Korean Film Festival 한국영화제 2017 @ GSC Pavilion KL

It was such an honour to receive an invitation from the Korean Embassy in Malaysia to join the Korean Film Festival 2017 at GSC Pavilion. It was a really nice and comfortable event, both classy and enjoyable! Was overwhelmed with the crowd, seeing big bosses of the Korean Embassy standing literally next to you on the red carpet.

It is one of the interesting and fun event hosted by the Korean Embassy in Malaysia to promote Korean culture. At the end of the red carpet is a photo booth where invitees can take picture with the upcoming Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018's mascots.

Soohorang 수호랑 and Bandabi 반다비 are the mascots of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games whihch will be held in Pyeongchang, Gangwon, South Korea. 

Soohorang is a white tiger. The tiger is an animal closely related to Korean mythology, and is a symbol of trust, strength, and protection. Bandabi is an Asiatic black bear, a bear native to the Korean peninsula. The bear is symbolic of strong will and courage.

I was informed that light refreshments will be provided before the screening of movie starts. So I had my light dinner at home before going to the event. 

Little did I know they actually catered Starbucks for the light refreshment which includes different desserts and bakeries. Besides that, there is also unlimited Starbucks coffee at the side for attendees to help themselves. So yes, I brought my Starbucks coffee in the cinema for the very first time.

The cinema was located at level 5, hall 3. It was a fairly hug cinema, with small stage in front of the screen. It is a hall commonly used for press conference of movies or fan meetings for movie actors. Well, in this case, the head of Korean Embassy, Dr. Yu Hyun-seok, gave his speech on why they did this event and how much Korean culture has influence Malaysian fans.

The movie that was screening that night was 'The Stalker", starring by Gong-yoo (yup, the Goblin). It was one of the movie that I am interested to watch among the given list of movies that were screening that week. It is a 2013 movie but man, Gong-yoo's acting skills were on point. Loving all the sentimental scenes by him.

The next event I will be going will be the Korean Drama Night with Sunghoon & The King. Yes, Sunghoon from the drama "My Secret Romance". It is a fan meeting event with Sunghoon at KLCC Plenary hall. What makes my jaw drop is the fact that al ticket holders are entitled to a hi touch moment with him. What more can you ask for? Haha

I will be covering the event too so stay tuned!

YG Republique Malaysia 삼거리 푸줏간 @ TREC KL

It was such a fuss when YG Entertainment decided to open a branch of YG REPUBLIQUE in Malaysia, not to mention at the hottest place in KL where lots of youngsters spend their blast Friday night, TREC. Big Bang's Seungri, FT Island's Choi Jong-hoon and Jung Joonyoung were there for the grand opening of YG REPUBLIQUE.

 

What makes YG REPUBLIQUE different from other Korean barbeque restaurants in Malaysia is a two concept store where they have the Samgeori Butcher's (삼거리 푸줏간) which mainly offers premium pork & beef grilled barbeque, and the K PUB which offers Korean snacks and street food with a variety of wine, beer, and other alcoholic drinks from the bar.

I went to the Samgeori Butcher's (삼거리 푸줏간) to try out their barbeque as I am a huge Korean barbeque fan. I have to mention that it is definitely pricey compared to other Korean barbeque restaurants that I have tried in Malaysia, but the quality of the food and the service I've gotten was impressive.

I went to TREC by UBER (free UBER ride to TREC by using promotion code "GOTREC" worth RM 15 each). YG REPUBLIQUE was quite easy to find. The restaurant was blasting YG artists' songs non stop and it was almost a free Karaoke session for me and my friends. Definitely a heaven for YG fans! I went with two of my friends, so 3 people in total.

We made reservations before going there because it was Friday night and we want to make sure we have a table. But to our surprise, it wasn't that packed and the restaurant wasn't as big as I've imagined. Maybe because it was separated into two parts. You can make your reservations online through their website here.

We have ordered one army stew (부대찌개) which was around 2-3 person portion, one pork belly 150g, one pork shoulder 150g, one Butcher's pork fried rice, one pint of beer and one chilled mango juice. It was just nice for 3 of us because we tend to stuff ourself when it comes to Korean food because we just love eating it. The side dishes they gave was really nice too. I don't remember exactly what was the name of it but the pickled white radish and braised baby potatoes (알감자조림) were awesome!

The food we ordered was served fairly fast. The first to reach was the side dishes, then followed by the pork fried rice. I was expecting the fried rice to be more heavy on the kimchi because they did say that aged kimchi are used in the fried rice. Couldn't really find any traces of aged kimchi inside other than some finely chopped kimchi. Although it wasn't the taste I was expecting, the fried rice still tasted nice. Besides, the portion was good as we could share it although it was a 1 person portion. It was nice to eat the fried rice with some grilled kimchi.

