Korea
Last blog was Super Bowl themed and this one is Super G. There is a Korean restaurant in the Super G Mart food court along with a couple of others so it’s a repeat weekend. It would be impossible not to compare Super G with the previous Korean experience at Pepero. Both meals were at restaurants in a market but the difference was huge. Where Pepero feels like a family owned local place with a great authentic restaurant attached, the Super G Mart is like a prototype for an International supermarket chain that added a semi-fast food Korean eatery in the corner. Both are great for what they are but this is about the Super G so on to the food.
As you can see in the picture they have a pictographic menu plus some items packaged at the register and some dishes in the case under the menu. I decided to try the bibimbap this time, although I was almost tempted to go with the bulgogi since I enjoyed it so much at Pepero but stayed the course and tried the new dish.
The Jethro sized bowl had mixed vegetables and some marinated beef resting on a foundation of white rice and topped with a lightly fried egg. Included was a side of kimchi and some extra heat if you wanted to spice it up. I really enjoyed the mix of vegetables with the rice and egg and the marinated meat was fantastic. The kimchi was not very spicy but there was enough of the side heat to ratchet it up to whatever level you wanted. I kept it pretty mild and enjoyed the whole meal. I saw a few dishes other people had ordered and they all looked pretty good too. I’d definitely eat here again, after trying the other two places of course.
After enjoying the meal I decided to wander the aisles and see what they had and I was definitely impressed. The produce section has more variety than I’ve ever seen anywhere and it is arranged very logically. From there I strolled into the meat department and just past the beef lips and bull fries I came upon these.
That means somewhere out there is a recipe that calls for beef knee-caps. After this I just wandered up and down the aisles checking out the familiar international treats but things I’ve never heard of before. I did wind up buying a couple of packs of cookies, some Korean rice cakes (not the crunchy snack kind), and some fish sausage, just because. Each came from a different country; India, Oman, Korea & Japan. Another thing that set this apart from a general trip to the market was the people. I wouldn’t even begin to guess the number of different nationalities were represented by the crowd but to say it was diverse would be an understatement. It won’t be my last visit to the Super G and if you have need of some odd ingredient, sauce, meat, spice, check them out.