On Saturday afternoon, Aaron and I explored Koreatown in Dallas off of Harry Hines and Royal. We have been told that the Korean population in Dallas is one of the largest in the southwestern US, so I was a little surprised when we managed to explore the entire area in only 2 hours. Aaron was suspicious of being able to spend the entire afternoon there, and he was right.
We started with the Ko-mart, the Korean grocery store. I didn't know what to expect as I have only visited Japanese and general Asian grocery stores. Aaron smelled something sweet, so we wandered up and down the aisles until we found a place in the store that makes soft tofu. We still think they were making crepes (or some type of pancake) because it certainly didn't smell like tofu (unless they add vanilla and sugar to soft tofu)! Since we had plans to stick around the area until dinner, I didn't pick up anything that needed to be kept refrigerated or frozen, so I resorted to green tea flavored noodles, a few types of candy that looked interested, kimchi flavored dried squid, a few Japanese drinks (will add more on this later), and persimmons!
Here is the interesting thing, everything you can find in the Japanese grocery store is in this Korean grocery store! I know there is some overlap in the fruits and dishes, but they even had Japanese brands and items that say "Japanese style [insert the type of food here]." Everything from noodles (udon, ramen, soba) to snacks (dried squid, pocky sticks, candy, green tea ice cream). I expected to see foods that weren't originally Japanese, such as gyoza (dumplings), but I now wonder how much Japanese cuisine influenced Korean cuisine and vice versa. I'll let you know as soon as I try a few things in the next month or two.
I was told that there were curio and book stores in the area as well, so we drove up and down the nearby streets looking for Korean writing. It helped that Aaron knows how to read a little Hangul (Korean characters), but he couldn't read it fast enough to know where to stop. Instead, we just pulled into nearly every shopping center and looked around. I was a little disappointed that we didn't find any stores with Korean items made in Korea, and when we did find a bookstore, we realized it was a Christian bookstore. They did have several novels translated into Korean, but most of the gift items were heavily Christian. I was hoping to find a cute poster with the Hangol characters for the baby's room, but I can order it on Amazon if we can't find one in Korea.
By 4pm, we had stopped by every store we could find and still were not hungry enough to eat dinner. A friend had recommended Seoul Garden, which I think is a Korean BBQ place. Instead, we decided to gradually make our way home and try the Korean BBQ place in Richardson. There's a strip of Asian restaurants and a grocery store off of Greenville (between Beltline & Arapaho) that we generally visit for Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants. The Korean BBQ place just opened in the last few weeks in the middle of this shopping center, and it meant we were 30 minutes closer to home (which Aaron liked).
The food was great! The restaurant is split into 2 sections: a large dining room with regular 4-person tables and a small dining area with Korean BBQ grills built into the center of the tables. Aaron opted for the BBQ seating and liked the 2-person BBQ special since it meant trying 3 dishes and cooking it ourselves. I let Aaron choose since it took me a while to navigate the menu. We ended up trying Bulgogi (marinated beef), Pork Bulgogi (pork but with diff. seasoning), and a spicy chicken dish (can't remember the name). I was surprised that Aaron chose the chicken, and it worried me that the waiter even mentioned that it was spicy to get approval before placing the order. I think we must be accustomed to Indian-style spicy food because the chicken didn't take hot at all. The beef was fairly sweet and nearly reminded me of a type of teriyaki (also has soy sauce and sugar). The pork had a dipping sauce with salt, pepper, and something else that Aaron really liked. By the time we cooked the chicken we were stuffed!
Now we did try kimchi, and I'm sad to say that I couldn't develop a taste for it. I nearly picked up some kimchi at Komart, but I thought it might be safer to try it first. Luckily, we know have three dishes I can try to make at home thanks to online recipes. If I can manage the bulgogi recipe I found, I'll fix it as a side dish for Thanksgiving. It would be nice to have a Korean dish at our big family meals. Hey, if my family can handle papad (Indian lentil crackers) with our Thanksgiving, a little Bulgogi won't hurt! :-) I think we're planning to return to the same restaurant sometime with our families and try a few more dishes!
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