Holiday Summary

Aww... the one week holidays have come and gone and it seemed soo short! Why does school have to start tomorrow? Bummer...

Anyway, its time that I look back at what I did during the very short holidays. Sorry I haven't been updating my blog as frequently as I should :S

I started my holiday one day earlier by going to Genting Highland on a Friday! Heehee...

Check out mine and Sam's new jacket, we got it for our birthday :D

The guys have the same jacket except its black. Thus forming our jacket group XD

During that time, we even had the guts to take a dumb picture like this :

Nothing much happened after that, so, I'll just list out the rest of the stuff I did during the holidays.

Monday:

we watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D!

Tuesday:

Went to Leisure Mall to get mom's new phone.

Wednesday:

Went ice skating with my cousins! Yay!

Saturday:

Finally went back to Karate class. Too bad I missed my would-be first international tournament *sigh*

How was your holiday? :)

Costco Pizza

Ok. I know. It's not authentic Italian pizza. But, even authentic Italian pizza back in Toronto was hard to come by, especially if all I wanted was a slice, or two. I'd have to buy the whole pizza and then have the leftovers for the next few days. And, it never tasted as good after the freshness of it had worn off the next day in the fridge anyways. But, "Canadianized/Americanized" pizza is one of the few things I do like. It's not the same as the real thing, but it's still pretty good. The "Pizza Nova" a few blocks from where I used to live back in Toronto made the best of its type anywhere.

After reading about how "authentic" (at least from an "Americanized" pizza perspective) the pizza is at Costco from another blogger (http://seoulfoodyo.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/costco-pizza/), I was eager to try it out. It took me over three months to get there from the time I first read about it. But, today I managed to make the trip.

My math teacher friend and I headed out to the Ilsan Costco on a rainy, dreary saturday afternoon. The drive out was uneventful and was very quick. Maybe about half an hour and we did not even get lost this time. The place was packed and we had to park almost on the roof level. The good thing is that the food court is outside the main shopping area of Costco, so that if you do not have a membership you can still go in and eat. The food court was packed. We almost did not get a place to sit down. People waited for us to get up after eating.

Anyways, the pizza was somewhat unexciting. It was a bit too undercooked for my liking. The Korean preoccupation of never overcooking anything in order to avoid having any slight burn/singe/brown/scorch spots/areas does not do pizza any good. This avoidance of "scorch marks" stems from the worry of contracting cancer from such "burnt" parts of food, any food. So, most pizza here is pretty bland and tasteless as it is these exact small "burns" that actually impart flavor and texture to certain types of food, especially pizza. The crust, needless to say, was very thick and soft/soggy because of this lack of oven time. At least the sauce and the taste was authentic "Americanized" pizza taste, if not the texture (and, pizza needs both to be good IMHO). All in all a somewhat disappointing experience. Chalk up another one for experience. The next pizza will be from an authentic Italian restaurant which I might have found already.

Wish me luck!

Costco Pizza: Not really recommended unless you are really desperate for a somewhat disappointing taste from home.

Location: Ilsan Costco

Note: Generic Costco pizza pic from the web of the deluxe pizza we ordered. It was way too crowded and crazy there for me to even think about trying to get some pix of the pizza today. The pizza in the pic looks much, much, better than the one we actually had. At least it was cheap!

Vietnamese Food

If you're here, you're on the wrong side of the street. Go back down that underpass and exit on the other side, which is exit number 2.

This is the place!

Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. Yummy!

After eating nothing but authentic Korean food for the past 6 months, I was now in the mood for something different. As much as I love Korean food, my recent trips to Hong Kong and to Japan made me realize that I had missed all the wonderful variety of different ethnic foods I was used to eating before coming here to South Korea. As luck would have it, I read about an authentic Vietnamese restaurant not too far from where I live from another blogger. You can read the original blog post yourself here:

http://leeskoreablog.blogspot.com/2010/02/vietnamese-beef-noodlesdieu-hien-quan.html

Excellent directions on how to find the place are also there are well. Although, I would only change one thing about those directions, get out at exit number 2 instead of exit number 1. At exit number 2, you are exactly where you need to be after the bit about using the underpass. The rest follows as written.

On a saturday a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go out and actually find this particular Vietnamese restaurant. A fellow teacher friend of mine, along with his kids, were there along with me for the experience. I had successfully convinced him a few days prior to our trip out there that "real" ethnic foods were very difficult to find in South Korea and that most ethnic foods here were "Koreanized" versions of the real thing. He seemed to agree with my assessment.

The drive out there was much farther and longer than I had anticipated. It took a bit over an hour and through many toll roads later, and stopping to ask for directions a few times, we finally arrived. But, it would have taken even longer via subway. Ansan is farther than I had thought even by car. The restaurant itself was typical of authentic places; not at all fancy and very down to earth. The clientele was mostly Vietnamese as was the writing on the menus and on the walls (with Korean translations, of course). A good sign.

The food was everything I had hoped it would be; the real deal. I had beef noodle soup along with spring rolls and iced Vietnamese coffee. The cilantro was already in the soup and the bean sprouts and the lemon grass was on a separate plate as it should be for you to add to your own soup as you like. The only things missing were limes (they gave us lemons instead) and basil. A few minor details that did not detract too much at all (although limes do taste better and basil is not really missed by me). I made a slight mistake with the spring rolls, though, and forgot to mention the deep frying part. They were cold rolls. But, very, very, good none-the-less. My friend had the same and his kids had soup and fried rice. The fried rice was better than what I had had before.

For coffee lovers, Vietnamese coffee is the best in my opinion. But, only if you like strong coffee and/or sweet coffee. They use these small individual cup-sized filters that drip into your cup at the table and fill your small cup in less than 10 minutes. The milk is sweetened condensed milk and when mixed with the coffee is simply awesome. You can have it either hot or cold. I like it cold. Cold is simply poured over ice. I had given up coffee many years ago as a daily thing, but I do have it once in a while. It was a nice treat.

Cost wise, the food was very reasonable. Four of us ate and were stuffed for less than KRW 50,000 (that's less than CDN$45, or US$40). Everything was authentic in taste and simply awesome. Definitely a place to go back to again.

Highly Recommended.

Name and Location: Dieu Hien Quan, Ansan Subway Station, Exit Number 2. Telephone Number: 493-3756.

Note: All pix courtesy of Lee's Korea Blog (http://www.leeskoreablog.blogspot.com/) and used with permission. I was too engrossed in the company and in my food to think of taking pix this day. Next time. Duh!