Day Trip to Korea Town

If you've been reading my posts, you know that I love day trips.  Just getting away for the day.  Eating good food.  Getting stuff that I would not normally get back home.  You're probably thinking that all I do is eat and go to Asian stores, huh? Well, that's ok.  We indulged a little bit at Korea Town in Queens, New York.  It's not often that we go there so a little indulgence was lovely.  Sorry for the photo heavy post.  I love taking pictures of food!

We first went to a familiar Korean Barbecue restaurant.  There were so many to pick from in this particular neighborhood.  We had been there before a year or two ago and it was right across the street from the market.  I remember lots of food.  When the lady started to bring everything on to the table, I started to remember how good it was.  It was tough not being able to eat right away, making sure that I had a picture of everything.  I definitely looked like a tourist.  There were more than ten banchans or side dishes besides the main meal, which was beef barbecue (galbi) and the appetizers dumplings (mandoo) and seafood pancake (haemul pajeon).  Mostly everything was eaten with regular white rice and "purple rice" (heuk mee bap).

After our HUGE meal, we walked it off at the market across the street.  It was everything and mostly Korean food and products.  Something that we don't see often back home, especially a store that size.  My mother in law was armed with her list of groceries, my husband and I just walked around in awe because it's been a while since we had been there.  We asked each other, "do we need this?" or "should we get this?" a few times.  Remember when I posted rice cakes from the other Asian market? Well, this place had trays and trays of various rice cakes.  Some plain, flavored, mixed with pumpkin, red beans...just too many.  My favorite aisle is the snack aisle, where they have honey twists.  Oh man.  Then, there's the prepared food section where there's refrigerator displays of all the different kinds of kimchi, prepared side dishes, ready made soups, and of course Korean sushi (kim bap).  At the end of the leg of our grocery trip, we discovered a new addition in the store that we've never seen.  A steamed bun shop right in the middle of the frozen food section!!! Whoa!  Right next to the frozen mochi ice cream and the honeydew pops was a four walled glass structure, where inside there were about 5 people making steamed buns and two others working the front of the shop all working amazingly fast in a small space.  It was amazing to see how they made these snacks.  There were red bean, kimchi, pork, curry, and vegetable steamed bun to pick from.  

After our shopping trip, we ended up in a little cafe close by.  I remember having a dessert there that had shaved ice, rice cakes (mochi), and assorted fruits.  When I asked the lady over the counter for one, she said it wasn't the season for it yet and that they usually make them during the summer months.  Boo!  So I sadly ordered a mocha bubble tea instead.  Since I didn't get my special Korean dessert during this trip, I guess there will be a next time in a few months!