Omanim’s Vegan Feast

We’ve been so busy in the week that we’ve been in Seoul that it took us a while to find the time to check out some new restaurants. Before we were able to go to any, Sunnie’s mom put together a super delicious dinner for us of namul, banchan, and doenjang jigae.

There were several panchan in particular that were really fantastic new to me. She made a kkaennip (perilla) leaf salad with acorn jelly (dotori mook), cucumber, and a red pepper and sesame oil dressing.

She also made a maneuljjong bokkeum, a banchan of garlic stems sauteed with salt and a little soy sauce that was so good. We haven’t seen garlic stems in any of our stores in Indiana but are really hoping we’ve just overlooked them. Otherwise, we may need to see if we can grow our own in the garden.

We also had chwi namul, and mucheong (radish leaf) kimchi.

It was almost like our own homemade, vegan buffet! Plus, Sunnie’s mom makes the absolutely best doenjang jigae. I’m a big doenjang jigae fan, and her version is so good. Whenever we’ve tried to get her to let us in our her secret, she claims there is no secret, and she doesn’t measure when she cooks, so this time around, I watcher her like a hawk when she made it. Seems simple enough, but I think I may have figured it out. We’ll give it a try when we get back home and post the recipe if we’ve worked it out correctly!

We’ve since gotten a couple of veggie restaurants under our belts, so I’ll try to post about those soon!