Koreatown instead of Chinatown for a change of scenery and bites.
Combination kimbap from Somunnan Kimbap – egg, spam, tofu skin, carrot, radish, burdock, spinach, mushroom – or something along those lines. She made the perfect wrapping look like a breeze.
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Northern King Dumpling – kimchi pork bun, cabbage pork bun, shrimp and pork dumplings. Korean-Chinese version of similar places in Flushing that serve 10-15 boiled dumplings. The buns were large, well-filled, and tasty, but are never my thing given the doughy-ness and ratio of dough to filling relative to dumplings or pancakes. The dumplings were flavorful and slightly different than the pure Chinese equivalents – filling was partly chopped and partly pasty so as to hold together. Also different than the similar Korean dumpling place in New World Mall. (But we forgot to try to ask for a mix of fillings here, lol.) More skillful hands making the dumplings and buns onsite.
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Assorted jeon from Hanyang Mart – scallion or perilla or mixed, fish ( saengseon), beef (wanja), peppers stuffed with beef, zucchini. We saw these at some banchan specialists too, but here they were being made fresh and everything but the fish was hot. My favorite is always wanjajeon, but the greens ones are always good – like pajeon, but different.
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Cafe W had very creative croissant-based items (and more) – apparently it’s a whole thing (though we discussed that croinigiri would have been a better name than onioissant). We tried one stuffed with mayo & pollack roe. Not my thing, but clever and well-made. The croissant part was slightly sweet, in contrast with the salty filling.
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Final stop was to sit down at JeunJu for some cold noodles with kimchi and pork neck bone stew. Plus lots of banchan – a fried egg per head, coleslaw, radish chunks, greens, radish strips, broad beans and king oyster mushrooms. It’s a small place and they were completely full even though it was late for lunch rush. Very nice staff.
