ŷ������

“A bush-warbler,
Coming to the verandah-edge,
Left its droppings
On the rice-cakes.”
― Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

“Bibingka had a soft and spongy texture, like a chiffon cake, but with a flavor all its own. Modern bibingka was simply baked in an oven, but it's traditionally grilled using charcoal. Lola Flor had a grill behind the restaurant that she used for occasions like this, and her bibingka was miles ahead of any other version I'd tried. My sweet tooth preferred the simplicity of the sugar-topped ones, but the complexity of the salted duck eggs against the other ingredients made me keep reaching for another piece.”
― Mia P. Manansala, Blackmail and Bibingka

“Inside an H Mart complex, there will be some kind of food court, an appliance shop, and a pharmacy. Usually, there's a beauty counter where you can buy Korean makeup and skin-care products with snail mucin or caviar oil, or a face mask that vaguely boasts "placenta." (Whose placenta? Who knows?) There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste.
My local H Mart these days is in Elkins Park, a town northeast of Philadelphia. My routine is to drive in for lunch on the weekends, stock up on groceries for the week, and cook something for dinner with whatever fresh bounty inspires me. The H Mart in Elkins Park has two stories; the grocery is on the first floor and the food court is above it. Upstairs, there is an array of stalls serving different kinds of food. One is dedicated to sushi, one is strictly Chinese. Another is for traditional Korean jjigaes, bubbling soups served in traditional earthenware pots called ttukbaegis, which act as mini cauldrons to ensure that your soup is still bubbling a good ten minutes past arrival. There's a stall for Korean street food that serves up Korean ramen (basically just Shin Cup noodles with an egg cracked in); giant steamed dumplings full of pork and glass noodles housed in a thick, cakelike dough; and tteokbokki, chewy, bite-sized cylindrical rice cakes boiled in a stock with fish cakes, red pepper, and gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that's one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes. Last, there's my personal favorite: Korean-Chinese fusion, which serves tangsuyuk---a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork---seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“In the evening, Kye used our rice cooker to make homemade yaksik. She mixed rice with local honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil, adding pine nuts, pitted jujubes, raisins, and chestnuts. She rolled the mixture out on a cutting board and divided the flattened cake into smaller squares. Fresh out of the rice cooker it was steaming and gooey. The colors were golden and autumnal, the jujubes a rich, dark red, the light-beige chestnuts framed by the bronze, caramelized rice.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Let's do snacks."
And snacks, we did. We consumed japchae, stir-fried sweet potato noodles with shredded veggies and beef, that were sweet and savory and wonderfully chewy. Ddukbokki, chewy cylinders of rice cake, soft and springy cakes of sweet ground fish, more veggies, and sweet and spicy gochujang sauce. Soondae, a sausage stuffed with noodles, barley, and pig blood, which I had to say gave me slight pause (and made my Jewish grandmother shriek with terror), but which had the most interesting mix of textures. We cleansed our palates with hobakjuk, a porridge made from glutinous rice and the sweetest steamed pumpkin I'd ever tasted, and finished up with hotteok, sweet, crunchy fried pancakes filled with cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, and peanuts.”
― Amanda Elliot, Sadie on a Plate

“I parallel park in front of Shuei-Do Manju Shop, one of the best traditional Japanese sweet shops in the area. They’re known for their manju and mochi, soft and chewy rice cakes stuffed with tasty fillings ranging from peanut butter to traditional red bean. It’s so good that the emperor of Japan ate manju from their shop during a visit to the US.”
― Julie Abe, The Charmed List