the most tasteless bibimbap I've ever had – part2
August 30, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: bibimbap, omelet
3 comments
So I wrote about my experience with the blandest bibimbap I’ve ever had. (see the picture of the bibimbap by clicking here.) I’ve read the comments, and I’m sure gochujang/gojoojang would’ve probably given it a bit of flavor, BUT my friend and I agreed that even if we added gochujang/gojoojang, it would’ve probably been absorbed into the bowl of …”stuff.” It was that flavorless! (By the way, this was not my first bibimbap experience, and I’m Asian, so I don’t think they didn’t give it to me because they thought I couldn’t handle the spicy food.)
You can see the carrots, meat, other veggies in the picture, but they just had no texture OR taste! I realized that “no texture” was part of the bland taste. I remembered that once I started mixing it, the veggie & rice lost its shape, and the meat disappeared. I was talking to my friend and we came to the conclusion that it was as if they boiled all the ingredients in water for a very long time, got all the juice and flavor out, and used the water for some soup, and used the veggie for the bibimbap.
I’m not trying to say the all bibimbap is bland, but you really had to try this one to understand what I mean by “tasteless.” (But of course, I won’t give you the name for this place.)
Anyway, this is bibimbap make-over day 2. I decided to make an “omurice” with leftover bibimbap. Omurice is a very popular meal for kids in Japan, and it’s basically fried rice (usually seasoned with ketchup) inside an omelet.
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the most tasteless bibimbap I've ever had – part1
August 29, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: bibimbap, croquette
7 comments
Last Friday was the going away party for one of my co-workers at a karaoke place nearby work. But since it didn’t start until 8:00, my boyfriend, my friends/co-workers and I decided to grab something to eat before going to the karaoke place. The karaoke place was in Korean town in NYC, so we just went to one of Korean restaurants by the karaoke place.
Two of my other friends and I ordered bibimbap (rice, vegetable and raw egg on the top, usually comes in a sizzling hot stone bowl), my boyfriend and other friend ordered jap chae (stir fried mix vegetables and rice noodle), my other friend ordered bulgogi. (Korean BBQ)
When the waitress brought my food, it looked so good that I took a picture of it.
Looks can be so deceiving.
Click to continue reading "the most tasteless bibimbap I've ever had – part1"
Japanese oil hardener
August 27, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: Japanese oil hardener
12 comments
Not a bento post, but this is something I’ve always wanted to post on my blog.
“Oil hardening” products are very common in Japan. A couple different companies make them, but they’re pretty much the same thing.
You put the oil hardening powder into hot oil, leave it until it cools down, and voila! Oil becomes solid so you can throw it away as regular trash!
The powder is made with natural vegetable oil so it’s very environment friendly.
When I came to the U.S. 15 years ago, I didn’t think the “oil hardener” was anything special. Whenever I had a large amount of oil to discard, I always looked for an oil hardener in a supermarket in the U.S. but I could never find one. So I looked for it online, but came up with nothing except the Japanese one I’m talking about. I was asking my boyfriend if he’s heard of something like that in the U.S., but he couldn’t think of one either. So I showed it to him one day, and he thought it was really cool.
I had a large amount of rather old oil (I’ve been using it for frying croquettes), so I decided to take pictures of how this Japanese oil hardener works.
The one I used is called "Yukko" by a company called Lion. It's about $5.50 and comes with 5 packets of oil hardening powder.
Ingredients: Natural oil (very vague, but that's also what the Japanese package says)
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Gen Con 2009
August 25, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Alteil, Everything else Tags: Alteil, Black Lotus, conventions, Gen Con 2009
8 comments
I’m alive! I’m alive!
Sorry for the looong hiatus.
Usually, even if I’m super busy, I try to post about anything to update my blog so people won’t get bored seeing the same front page over and over. But I got pretty tied up with my work and I had to go to another convention. Now that I’m back and finished the project I was working on, I’m gonna get my lazy butt in gear, and start bento-ing! But before that, I’ll blog about the con my boyfriend and I went.
My boyfriend and I were at Gen Con, the biggest card gaming/table top gaming convention in the world, which was held in Indianapolis last weekend. (8/12-16) I was going to update my blog from the hotel, but the hotel’s internet was soooooooooooo slow. (12KBs or something like that)
We weren’t there to attend the con, but we were working at the con for my company’s imported online card game, called Alteil.
Bathroom sign at Indianapolis airport. Seems like the women are curvier and sexier and the men are more buffed and manlier in Indianapolis.
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How to make sheep rice ball
August 13, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: farm bento, onigiri, rice ball, sheep
12 comments
My day job, an online card game Alteil did a HUGE system update for the game about a week ago. So I’ve been online, writing emails, checking for bugs, chatting with the Japanese developers (Alteil is originally a Japanese game, my company brought it over to the U.S.) days and nights… and I just couldn’t make the time to update my blog. T_T
Anyway, I still wanted to do a how-to on something simple, so I was looking at my old bento, and decided to do this one. This is something I made for my only original bento “Farm bento.” It’s sooo easy and you don’t need too many ingredients, and with right tools, it’s even easier!
I made this bento a long time ago. The sheep are on the left side.
[How to make sheep rice ball]
- sticky rice (Any regular Japanese or Korean rice is “sticky rice”)
- ham (or cheddar cheese)
- seaweed
- *cheese
- *anything you want to put in the rice ball
– *hole punch
*optional
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How to make Domo-kun croquettes
August 8, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: croquette, domo-kun
10 comments
Croquettes are a very popular food in Japan. For those who don’t know what croquettes are, croquettes are deep fried mashed potato with any kind of minced meat or fish and sometimes with vegetable. The great thing about croquettes are that they’re easy to make, and you can put pretty much anything in it. Also, you can make many croquettes at once, and freeze them for later. You can make croquette only with potato. I added meat and onions for this how to, but if you aren’t a big meat eater, you can just use drained tuna or varieties of vegetables like corn, peas, carrots, etc…
Domo-kun croquette in bento!
[Domo-kun croquette] (makes about 15 ~ 18 small croquettes)
- 1~2 potato (I used 2)
- 1~2 eggs beaten with 1 TBS of vegetable oil mixed very well (for batter)
- flour (for batter)
- panko or bread crumbs (for batter)
- Oil for deep frying
- *1/2 lbs of minced meat (I used minced beef) OR soboro (see “how to make soboro”)
- *1~1 1/2 onion (I used 1)
*[Seasoning for meat] (This isn’t absolutely necessary. You can season the meat anyway you want.)
- 1 TBS of soy sauce
- 2 TBS of sugar
- 1 TBS sake
*Optional
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bento #60: Domo-kun
August 4, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: croquette, domo-kun
4 comments
I was going to do a how-to on this and did a photo shoot on Sunday night, but it was getting late, and I was very sleepy & sloppy…
The croquettes didn’t look very good in the photos, so I decided to re-shoot some stuff again. I’ll post a how-to sometimes this week. But since I had already made them, I decided to use them for a quick regular-ish bento.
Bento #60: Domo-kun
Created and eaten on: 8/3/2009
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non-bento #18: Rabbid sandwich
August 1, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - non bento Tags: raving rabbids, sandwich
3 comments
My boyfriend eats a snack before he leaves for his kung fu class on Saturday, so I decided to make this.
Non-bento #18: Rabbid sandwich
Created and eaten on: 8/1/2009
