South Korea

Irvine Korean Cultural Festival This Saturday

Did I say that there was a glut of food festivals this weekend or did I say that there was a glut of food festivals this weekend? There's The Anatolian Cultures and Food Festival, which starts today and runs through Sunday at the OC Fairgrounds. Then there's the OC Greek Fest, which starts tomorrow ... More >>

In North Korea, There's Lies A Black Market For Choco Pies

What does capitalism taste like? To North Korean leaders, like a small, round chocolate-coated cake filled with marshmallow. The Choco Pie is a packaged confection manufactured by South Korea's Orion. It's delicious--spongy, creamy, and not overly sweet like a Hostess CupCake. And North Koreans ca ... More >>

This Week In Food: Hilarious Restaurant Chalkboards, EFF if Effing Closed, and Names That Sounds Like Vagina

Hey, it's May! Let's take a look at what this week in food brought us... Edwin reviewed Urban Seoul in Irvine and feasted upon their post-modern bibimap. Then he shared the closing of Endless Food and Fun in Huntington...and I will keep all ironic comments about it to myself. Then he posted a phot ... More >>

Urban Seoul's Bulgogi Nation

This Irvine restaurant is the latest Kogi knock-off, but it's a damn great one

New Korean Taco Joint Serves Short Rib Arepas and Kimchi Quesadillas at Diamond Jamboree

Remember the time Kogi, at the height of its popularity, decided to descend upon the Diamond Jamboree shopping center in Irvine, an Asian food Mecca that already has 85 Degrees screwing up the parking situation?

Koo's Catering Truck: Are You Hot for Hotteok?

[Hole In the Wall] This Garden Grove food truck makes awesome Korean pancakes—but they're not pancakes!

BIG BANG - Honda Center - November 3, 2012

BIG BANGHonda CenterNovember 3, 2012So if you haven't heard about the Korean boy-band, BIG BANG, trust me, you will soon.  Riding the K-Pop invasion into the United States, led by Psy and Gangnam Style, BIG BANG is on their first U.S. tour.  For two nights in a row, they sold out the Honda ... More >>

Palsaik Samgyupssal, Korean Restaurant Famed For Its '8 Flavors Of Pork Belly,' Comes To OC

The Korean BBQ can be a blissful, albiet predictable, experience. We've come to expect the trusty usual suspects--kalbi, bulgogi, brisket--along with dipping sauces and banchan galore.   But the newest Korean BBQ restaurant on the block has a divine specialty: pork belly. Palsaik Samgyupss ... More >>

10 Old-School K-Pop Bands To Make You Remember Why You Fell In Love With K-Pop

Before there was SNSD, 2NE1, Big Bang, Super Junior and Wonder Girls, there was S.E.S., g.o.d., H.O.T., Fin.K.L. and 1TYM. Familiar with these names? You must be an O.G. K-pop fan. Today, the manufactured genre has flooded the global consciousness (perhaps you've heard of a little video called "Gang ... More >>

Peking Gourmet's Chachiang-Cha-Changes

The Garden Grove staple's Korean-style Chinese noodle dishes remain old-school Little Seoul

Five Quite Good K-Hop Albums

By: Paul T. BradleySee also: *K-Pop to invade Honda Center Tonight; 5 Songs to Prepare This just in: The best South Korean music to get international play is not K-pop. Sorry. Much like J-pop, and their American cousins, y'know, girl bands and boy bands, K-pop is mostly sickly sweet, overproduced R ... More >>

Another Concept/Name Change At "Tustin's Most Cursed Restaurant Location"

If you've read this blog for the past couple of years, you'd know of my fascination about a particular shack on Newport & Walnut in Tustin. Every time there's a change in ownership and/or concept, I write about it. I am the unofficial historian of what comes and goes in what I joking referred to ... More >>

The "World's 50 Best" List Is Published, Is Usual Steaming Pile of Irrelevance

Oh, look, this year's edition of "The World's 50 Best Restaurants", sponsored by San Pellegrino and its subsidiary Acqua Panna, has come out. Cue the precious online debates and the bored yawns from the rest of the world.Ranked lists of the best anything are patent bollocks: they necessarily reflec ... More >>