The barbeque pork was next. The pork meat was wrapped up in a beautiful newspaper printed butcher paper, with a slice of onion inside. The griller grilled the onion on the grill before putting the meat inside, hence enhancing the flavour of the meat. The smell of grilled onion was incredible. The griller constantly checked on our meat so we didn't have to worry about it over grilled. They grilled both pork belly and pork shoulders at the same time and mixed them up in the end.

As a grilled kimchi lover, I just had to grill the kimchi with the pork fat that was covering the grill pan.

While the meat was grilling, they served our army stew on a portable stove. It was so pleasing to see the stew all bubbling and thickening up. Army stew is one of my friends and I's favourite. We just had to try! It was impressively well made, though we have had better ones at the place we often. I love the way they cut thick slices of spam and put it inside the stew. SPAM lover here! You know it is a great army stew if there is baked beans in it!

They have ramen, mushrooms, pieces of meat, onions, green onions, baked beans, SPAM and some other hidden ingredients.

Last but not least, the beer! It was my first time trying out one pint of Carlsberg beer, it was so refreshing, until the bitterness hit me. But nonetheless, I am amazed at how the beer could stay icy cold despite the hot grills and portable stove beside it. It was just so nice to gulp down some cold beer after taking a few mouthful of hot soup and grilled barbeque.

I would definitely come back again! YG REPUBLIQUE is doing a great job. I hope they can maintain their quality in food and service for as long as possible. The next time I would really love to visit the K PUB and try out the Korean snacks and street food. They have Korean fried chicken, pancakes and Korean spicy rice cakes at K PUB! Not bad right?

Here are the menu for both Samgeori Butcher's (삼거리 푸줏간) and K PUB.

Samgeori Butcher's (삼거리 푸줏간)
http://www.ygrepublique.com.my/3geori-butchers.html

K PUB
http://www.ygrepublique.com.my/k-pub.html

Korea's unlimited rice cake refill buffet @ Dookki 두끼떡볶이!

Anybody who knows me knows that I am a big fan of 떡볶이 (Korean rice cake)! When I was studying abroad in Korea, my teacher recommended us to try out this famous Korean rice cake buffet chain store, which can be found easily, especially at tourist hot spots. 두끼떡볶이 (Dookki) is the name of the store.

I went to the chain store at Ewha on my last day in Korea, and I regret it so badly. I should've went earlier so that I can eat it everyday. The price is really cheap too. It costed 7,900won for adults, 6,900won for students and 3,900won for children (below 7 years old). Very cheap right right?

It is a buffet restaurant so you can eat as much as you can! But make sure you don't take too much, because they have a variety of different food other than rice cakes too. Although it is a buffet, you have to cook the rice cake yourself. You choose your own ingredients, then you mix your own sauce, add water, and cook it to your preference!

You don't have to worry about your cooking skills, they have instruction stickers on the table so you can just follow it, setting the temperature and time so that the rice cakes turns out perfect! You can ask help from the staffs too, especially if you cannot read Korean or simply because it is your first visit. I personally have been in a lot of situation where the servers came up to me and ask whether it was my first time visiting the restaurant while setting up my table. I said yes and they will teach me how to eat or how to order, so no worries!

I love the fact that they have carefully planned and recommend a list of different sauces that you can mix and match with to suit your preference. For people who prefer less spicy or less sweet, you can just follow the sauce recipe. I've personally tried the second one, which was 두끼궁중, it is half spicy half sweet. It looked weird at first because it was a red sauce mixing with a brown sauce. But the taste was out of the world.

Now moving to the main ingredients, they offer different rice cakes other than the regular rice cake. I'm sorry I've only managed to take picture of the other side of the chiller, can't really see the rice cakes. Other than the rice cakes, the have many different vegetables, processed food, 순대 (blood sausages), mussels, and of course fish cakes!

Besides, they also have a section for fried food and noodles. The fried food are ready to eat while the noodles are meant to be added to the rice cakes. For people who can eat a whole lot more and is sick of rice cakes, they also have a lot of instant noodles for you to eat for free!

You might find it cloy or too spicy to eat, they have boiling hot 어목 (fish cakes) and broth for you to endure! If i remembered correctly, they have both original and spicy flavour fish cakes.

It says the fish cakes in front are the cooked ones.

