Budae Jjigae

Sue and I went in search of Budae Jjigae, and was directed to Kim Chi Myeong Ga in Duluth.

It was ok; not nearly as good as Nolboo in Seoul. This was really spicy (perhaps a little too spicy), and it didn't have as much "stuff" as what you get in Korea. In Seoul, the restaurants included several a la carte items that you could add to make things more interesting and/or filling. In the end, I guess I was a little disappointed... I had hoped it would be closer to what we had had.

Post-Cruise

After the end of the cruise, many of us went to my Aunt's place over in Bellevue for lunch. Before eating, we had to go out and procure some foodstuffs...

Very good price for dungeness crabs. I wish I had known of this shop when I lived in Seattle. (For comparison, the crabs at the fancier Asian supermarket Uwajimaya were selling for $5.99 per pound.)

Tank of abalone... these are expensive! (we didn't get any.)

Oyster shucking (dis)assembly line.

Ready to go!

My aunt makes this great dish where you take spot prawns, stick 'em in ice and booze, basically freeze and poison the shrimp with the alcohol, and them eat 'em raw.

The booze for the prawns.

The victims in ice and booze. Technically, most of the prawns are actually still alive (but barely since they'd be severely alcohol poisoned) when you eat them. You basically just use your hands to tear their heads off, peel the shell off their backs, dip them in some soy sauce and wasabi, and then it's good eats! Probably not good for the squeamish eaters out there.

Otoro sashimi, very thickly cut.

Table shot. Clockwise from top left: steamed spot prawns, sashimi plate, pork and mustard greens (for cold noodles), and the previously shown otoro sashimi.

Nat's first raw oyster ("tastes like ocean").

On the Sunday that we left, Sue, my brother and I visited Pike Place Market.

Nat ordering a taro flavored bubble milk tea.

In an Italian market, Nat found some kind of bitter-orange San Pelligrino that he had had some variety of in Italy. So he snagged two bottles.

Cruisin'

We had a family reunion on my mom's side of the family. We all flew into Seattle and did a 7-day Alaskan cruise. Below are some of my food pictures, although I didn't take that many because I knew my brother would take care of it all. Check his blog for the full scoop.

My brother making a strawberry and wine sauce for a cheesecake topping (pre-cruise).

Cruise drinks (brother Nat and cousin Sabrina).

This ice cream had some weird Italian name to it, so I just ordered it to find out what it was. It turned out to have a bunch of candied fruits in it and it basically just tasted like fruitcake ice cream. Horrible!

We went on a hike one day; my brother Ariel had a box of rice crispies from the boat for a snack, and this is him doing a silly job of eating it.

We also went kayaking one day. Along the shore of the lake, there were several fishermen catching salmon. These guys are just filleting their catches.

After filleting, I was offered a piece of fresh salmon. The guy basically just cut a piece and rinsed it off in the lake water. I guess that's probably the freshest salmon I've ever had (could have used a little soy sauce I suppose...).

Beer stop in Ketchikan.

They had pickles on the menu, so I ordered a half pickle. Surprisingly good!

There was one night where king crab was on the menu. I only had a measly five plates of crustacean appendages.

There was another night where lobster tails were on the menu. Sadly, that night I also only had six lobster tails (in addition to one order of beef wellington).

Funny sight on the boat: Hispanic worker, dressed in Chinese clothes, serving Japanese sushi.