Austin Is Keeping It Foodie

 

 

 

May your Christmas be full of love and happiness!

Hello everyone!

Sorry it’s been a while, but finals and general holiday preparations are keeping me busy. I thought I’d take a minute, though, and mention Austin’s growing reputation as a city for foodies.

Yahoo! has been keeping busy by posting Top 10 places to eat in the US. Austin has recently appeared in two of them for up-and-coming restaurants as well as bakeries.

First to be mentioned should be the GQ Eats: The 10 Best New Restaurants in America. Uchiko, a rather recent branch from the famed innovative Japanese restaurant Uchi, is featured in the article for its more Americanized version of Japanese food. It has certainly taken Austin by storm and is quickly becoming as busy and popular as its parent Uchi. What makes Uchiko so unique is its allowance of its chefs to be more playful and creative with their creations that an established restaurant may not have the leeway for. Uchiko is a fine addition to the culinary range of Austin and it is obviously being recognized. For extra fun fact, Uchi is planning on extending itself to Houston for all you Houstinites in 2011 so if you’ve been enjoying your food in Austin, try it out in Houston too! Houston for Foodies!

Next, from Bon Appétit’s 10 best bread bakeries, to be noticed is Barrie Cullinan, a well-established baker in Austin and featured quite a bit in articles that you can check out on her website here. Though she has yet to establish a baking site, one will be opening up this coming summer and her website allows you to order boxes just for yourself to enjoy tasty french pastries and delicious baked breads.

Austin is moving up in the foodie world and hopefully you know that even if you are confined to campus, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some delicious foods nearby or even ones made yourself.

In case another article doesn’t crop up between now and the 25th, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy yourself this holiday season with family, friends, and food!

Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

Kimbap vs Sushi

 

Nope, we ain't talking about you today, sushi.

 

Recently, I have learned about the existence of kimbap and am dying to try it, but still have yet to do so. However, the one thought that keeps popping up in my mind is: “kimbap vs. sushi.” What is kimbap and how is it similar/not similar to sushi?

Consumed with the thought, I typed exactly that into Google. An interesting article that came up was a Vancouver review of a local Korean restaurant that sells kimbap and why newbies/neophytes/virgins/greenhorns should try the food. Comparisons to sushi inevitably came up. Read the article here: http://www.straight.com/article-94158/korean-kimbap-rolls-out-of-sushis-shadow.

Looking at Wikipedia and the description in the article, kimbap seems to be an amalgamation of Americanized ingredients packed into a seaweed-layered rice roll, quite different from its sushi counterpart. Bigger and covering the basic food groups, kimbap is a lot like the American-invented California roll except with more familiar ingredients like eggs, spam, cucumbers and cheddar vs. the usual nigiri pieces and maki rolls made of only raw fish in sushi. The fact that kimbap avoids raw fish, one of my big issues with eating sushi, removes that problem and can be more filling for a cheaper price. Kimbap is usually bigger than sushi due to the amount of ingredients that seem to be in it. It also does not use as fancy ingredients. Granted, you don’t get the fancy fish or the pure taste of the ingredients, but it is made for a different culture and probably with different requirements. Japan is an island surrounded by fish; Korea is a country still putting itself back together from war and economic crises. The resulting foods and similar style can be due to the backgrounds of these two countries.

Both kimbap and sushi are considered a kind of “fast food” for meals. They are both relatively quick to make and easy to eat as they are cut into bite-sized pieces beforehand. Kimbap’s history actually stems from Japan and sushi, being kind of like the Korean version of sushi. However, it has far progressed into its own type of food and though the origins and characteristics may be similar, it is distinctly not sushi.

There also seems to be a different approach to making kimbap vs. sushi. When one thinks of sushi, it is usually a lone activity or a one main sushi roller with assistants around fanning rice and whatnot. When one makes kimbap, however, it is much more enjoyable as a social activity. It is often made for social events or just a nice lunch and is great to do as a group or just hanging out with people while making it.

All in all, I didn’t even try sushi until high school and was surprised to find myself liking it, raw sushi or not. Today, I still try to go for the sushi with cooked seafood, but I will occasionally indulge in a raw salmon roll. Now, I’m ready to add to my food range, kimbap, and try out a whole new culture of foods. What are your thoughts on kimbap?

P.S. Sorry, no pictures since I still haven’t really seen much kimbap. Please look online and you can see a lot of different varieties of kimbap and observe how different it looks.

© quotid of Austin: Keeping It Foodie, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material and/or photographs without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to quotid and Austin: Keeping It Foodie with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. If there are any questions, please contact the author through the means given in the ‘About’ page.