In this case, KFC stands for Korean Fried Chicken, not Kentucky. I chose the honey butter flavor because it sounded unusual, and it came with walnut pieces. I was told that honey sauce was popular in Korea, but the restaurant here in California added the butter and walnut pieces to make it more interesting. The chicken was boneless crispy nuggets that were on the dry side, but the flavor was good. It was only slightly sweet, and I enjoyed the addition of the walnut. I also liked the chewy little rice cakes on top that resembled fried noodles. It came with a side of steamed rice, salad, and lightly pickled crunchy white radish cubes. The salad was composed of lettuce, radish, shredded carrot, red cabbage, and sliced Persian cucumber. It came with a very tasty soy based dressing. I almost liked the sides better than the chicken, but when I dipped the nuggets into sriracha hot sauce, it kicked them up a notch.
Location: Beech Please, 6755 Ste A105, Hwy 111, Cathedral City, California. Date: April 24, 2024.
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This Korean chicken dish came with fried chicken nuggets in “fire” sauce (you can choose your sauce, but “fire” actually wasn't too hot). There was a side of very garlicky noodles that were also a bit salty, but the dish came with cubes of mildly marinated daikon radish that helped to balance the dish nicely and lend it some crunch. There were thin slices of serrano chiles on the noodles and chicken nuggets. The dish was served with a side salad of lettuce, radish, cucumber, carrot, and red cabbage with an Asian dressing. For people who haven't tried Korean food yet, this dish is very approachable.
Location: BeeCH, please, 6755 Ste A105, Hwy 111, Cathedral City, California. Date: October 21, 2023. The menu says that this Korean specialty is simmered gochujang rice cakes with onion, carrot, cabbage, fish cake, and green onion. It's served with a side of yellow pickled radish. The gochujang is actually the Korean red chilli paste in the sauce that the rice cakes are simmered in. The carrot and cabbage were finely shredded with larger pieces of onion. The veggies provided some crunch to the dish, but the yellow pickled radish, that was actually more sweet than sour, provided the serious crunch. The rice cakes were formed like short thick pasta, but they were more chewy than pasta. The broth was definitely spicy, but not over the top, and it was also a little sweet. The fish cakes were actually like bean curd sheets flavored with fish in the best possible way. I think it was the fish cake that tied this dish together. This was a satisfying sweet, spicy, savory, and chewy stew.
Location: BeeCH, please, 57555 E Palm Canyon Drive, A 105, Cathedral City, California. Date: October 14, 2023. You can have this Korean vegetarian dish mild or spicy; naturally, I chose spicy. This was soft and luscious silken tofu in a spicy broth with delicate enoki mushrooms, sliced raw jalapeño pepper, sliced onion, chopped green onion, and an egg. It was served with a side of steamed rice and kimchi (sour pickled Korean cabbage). The stew was served in a sizzling bowl, and I was given the option of having the egg served on the side so that I could crack it into the bowl myself and thus not have it cooked hard. This dish was full of protein but so soft and silky that it just ran down my throat. When I broke the egg yolk and let it run into the spicy broth, that was an OMG moment. The kimchi gave this dish some crunch, the rice gave it some chew, and the umami flavor was almost outrageous. I normally cook with firm tofu, but this silken version is probably the best tofu dish I've ever had.
Location: Umami Seoul, 67555 E Palm Canyon Drive A, Cathedral City, California. Date: September 3, 2022. This Korean style raw fish bowl was actually not spicy at all. What made this dish Korean was the hot dipping sauce on the side, but even that wasn't very spicy: it was a little sweet and rich in flavor. The dish as a whole was like poke but without the individual choices. It consisted of cucumber salad, seaweed salad, undressed lettuce, and small pieces of raw salmon, tuna, red snapper, and seared albacore. It was garnished with masago, which is flying fish roe, and black sesame seeds, and underneath was just the right amount of sushi rice. The menu said it would also contain gobo, which is burdock root, but alas there was none. Burdock root tastes a bit like ginseng, and I quite like it. This meal came with miso soup that contained tofu, seaweed, green onion, and mushroom. I thought the mushroom was a nice touch as it boosted the umami. This restaurant is definitely Christian. Instrumental gospel music was playing, and M 6:33 was printed on the paper covers for the chopsticks, the M obviously referring to Mathew. My meal, though, was a large, healthy, and refreshing bowl of food.
Location: Joyce's Sushi, 36101 Bob Hope Drive, Ste E-1, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: July 2, 2022. I went to You Grill with four friends, and our friend from Nepal, who had lived in South Korea, did most of the ordering and all of the grilling. There was a gas grill in the middle of every table with a vent above it, and you get tongs for grilling and a pair of scissors for cutting the grilled items into bite size pieces to eat with your chop sticks. The meal came with plenty of condiments: chili sauce, sweet soy sauce, kimchi, seaweed salad, slices of sweet and fishy fishcake, bean sprouts, and raw garlic cloves (which our friend grilled). For the grill, we had thinly sliced and tender beef brisket, baby octopus, beef short ribs, thinly sliced beef tongue, the You Grill signature steak, a calamari steak, and spicy pork bulgogi (which was a little sweet and very tender, which seems to be a theme with ingredients here). We also had pot stickers and very spicy tofu soup that had some tomato flavor to it. The top photo shows beef tongue, baby squid, and pot stickers before going on the grill. The bottom photo shows slices of beef tongue on the grill. Obviously, we ate really well.
Location: You Grill Korean BBQ, 79680 Highway 111, La Quinta, California. Date: March 21, 2022. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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