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!

Ashley: A Pretty Name for a Salad Bar Buffet

There is one very important food-related fact you should know about me: I absolutely HATE (yes, "hate" is a strong word, but it is definitely not an overstatement in this case) buffets. On the other hand, most Koreans, including my dad and my grandma, love buffets because the idea of all-you-can-eat gives the sense of freedom and overindulgence. I suppose that is also the very reason I dislike them. Freedom and overindulgence do not go well together with food. For me, eating and dining is an experience one should savor, not overindulge to the point one feels bloated. Whenever I go to buffet, I end up feeling disgusted with the amount of food I eat due to the variety of dishes and my innate curiosity to want to try a little bit of everything. Even when I try to limit myself to two plates, I also don't feel "happy" after eating because the quality of food is subpar at best. After all, the chefs don't cook for YOU personally, but for the masses. There is no character in the food since it is meant to be mass-consumed.

Having shared my dislike for buffets, I went to one for lunch, not because of my own choosing, but because it is a place where my mom meets her friends in Daegu (a metropolis 1.5 hours south from Andong) once a month. I suppose buffets have the convenience factor when meeting with a group of people: you don't have to worry about each person's picky taste since buffets offer a variety of food and you don't have to wait for the meals to come out. Actually, if there is a few minor things I like about buffets, it is that I usually end up trying something I have never had before or would never order as a main dish, and I don't have to suffer through the dilemma of choosing what to get (it typically takes me ~20 minutes to choose what I want to eat...).

The place we met was called Ashley, a casual American Grill and Salad Bar buffet. We reserved a table by the window and waited for Mom's friends from way back when we lived in Louisiana to arrive. The place was packed with so many middle-aged moms. I really liked the slick interior of the buffet. The circular salad bar had mostly cold dishes and some hot dishes, while the grill bar behind it had fresh-made pasta and brick-oven baked pizza.

There was also a make-your-own bibimbop corner, complete with different vegetables and rice. Since I really love the bibimbop that my mom makes, I only had a spoonful that Mom made.

Since I got there about 20 minutes before everyone else, I was able to take some shots of the food. Below, from right to left, is boneless fried chicken (which I didn't eat), mushroom polenta (I scraped the mushroom on top and a little bit of polenta, which was extremely dry. The mushroom seemed to have been sautéed in too much oil because it was super greasy), and crab meat fried rice (see explanation below). Behind the hot dishes are fresh fruits (pineapples, grapefruits, lychee), but I was too full to eat).

These are the "new" garlic-themed menus (but meaningless to me because this was my first time at Ashley, thus everything was new to me). On the left is "Real Garlic Dduckgalbi," which means they are chewier than the regular galbi because it had bits of dduck, or chewy rice cake, infused within the meat. On the right is "Honey Garlic Rice Cake," or chewy rice cake smothered in garlic syrup and covered with peanuts. I found out the rice cakes were fried (thus the glistening surface) so I spit it out after the first bite.

The galbi was my favorite dish. The savory garlic sauce with chopped celery and pepper added tons of flavors to the chewy galbi meat. I also chose the pieces that were char-grilled to perfection (a little bit of black burnt surface).

There were a lot of pre-made cold salads. From left to right are red-cherried sweet pumpkin salad, prunes and grapefruit salad with walnuts, and mango salsa salad. The sweet pumpkin salad was overwhelmingly sweet due to the sugar-infused cherry sauce. I managed to dig through the pile and pick out the real chunks of sweet pumpkin rather than the mayonnaise and egg yolk mixture and the syrup. I didn't try the prunes & grapefruit salad, but the mango salsa salad was a fresh delight! I love mangos, and the combination of mangos, cucumber, and celery was quite delicious. The mangos were also slightly frozen, so it felt like eating mango sherbet. I just wished the Italian vinaigrette was less strong.

A vertical look at the salad bar. You can see the potato & corn salad, which I didn't try.

A closer look at the prunes and grapefruit salad.

I had multiple scoops of the mango salsa salad. Mangos are rare in Korea, so I saw a lot of people picking out just the mangos from the plate, myself included ;)

These potato wedges on the left were so popular. I think Koreans think of French Fries as a typical American fare. I didn't eat them (no fried food for Jane). I had a little bit of the crab meat fried rice, which I believe had imitation crab, scallions, and eggs. As usual, the fried rice was too greasy, and it was also lacking the savory factor.

Both of types of pastas--hot spicy chicken spaghetti and alfredo pasta--were cooked in the open kitchen behind and served right after. I don't like creamy sauce so I didn't have the alfredo pasta.

Several times when I tried to get the hot spicy chicken spaghetti, I had to wait awhile because of people like this person who takes a heaping load of pasta on a giant bowl and the pan would epty out so quickly. The spaghetti was pretty good except it needed more sauce. The noodle was way overcooked.

Some ugly pieces of pizza. Those were some of the thinnest crusts I have ever seen. I wasn't in the mood for cheese and pizza so I didn't' eat them, but I wouldn't have eaten them even if I were craving pizza because I don't like ugly food; presentation is essential!

The waffle bar was pretty popular. There was also a toaster to warm the waffle (or else it would be too soft). The toppings included blueberry, peach, and raspberry jams, butter, chocolate and caramel syrup, and whipped cream. There were thin raisin and peanut cookies as well.

The waffle tasted awful. I thought I was chewing on flavorless gum.

My first plate. I was starved because I hadn't eaten anything since I woke up at 7:30am (it was around 12:30pm). As you can see, I brought two scoops of the sweet pumpkin salad, mushroom polenta, galbi, mango salad, spaghetti, and fried rice that I explained above. Other items on the plates were dark brown noodles that tasted like too salty pad thai, "California rice" (rice with roe and cucumbers...basically sushi rice), and chicken breast salad and broccoli.

I finished off the meal with green apple sherbet. Anyways, I don't like buffets because my stomach still feels really full.