Steak and Salad Bar at VIPS

I can't seem to avoid buffet in Seoul because Koreans love the concept of all-you-can-eat so much. I had a late afternoon lunch with a girl whom I met during the summer through the Harvard-Ewha program. We wandered around for a place to eat and decided to go to VIPS, a steak and salad bar restaurant.

VIPS specializes in steak and all-you-can-eat salad bar. We ordered a steak to share and enjoyed the salad bar.

Vegetables are really expensive in Korea, so I was glad to see a wide variety of greens, cucumber, corns, tomatoes, celery, etc.

The make-your-own pho bar, bibimbop with roe egg, hot dog, and burrito. I was too busy checking out the items in the salad bar that I didn't attempt these two types of food.

The salad bar had lots of pre-made cold salad. I had way too much of that yellow sweet potato and squash salad. The squash wasn't sweet or mushy enough for my liking.

The persimmon in the persimmon salad at the bottom tasted a bit bland. It's interesting that Koreans make salad made primarily with fruits. The spicy Thai salad looked too red, almost as though they added red food coloring.

The black noodle pasta got its color from the squid ink. The pasta was mixed with shrimp and squid in creamy sauce. The pasta was slightly overcooked because it lacked a chewable texture.

The chicken lentil salad with green beans and tomatoes. When I took a bite of the green beans, the sauce oozed out into my mouth. The chicken was too dry.

This is one of my favorite menu--mango salad. I love that the mango is slightly frozen to preserve the cold taste. At other VIPS I have been to, they used way too much slices of almond or yogurt sauce, but I loved that this place minimized extra garnishment and focused on the mango.

The hot food corner had, from top to bottom, pepperoni pizza, French fries smothered in sweet honey sauce, and fried chicken. I only had a little bit of the French, which they named "Mega Crunch." It was pretty crunchy, indeed, and had a good combination of salty and sweet--just like Pretzel, except sweeter and crunchier.

The rice in the fried rice (with green peas, squids, mushroom) was slightly undercook.

The spicy mussel stew that I didn't try. The broth looked too...bubbly?

My very orange plate. Hey, at least I got some green and a little bit of black in there, too. I just hope my skin won't turn orange ;)

The alfredo pasta that was cooked to order wasn't as creamy or nauseating as other cream-sauce pasta because it was made with soy cream. I wish there had been sprinkles of basil or other spices on top for visual presentation because the pasta, as served, didn't look appealing. The sauce hardened rather quickly...that is the inevitable fate of cream-based pasta.

The smoked salmon and shrimp. I didn't eat these, but you can't really go wrong with the shrimpt (unless, of course, you serve really dry ones).

While enjoying the food from the salad bar, the waiter served us the ribeye steak, cooked medium. I like my steak rare, but the girl didn't like blood. It was served with a side of potatoes, tomatoes, and brocoli, as well as with sweet teriyaki-like sauce with pepper.

The steak had beautiful grill mark on the surface. We accidentally cut it non-linearly so the meat looked very jerky. But the visual is often conceiving! It was rather tender and juicy, probably because it had lots of fatty tissue throughout.

I really wanted to see the marbled steak before it was cooked. The steak was a bit too thin and fatty. We asked for it to be cooked medium, but it was closer to medium rare, which I liked because the meat wasn't too tough.

The fruit bar had pineapple, banana, lychee, and oranges.

The bakery/pastry dessert section with yogurt cake and brownies with walnuts.

The cheesecake was probably 1:1 cake and cheese cream. I didn't eat it. The brownie looked extremely dry and coarse.

I don't really understand why they named it the "yogurt cake." I assume it's because of the frosting? The vanilla cake was too dry, but the frosting was soft and a bit sour. The raspberry sauce on the side made the cake slightly more moist.

Frozen yogurt is the bane of my life. The plain yogurt flavor on the left was slightly sour and very refreshing, while the green tea flavor had an odd bitter aftertaste.

My friend made afogato (frozen yogurt with a shot of espresso). The combination of warm, bitter espresso and cold, sweet frozen yogurt goes really well together. We also brought peach-flavored jello with pomegranate and mango.

I love pomegranate because it reminds me of the Davis High XC team because we would always run to a pomegranate tree at a park and eat one after the run!

A Night Under the Moon

I met with some Harvard people at a makguli (fermented rice alcoholic drink popular in Korea) bar called Moon Jar.

Because none of us had dinner, we ordered lots of food with the drink.

Although a traditional meal of toppoki is sautéed in spicy, red chili sauce, this goongjoong toppoki was made with soy sauce. It had huge mushroom, beef, bell peppers, and onions, as well as, of course, long pieces of tri-colored rice cake.

The yellow, green, and white rice cakes all had the same flavors. It was chewy enough, but too thin to really grasp the texture. The sauce was a bit salty, but it went well with makguli.

Next came the Korean pancake made with mung bean and minced pork meat. It had a beautifully crispy outside from the pan-frying process, and warm, rich flavors from the mung bean.

The pancake was placed kind of far from me so I had a tiny bite, which was no big deal since it had pork meat anyways.

The pot of boiled kimchi with pork meat. Why do Koreans like pork so much? There were mushroom, scallions, and pieces of rice cake in there as well, though it may be too hard to see from the redness.

It looked very spicy, so I didn’t have any.

The smoked duck and pork on a stone. Both types of meat were very fatty. The little piece of duck I had tasted like smoked sausage.

No comment on the pork.

Fried chicken on a chili sauce. Didn’t eat.

Chicken on a grill with bell pepper, onion, and cheese in sweet and sour sauce. The first piece of chicken I had tasted quite good, but the consequent pieces were all too fatty. I also had to maneuver around the cheese!

Rice Cake and Tea Extravaganze

I revisited a café that I deemed to have had the best bingsu in Korea—A Flower Next to a Tree (담장옆에국화꽃)—this time not to eat bingsu (it is way too cold for that icy treat!), but to drink tea and sample its rice cake.

There were many different types of traditional and fusion rice cake on display in the store. These rice cake, whose beautiful colors were dyed with all natural ingredients (purple sweet potato, strawberries, kabocha squash, and mugwort), looked like roll cakes.

There were giant mochi, songpeyu, yakju, and rice cake with nuts.

I think the orange stuff is some kind of fried rice cake.

The oven-baked rice cake that I got was crispy on the outside, and soft and chewy on the inside.

The rice dough was mixed in with green peas, red beans, and walnuts (which I painstakingly had to take out).

I liked being able to enjoy two different textures on the outside and inside. The dough wasn’t overly sweet.

I had an herbal tea, while my friend got a kabocha squash latte. She said it really had a strong sweet squash flavor. Underneath the white foam was yellow squash puree.

The tea had a sweet aftertaste that lingered in my mouth for a good 30 minutes after I drank it. I wanted to brew it for the second time, but the taste wasn’t nearly strong enough.

The second rice cake I had was a giant mugwort mochi with red beans and walnuts filling.

I have never had a mochi that was filled with this much red bean puree. It was almost a bit too much because I personally prefer the chewier outside.

The red bean puree was too much and too sweet. I could tell that they used a lot of mugwort to make the mochi because I found long pieces of mugwort in the dough!