I Am Not A Foodie

Chosun Myunoak is one of the many, many Korean restaurants located in Santa Clara area. My Korean coworker Steven took me there a couple of weeks ago because he knows how much I love Korean food, and he thought this place had a few interesting, and different dishes.

I went back there again today with Jason and Becky. Since the weather’s been so freaking hot, I was really craving the Korean style cold noodle. Let me just comment on the service before I say anything about the food, if you aren’t Korean, the service will be really really bad. I don’t think they discriminate intentionally, but they just don’t seem to…hmm..what’s the word, understand English much. It’s a decent size restaurant, with lots of customers, but definitely not enough waitresses. There was a waiting list to put down your name at the front desk area, but we didn’t see it at first. Then bunch of people who came after us started to put their names down, and we basically did the same. So the waitress at the front was trying to seat people according to that list, but another waitress came out and saw that we were at the front of the line and just seated us without consulting the list at all.

After getting seated, we only got two menus for three people. That’ll be complaint number two I suppose. They didn’t have the lunch menu for the weekend, which I guess I understand. I of course ordered the Mul Naeng Myun, which is cold buckwheat noodles in cold soup with beef. Jason got the Galbee Guyi, which is the short ribs with rice. Becky wanted a stir fried noodle dish with beef in it. And here came another complaint. They never served her food! Well, let me back up a bit, the whole service was slow. We wait a little before all the side dishes came. Then my noodles came. About 10 minutes later, Jason’s short ribs arrived. I was pretty much done with my noodle when we called over the waitress asking her how come Becky’s dish still wasn’t served yet. She went back to the kitchen to check, and apparently the dish wasn’t available! They couldn’t let us know that earlier?? Very, very annoying. Becky ended up with the Dwehjee Bulgoki, which is a pan fried pork with spicy sauce. The food was actually pretty good, but the service, well, next time you go, take a Korean friend of yours.

Side dishes (top to bottom, left to right): potato salad, cabbage kimchee, tofu, steamed egg, daikon kimchee, bean sprouts, spinach, and anchovies. The potato salad was new, I’ve never seen it before. It’s strings of potato, blanched, and then dressed in a sweet mayo salad dressing. The steamed egg was another that’s different. I remember eating steamed egg when I got sick when I was little. It had bits of veggies and dried shrimp in it, pretty good.

Here’s the cold noodle. It had slices of beef, cucumber, daikon, and half a boiled egg. The soup was pretty clean tasting, I put in vinegar and mustard to spice up the taste. I’m not a big Naeng Myun aficionado, so I don’t know how this ranks among other places. I thought the noodles were overcooked just a bit, it doest really have that bite you’d expect.

Galbee, I had this dish last time I came with Steven. I actually really liked it. I thought the BBQ sauce was pretty good, not too sweet like a lot of other places.

Bulgoki, with just enough spiciness, and the pork was so tender!

Another dish I’d recommend from this place is the Junju Bibimbab. It’s got lots of seasonal vegetables, with bits of ground beef, and small bowl of rice in it. When I had it last time, I thought it was really refreshing, not oily at all. I haven’t seen the Junju kind in other Korean places yet.

Overall, I think we all enjoyed the food. But the food didn’t warrant the bad service. Next time, I’m taking Steven.

In the same complex, there was a ice cream place called Real Ice Cream. It’s operated by Indians, with some interesting flavors. To combat the heat, we decided to get some ice cream after the Korean meal. I had a taste test of the almond pista safron, it was very orange with bits of almond in it. I thought it was pretty good, but wasn’t sure if I could eat a whole scoop of it. Instead I got a scoop of the mango. I really enjoyed that, it had solid chunks of mango in it. I also taste tested the lychee (yellowish, but pretty good too), and coconut pineapple (really really coconut-y, with bits of pineapple in it). It was definitely a dessert place worth checking out.

Oh, and if you like Indian food, there’s an Indian/Pakistanian grocery store in the same complex. Definitely a place to go to get all your spices need if you want to make an authentic Indian meal. It also sells fresh veggie samosas. I’ll have to ask Becky how they are.