seem to recall right now.
The other little plates are what is called banchan. Banchan is basically a collection of side dishes that come with your meal. This is standard for most Korean entrees, I believe. In our case, we received what looks like four varieties of kimchi, a fish, and some sesame oil concoction. Suffice it to say, this was a pretty crappy banchan relative to other Korean places I've been to (I'm used to more variety than just different kinds of kimchi).
As for the dish itself, it was good, but not great. I liked the touch of crispiness from the rice burning against the stone bowl but the flavor wasn't doing anything for me. Maybe I was expecting too much because my sister prepared me by saying it's her favorite Korean dish, but even she wasn't awed by its taste. Either way, I wasn't impressed enough to make a return trip to this restaurant.
2 comments:
I've taken on your laziness this time and am only commenting now, weeks after you posted.
I'm not sure why but I find it mildly amusing that you're writing about Korean food, finally. That's just fobtastic.
OK I am not a fan of this dish at all, but that looks like a decent bibim bap. I've seen worse. And you're right there's usually more of those side dishes but I only ever get that when I go for a "full meal" with a few dishes etc, like a bbq or when you get soup/stew and whatever other else..... it's really hard to describe things when you don't remember a single name of the things you order...
Anyways I hardly have Korean so this is a nice post.
Honestly, I'd have to rate Korean food lower on the list of Asian cuisine and it's not like Korean restaurants are all that plentiful - so that explains why the delay in finally getting to Korean food.
Post a Comment