thyme to eat
I like to cook and eat. And when other people cook and I eat. And cooking and eating with other people. Sometimes, I write about it.
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Day 5: Ninnikuya wasn’t open, so we hit up Jojoen (it’s still there!!) in Nakameguro for dinner with Dad #kampai #japanagram #latergram
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Chicken bibimbap from @soulfoodnyc (Taken with instagram)
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Cucumber kimchi at Kelley and Ping was beautiful but impossible to eat (Taken with instagram)
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Kimchi at Yakiniku Hiroshi (Taken with instagram)
339 Royal Hawaiian Avenue, Honolulu, Hawaii
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Last night J and I had a fabulous meal at Prime & Beyond in the east village. I had seen this New York Times article about a month ago and knew we had to try it. Steak AND kimchi? It’s like they read J’s mind! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pics of the actual steak (I KNOW!), but the veggies and sides were awesome.
J ordered a dry-aged t-bone, and I had a wet-aged ribeye, which both came with a side salad, some grilled veggies and scallion salad. We added some king oyster mushrooms and kimchi and had a great meal. We started with small salads that had a fantastic Asian dressing — wasabi, yuzu, soy … nom! The steaks were delicious, and very well prepared. J thought his dry-aged steak was more flavorful, but mine was more tender. I enjoyed eating the steak with a little of the scallion salad on top so that the soy dressing dripped on the meat. The mushrooms were very subtly seasoned and grilled. The kimchi was spicy, but not overwhelming so, and it also went well with the steak.
They have a ton of Korean dishes on the menu (our waitress said all the Korean dish recipes were from the owner’s mother!) that we didn’t get to try, and I’d love to go back right now to try those.
90 East 10th street (btwn 3rd & 4th aves)
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Tonight’s dinner was inspired by our delicious meals at various Korean taco trucks in NYC.
Making specialty tacos can be much less intimidating than a home cook might think, IF you have the right information. Before embarking on this taco-making journey, I enlisted the help of Korilla and Kimchi Taco. Not that I didn’t think I could do it, of course, but these guys are experts … and extremely nice to reply to my plea for some tips.
Eddie from Korilla had a lot of suggestions for how to handle the meat. “Marinate your favorite meat for 24-48 hours so that it soaks up all the goodness. When grilling, follow the one-turn rule wherein you grill each side only once so that you keep as much flavor in the meat while grilling. Lastly, since the marinade in Korean BBQ is very wet, make sure you drain the excess marinade after grilling. It helps to double wrap to prevent breakage of the contents of your Korean taco.”
Phillip from Kimchi Taco gave some clues as to what ingredients they like in their marinade. “One of the keys is making sure the protein is well seasoned and balanced. In our traditional Korean marinated beef that we use for the tacos, we add as much fruit as possible to add extra flavor.” He suggested fruits like pears, kiwi and seasonal fruits, such as local apples. The fruit adds “extra dimension to the meat” without being too sweet, according to Phillip.
After doing some online research, I settled on two different meat marinades for my thinly sliced ribsteak, one from Gourmet (RIP!) that suggested an overnight soak and another from Brooklyn Experiments that included fruit.
Eddie went on to talk about what else goes in a taco. “Add your favorite veggies for added texture. At Korilla, we use pickled veggies (kimchi) and sauteed veggies to achieve maximum crunch and munch!”
I made the cabbage slaw included in the Gourmet article and — of course — purchased Kimchi (although, it is not difficult to make your own!) at an Asian market for the suggested “crunch and munch.” Because both trucks include some sort of pico or salsa on their tacos, we included some as well.
The one notable deviation in my tacos versus the trucks was that I used flour tortillas over corn, because I happen to like them better.
In the end, both meat marinades were very good. However, if I were to make this again — I’m sorry, WHEN I make this again — I will probably go with the long-soak Gourmet marinade. It packed more of a flavor punch.
(I realize the tacos in the above photos look very similar, but they do taste different. The Gourmet recipe meat and taco are on the left and the Brooklyn Experiments meat and taco are on the right.)
Eddie’s final tip? “Eat while hot!” Yes, sir!
(Follow the trucks on Twitter for locations @KimchiTruck and @KorillaBBQ.)
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The Kimchi Taco truck parked in Midtown this week, and I was happy to walk a few blocks east to get some of their delicious Korean taco goodness.
The truck offers tacos in a set of 3 or 4, which is slightly unusual — most other trucks I’ve experienced usually do a 3-taco deal. For those who find 3 to be too little, 4-tacos for $9 is for you!
But alas, 3 is more than enough for this girl, so I stuck with that. Each was topped with Asian pico de gallo, fresh kimchi, green onion on a toasted corn tortilla — for $7. I tried 2 grilled Korean BBQ beef tacos w/ Kimchi Taco’s signature marinade and 1 pulled chicken taco, which is slow cooked shredded chicken lightly sautéed w/ a red wine soy reduction.
Both the chicken and the bulgogi were very good, but I prefer the beef. The meat is sweet and moist, and they do not skimp on the kimchi topping. The truck also offers two sauces you can take with you on the side, one is supposedly spicier than the other. I had the mild one, which, I have to say, still has a little kick to it.
The only downfall to this meal is that there was a bit too much liquid sitting at the bottom of the container, an issue that made for soggy tortillas. But the taste made up for it!
(Follow the truck on Twitter for locations @KimchiTruck.)
