Korea Town

We decided to check out Korea Town.  It's been on our list of things to do for a while, but haven't gotten around to going until now.  Osaka has a great Korea Town - Tsuruhashi - that we used to frequent quite often for Korean Barbeque and the market.  The market was a bunch of open store fronts that sold kim chee, skin creams, and many other delights.  It is a fun area where you really don't feel like you're in Japan. 

Korea Town in Tokyo is called Shin-Okubo.  We left the train station and were immediately surrounded by hungry people waiting to eat at a variety of restaurants.  The area surrounds a very large street.  So, even though you are in a dense crowd of people, there is a bit of air to breathe.  As we walked up the street, we realized we didn't want to wait in a long line for lunch.  Waiting to be seated at a restaurant with a hungry kid can be very tedious.  Luckily, if you turn down any of the side streets, there are plenty of restaurants and food stands without the long lines.

Lots of restaurants and food stands were selling

tteok-bokki, stir fried rice cakes in a chili sauce.

We decided to try a food fad - mozzarella cheese corndog.  A log of mozzarella on a stick with a chunk of a hot dog at the base, battered and fried.  When hot, the "corndog" cheese was very stretchy.  Korea (in my limited knowledge) loves their food fads just as much as Japan does!  And this one did not disappoint.  It was like a huge mozzeralla stick... on a stick!  We decided that the chunk of hot dog at the base was to keep the corndog on the stick.

We also got a hotteok (hot-took) that was filled with honey.  It was fun to watch them cook this pancake-like bun by tossing a lump of dough on an oiled skillet where it ballooned up.  Once it was golden crispy on one side, the cook flipped it over and smashed it down with a circular tool.  Crisp on the outside and filled with molten honey, we happily dug in.  It was fantastic, even when the honey overflowed all over the front of my coat and I had to steal some of my son's water to clean myself up before I started attracting bees. 

Our mission was to buy some kim chee.  We love to get it from small shops and family run businesses.  We found one shop with a young woman who sold unique varieties.  We bought ginger kim chee, and ume (sour plum) kim chee, as well as traditional Chinese cabbage kim chee from her.  Her shop was just a small room with 2 refrigerated cases and a couple shelves with signs and dried seaweed on them.  I love these shops because they stick to what they know and they usually have really good products.

We visited a couple grocery stores to pick up some drinking vinegar (that we mix with club soda) and check out all the different products they have to offer.  I enjoy at least browsing in every country I visit.  It is so interesting to see all the products  I am not familiar with and see a different side to the country instead of just all the tourist sites.

We decided not to buy this cream cheese flavored probiotic alcohol drink.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the focus on restaurants and lack of open store fronts with vats of kim chee.  But it was still interesting to go visit.  I know we will be back to enjoy more of the food when we need something from a different part of the world.