It's Another Day, Another Drink in 'The Day He Arrives'

In Hong Sang-soo's latest, life repeats, and then reveals itself

Peppy Kia Rio Ex Kicks Off Greener Car Reviews

Today we begin here at Navelgazing's "Ride Me" lot one in an occasional--and someday, perhaps, weekly--series on consumer vehicles powered by water, natural gas, electricity, hybrid motors, high-efficiency gasoline engines, my tears or other alternative sources.Kicking things off is the peppy litt ... More >>

Han Yang Has a Bone to Pick

This Buena Park restaurant takes Korean food and its beef short rib soup beyond the borders of Little Seoul

Hoa Sen Serves Cheatin' Chicken

[Hole In the Wall] The Garden Grove Vietnamese dive sells fake meats even a Midwesterner could love

Tustin's Most Cursed Restaurant Location Claims Another Business; New Cajun Joint To Try Next

Edwin Goei​I think I've become the unofficial and unintentional historian on the businesses that have come and gone at the shack on 14430 Newport Ave. in Tustin. Over the last five years I have been keeping track, there has been about four different restaurants trying and failing at that spot. Now ... More >>

[UPDATED with Director Hating 3D:] Bong Joon-ho Opens Busan West Festival at Chapman University with 3D Version of The Host

​UPDATE, NOV. 12, 9:37 A.M.: Introducing a new 3D version of his 2006 South Korean smash hit The Host to Friday's opening night Busan West Asian Film Festival audience at Chapman University's Knott Studios, director Bong Joon-ho said, "I don't like 3D."Cue nervous audience laughter and a smatteri ... More >>

It's 11/11/11: Happy Pepero Day!

Wiki Commons​If you haven't yet decided on a way to celebrate today's weird-looking date, 11/11/11, might we suggest heading to your nearest Korean market for a snack? Nov. 11 is Pepero Day in South Korea. Pepero, for those unfamiliar, are skinny biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate and sometim ... More >>

Silenced, Which Sparked Outrage in South Korea, Opens in Surf City Tonight

​A new film opening in Huntington Beach tonight has prompted outraged viewers to demand tougher penalties for sex crimes and stronger laws to protect children and the disabled from sexual abuse.No, it's not Puss in Boots.It's Silenced or Dogani (The Crucible), and perhaps the title confusion wil ... More >>

North Korean Soldiers Using Ants as Food Tasters to Guard Against Supposedly Poisoned South Korean Care Packages

Flickr user OliBac​We all know that North Korea's leadership is batshit loco, which has unfortunately left a populace that's hungry when not outright starving. It's almost impossible for South Koreans to send care packages to their brothers and sisters in the Hermit Kingdom--and even if they do, t ... More >>

Hugh Jackman Cooks Korean Food in PBS Series

Who knew that Wolverine could cook Korean food? The clip you see is a teaser for the PBS series, Kimchi Chronicles, which is a food documentary produced by the same man who gave us Spain...On The Road Again with Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Han Seoul Oh in '5 Fast 5 Furious'

​Alliteration isn't the only thing going for 5 Fast 5 Furious--apparently the Asian guy in it is called Han Seoul Oh, says FilmDrunk. It seems like it's not a joke: Bravo, Fast and the Furious for being really subtle and naming a Korean race car driver Han in earlier movies, and then changing it t ... More >>

Morangak Has the Seoul of OC's Little Korean

[Hole In the Wall] This Garden Grove restaurant is famous for its Korean barbecue—but there's more

[UPDATED] Yeon Woo Lee, OC Homicide No. 2: Visiting Korean Shot to Death, Possibly Over Business Flap

Beong Kwun Cho​UPDATE, JAN. 28, 4:17 P.M.: 51-year-old Beong Kwun Cho did not enter a plea to charges he murdered his childhood friend Yeon Woo Lee because today's scheduled arraignment was continued to Feb. 18.The Cerritos resident is charged with one felony count of murder with a sentencing enh ... More >>