So this is now the table setting looks like. I didn't know what kind of pots or bowls to take because cookware and tableware with different shapes are used for different purposes. So I just glanced at how other local Koreans are doing it, and I just followed. Honestly the table was a bit small, so it was a bit cramped.

The flat pot on the electrical stove is for you to cook, the deep big bowl on the right is to put all raw ingredients, the small frying pan "bowl" is your personal plate, the small measuring cup is for your to put your sauce

With that big pot, I've cooked twice. I have lost count of how many servings I had but what I can tell you is that I had no room for instant noodles and fried food.

Don't forget to put on your plastic apron to avoid sauce splattering on your beautiful clothing.

Here's the direction to go to 두끼떡볶이.

It is located at Ewha. So take the subway to Ewha station and exit from Exit 1 or 2. Continue to walk towards Sinchon's Megabox mall direction. The Sinchon station nearby the restaurant is NOT the line 2 Sinchon station, so be careful!

Address: 서울 서대문구 이화여대길 89

Phone: 02-365-2771

Operation hours: 11am - 10pm

2017.10.23 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.

꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flower's famous porridge restaurant @ 본죽명동점

Some of you who visited Korea before would have heard of this Korean porridge chain restaurant 본죽. I am not sure how you guys get to know about it but I get to know about it when I was watching "꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flowers" back in year 2009. The main actress, Jan-di (starred by Gu Hye-sun) was a student working part time at this chain restaurant with her best friend. In the drama, the owner of the shop (starred by Kim Ki-bang) told Jan-di how food like porridge should be treated with respect because it heals people. It is a holy food. Well, it is true. I always eat porridge when I am sick because it has more liquid than rice, which helps our digestion and appetite.

 There were a lot of scenes in the drama that were filmed in the porridge restaurant

When I was living in Korea, I was sick for a few days near the end of semester. I wanted to eat porridge so badly. I had some fresh ingredients that I have bought from the Lotte Mart opposite my place, so I made my own porridge. It has kimchi, tofu, mushrooms, cherry tomato and Korean rice. It was the first time I've ever cooked porridge and it was the best!

My favourite kimchi octopus porridge 본죽

In the drama, they have lots of different porridge and it always look so good. One thing I like about Korean porridge is that the texture of it is thicker than the porridge I always have in Malaysia. Maybe because of the type of rice grain they use or the just the way Koreans like to cook it. Normally, after eating porridge, you will feel hungry in no time because it is digested faster than other food. However, it was fulfilling to eat Korean porridge as it really fills up your stomach.

I tried 본죽 at Myeongdong. It was a small restaurant located at the 1st floor. I have tried it in Sinchon and they both tasted the same. So I guess you can just visit any chain and still get the best flavor! However, over at Myeongdong, you cannot order only one potion of porridge and share by 2 person. It's the rule!

I've ordered the Kimchi octopus porridge (낙지김치죽) and also the Shredded beef seaweed porridge (쇠고기미역죽). Both came with 4 side dishes. They have different categories of porridge to choose from. The prices also varies with the ingredients in it. They have the special dish menu, the healthy menu and the nutritious menu.

Shredded beef seaweed porridge

Kimchi octopus porridge

As expected, the Kimchi octopus porridge is slightly expensive because of the ingredients used. However, they are not stingy with the octopus at all. Here is a close up of the beautiful shot of the octopus. They were cut into small pieces so you can eat it together spoonful by spoonful with the porridge.

I wasn't paying much attention to the side dishes when I first tried this porridge. But it absolutely blew my mind! This marinated shredded beef is one of the best side dish you could ever have with porridge. It is so flavorful. I had to go for a second serving everytime. The kimchi was cold, so I put them in my pipping hot porridge to warm it up.

Beef seaweed porridge on the other hand was slightly bland compared to the kimchi octopus. It being bland, you can actually taste the original sweetness of the rice. You can always eat with the kimchi and other side dishes if you like it more salty. However, having seaweed with porridge is very good for your digestion.

If you cannot finish it, like me, you can always ask for a take away. The packaging that comes with it is so beautiful I thought they gave me presents. The container was beautiful and the paper bag was trendy too. This is how you know your food is of high quality.

The store at Sinchon is actually a specialize store for bibimbap too. Not all stores offer the same thing so you can actually eat different porridge at different places. I never had the chance to try out their bibimbap but I might one day.

So here is how to go to 본죽명동점!

Address: 서울특별시 중구 충무로2가 65-2

Phone: 02-755-3562

Operating hours: 9am - 10pm (everyday)

Website: https://www.bonif.co.kr/bonJuk/home

2017.11.3 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.