Duluth: Myung Ga Won

My student Dongwon Lee celebrated his newly minted Ph.D. by taking me to Myung Ga Won. It's across from Gwinnett Mall. The decor is modern upscale, giving a fancier feel than one finds in most Korean BBQ restaurants. I think that the food preparation also reflects this greater degree of care.

This is Dongwon with our lunch for two. The grill is in the middle of the table. Our server brought the raw meat to the table and cooked it for us. We had a classic Korean BBQ made of short ribs. The short rib meat had been spiral cut from the bone---I can't imagine how much practice it takes to do that. Our server then cut it into small pieces and grilld them without adding sauce, unlike American BBQ. I used the soy sauce you can see just in front of the grill. The meat was excellent, balancing juiciness with the char from the grill. You can eat it wrapped in lettuce leaves or as is. I always enjoy the huge number of side dishes that come with a Korean meal. Korean BBQ is great for celebration and enjoying friends. The excellent and carefully prepared food here made this experience even better.

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Asheville NC: Luella's BBQ

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Pressure Cooker Candied Ginger

I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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