Anna's Mondu Closes In Garden Grove

Flickr user mmm-yosoLate and sorely lamented...​Anna's Mondu, the tiny labor of love of an older Korean couple in a shopping mall in Garden Grove's Korean District, has closed and been replaced by a sort of licorice allsorts (or mixture) of a restaurant (with no sign up when we drove past), its sl ... More >>

Thanh Tam Is a Corner Bakery

[Hole In the Wall] Visit this Garden Grove Vietnamese star for big bánh mìs

Rep. Loretta Sanchez Blasts North Korea and Backs Vietnam Human Rights Sanctions Act

​Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has issued a statement condemning North Korea for firing dozens of artillery shells at South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, killing two South Korean soldiers and wounding 15.The freshly reelected congresswoman, who is the ranking female member on the House Armed ... More >>

Five Great Pickles for National Pickle Day

Flickr user ehfisher​In honor of National Pickle Day, The Counter Custom Burgers slashed prices on their Fried Dill Pickle Chips to a dollar this Sunday, November 14 (go while you can!). There are two OC locations: Irvine and Newport Beach. You can also get fried pickle chips at Beachwood BBQ, Luc ... More >>

Little Arabia Grows Up

[Hole In the Wall] Andaluz Restaurant and Bakery spins a sublime shawarma

This Week in Food

Grace Le​ Five ways to know that you're eating Americanized Mexican food and more of what you missed after the jump!

Seoul Milk Enfant Banana & Strawberry Flavored Milk

Edwin Goei​Name: Enfant Banana & Strawberry Flavored Milk Origin: South Korea Found at: Freshia, Tustin Cost: $0.99

Kkamjjic Ice Cream Drink

Edwin Goei​Name: Kkamjjic Ice Cream Drink Origin: South Korea Found at: Freshia, Tustin Cost: $1.49 Ingredients: Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Nicotinic Acid, Inocitol, Vitamin C, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B6, Hydrochloride, Milk Flavor, Citrus Flavor, Lemon Flavor, ... More >>

Five Great Hangover Cures (And Where To Get Them)

I seem to have been blessed with the constitution of an ox; it doesn't seem to matter what I drink, I simply don't get hung over very easily. Despite a long and sordid history of drinking, I didn't get hung over for the first time until I was nearly 31, after an ill-advised pub crawl in Hong Kong wi ... More >>

[Hole in the Wall] Korean-Chinese Fusion Fun Time at Young Pung

LA Times: De-odorized Kimchi Patented

Edwin Goei​Breaking news: according to a fascinating LA Times article, someone has invented kimchi that doesn't stink. Now, I didn't know kimchi stink was even a problem, let alone one that needed fixing. To me, the Korean side-dish of Napa cabbage pickled in garlic, chili and ginger does not po ... More >>

Sushi and Bulgogi Live Together in Perfect Harmony, Side-By-Side at Tustin's Haru Izakaya

Jonathan Gold, His Brother and Whale Meat

Here's an interesting story by the LA Times about our sister paper's venerated and Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, his meal of whale on a trip to South Korea, and what his brother Mark, a marine scientist and president of Heal the Bay thinks about it.

Paris Baguette - New Korean-French Bakery Now Open in Irvine

Food fact: Some of the best French bakeries in Orange County are run by Asians. There's Japonaise Bakery in Tustin, whose custard-and-strawberry-stuffed croissants would make Escoffier weep. For baguettes with crusts as shatteringly crisp as potato chips, go to Little Saigon, where Vietnamese ba ... More >>

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Spoonfuls of Summery Hooray: Patbingsu at A.R. Supermarket

Typhoon in a Teacup

Asian action movies dont get much less significant than this one.

Grub Guide

This Week in Belated Happy Lunar New Year!

Steaming Art

Tea, Korea-style, at 419 Cafe Veronese

Hwang Hae Do BBQ

Piggie Porn

Fetishizing hog at Seoul Soondae

Letter From the Unknown Soldier

We Know Evil

Seoul Kitchen

What, me cook?

The Raw and the Cooked

Getting to the heart of Irvines Chinese subculture