mouthfeel

제주 돼지 항정살: Pork collar — also known as neck or jowl — from Jeju island, famous for its black hog. There’s not much you can say about pork that hasn’t been said a thousand times over. If you’re an omnivore, you’ve already experienced how crap most of it can be. Dry pork-chops that belong in a Raymond Carver story… you know how it goes.

So if you haven’t had the opportunity to eat Jeju black pork in Korea, you’ve been gypped a thousand times over. It is special. It has an intense, free-range, Berkshire-ish flavor. (My limited research indicates that there is some relation between Jeju pork and the famed Berkshire/Kurobuta breed.)

And the collar? It’s out of this world. In contrast to the crispy/chewy thing going on with the common belly (also delicious), the collar’s fat distribution renders each piece texturally consistent, juicy, tender, melt-in-your-mouth, religious experience, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth. I’ve been habituated to the taste by the steady availability of the stuff — meat crack is what it is — though I can tell you that the first time I tried a bite, fresh off my pitiful electric stove-top, my eyes totally bugged out and I gasped and everything. Now, lesser pork will not do. A bit sad, but once you go black pork…?

Late-night post-Moderat feast. Slow-cooked onsen egg nestled among the firm bosom of ramen noodles. Wood ear mushrooms, a cluster of green chives, a sounder of tender pork belly, all treading a cloudy miso broth. Momofuku-ish, but which came first — the American take, the Korean copy? (probably the latter) Are they fusion interpretations or foreign attempts at the real deal? (David Chang/the former, Korea/the latter)

This is just a dumb memo to myself punched out on my iPhone1.0-turned-iTouch.

God, the egg—the EGG!

탕짜면: When I found out that Chinese restaurants in Korea — about as Chinese as Chinese take-out is in the U.S. — not only made deliveries but also could divide one serving into two dishes, I went a bit mad. For a while, I’d split between different types of noodles, indulging myself in varied flavor/textural maps, from the unctuous and dense to the spicy and runny, all from the comfort of my home. These days, I’m partial to combining tangsooyook (a take on sweet-and-sour pork) with jjajang myun (black bean noodles), a dish commonly truncated to tangjjamyun.

Korean delivery, or baedal, is fast, cheap, and tip-less, unsurprisingly affecting the integrity of the cuisine (as convenience does everywhere). Because most 24/7-delivery houses err on this side of “middlingly passable” on the palate, I’ve started ordering my tangjjamyun from a legit sit-down restaurant with normal operating hours and decor that wouldn’t be out of place if transplanted to Wilshire Blvd (read: snazzier than the average bunshik). It’s not the best Chinese-Korean food I’ve had in my life, but it’s a pretty big step up from the norm.

Note to the unschooled: Most delivery houses bring your meal in real plateware, which you then leave outside your door for them to come pick up later. It’s all just kind of magical.