moonlog

Rice Bowl Primer

You’d be hard pressed to find a standard Korean restaurant that doesn’t serve the humble bowl of rice known as bibimbap (pronounced “bee beam bahp”). For those of you who haven’t discovered what is probably Korea’s most accessible and a favorite lunchtime export, it’s time to get with the program.

Bibimbap is a bowl of rice with fixings, served with a vinegared chili sauce and a side of soup. The most common toppings are spinach, bean sprouts, gosari (a fernlike vegetable), carrot, cucumber, mushroom, zucchini, and egg. Just about anything can make it into a bowl of bibimbap, and each ingredient is prepared in its own way. Toppings can include meat or seafood.

The meal comes in two vessels, either just a normal bowl or a heavy stone bowl called dolsot. Dolsot bowls keep the meal warm through the entire experience and cost a bit more, whereas regular bowls work better when you’d rather not bathe in the ambient heat of your meal. Some restaurants serve one or the other, many have both.

Bibimbap arrives at your table as a colorful presentation of vegetables and rice, but user intervention is required. A good server can guide you through the process, but if you want to come to the table like an expert, know that bibim means “mix” and bap means “rice.” So dribble the chili sauce into the bowl as you mix the rest of the ingredients with the rice till you get an even consistency.

Some tips:

• The chili sauce is spicy, so dribble it in according to your spice tolerance. There’s no harm in adding just a little, mixing, tasting, and then adding more. (I gracelessly dump as much in as possible.) If the sauce is altogether too spicy for you, request a dipping sauce for pajeon (“pah juhn”), which can work as a nonspicy substitute (but frankly, you’ll be missing out).
• If you order dolsot bibimbap, check with your server about the egg. Koreans traditionally break a raw egg into a dolsot upon serving and let the heated stone bowl and other sizzling ingredients cook the egg as you mix it in. This doesn’t work so well if you’re slow with the mixing spoon or squeamish about undercooked eggs. Many restaurants simply fry the egg.
• Use chopsticks to nibble on side dishes, but know that Koreans generally use a spoon to eat rice dishes.
• Regular bibimbap is vegetarian friendly as long as you instruct the server to hold any meat trimmings and skip the egg. But strict vegetarians should know that many Korean ingredients and side dishes, including most kimchis, are made with anchovy-based broths.

Bibimbap is virtually a Korean national dish, almost universal in appeal and ubiquitous on restaurant menus, so your favorite or most convenient Korean restaurant can probably get you mixing. If you’re already a bibimbap veteran and want to give the bowl a different spin, here’s a few suggestions.

• Meat or seafood lover’s bibimbap. Many restaurants serve bibimbap (usually in dolsot) topped with extra portions of meat or seafood. Bulgogi and galbi (marinated beef and short ribs) are popular, but I prefer calamari or nakji (miniature octopus).
• Bibimbap variants. There are some other rice bowls that aren’t technically bibimbap, but they operate in more or less the same way. Hoedeopbap (“hweh duhp bahp”) is basically bibimbap’s cousin with sashimi (raw sliced fish) on a bed of lettuce. A lot of the classic Korean veggies are absent from this bowl, but the chili sauce is a tell-tale sign that this in indeed a very Korean food. Albap (“ahl bahp”) is another veggie rice combo topped with caviar.
• Bibim noodles. Bibimbap is the quintessential rice bowl, but noodles are just as susceptible to the spicy chili sauce. Bibim naengmyeon (“bee beam nehng myuhn”) is a bowl of buckwheat noodles served icy in a vinegary chili sauce. Bibim guksu (“bee beam gook soo”) is a dish of wheat noodles served cold and flavored with chili sauce. But noodles should get their own primer.
• Last but not least, Jeonju bibimbap. Jeonju, a city in southwestern Korea is Mecca for mixed rice and veggie bowls. If you see this on the menu, take it to mean “extra fancy” and be ready to register a complaint if it isn’t.

Basic bibimbap in the D.C. area generally starts around $8 on lunch menus but prices can go as high as $16 for dolsot versions outside lunch hours. More exotic ingredients nudge the price higher.

So no more menu ignorance. No more excuses. No more creepy ads in the Times. Go forth with spoon in hand and mix.

Birds and Bees and 1040EZs

This may be Too Much Information, but I feel like I’m fishing for dates to go with and do our taxes together with accountant volunteers at the library.

Yes, I have not done my tax yet.  Let’s go together!  When would you like to go?  Let me know, I want to go with you.

Saturday morning, 10am. Queue the porno music. Federal and state, baby.