Other People's Cooking

Well, my penultimate semester of grad school has (at long fucking last) come to a close.  At some point while I was trying to keep my head above water I realized WHY I haven't updated my blog in so many moons...because writing "for fun" seemed particularly oxymoronic, given how much writing I was doing for classes.  Since I have four whole weeks of nothing stretching in front of me, I thought this might be an opportune time to do something about that.  And maybe to clean my apartment.

Maybe.

So one fact you will have missed out on since I haven't been writing is that Mongolia had a locally transmitted Covid outbreak.  We went into lockdown on Thursday, November 12, and it only ended last Monday, December 14.  This sucked for SO many reasons I can't even go into them all right now, but the one that may have hit me the hardest was the fact that I had to cook for myself.  Every meal.  For an entire month.  Engrish and I debated at length where we were going first when the lockdown ended, and not ONE of the contenders was covered in one of my old grub club posts.  And that made me realize that we have been to a lot of restaurants this year that I've never told you about, giving rise to this post.

See, after Blondie set sail for her next port of call we needed something to fill the hole she'd left in our lives, and it turns out food was exactly the thing for it.  There is an ongoing debate in the expat community here about which restaurant has the best burger.  Around the beginning of June I saw Better Burger listed as one of the possibilities.  The day we went, we were actually trying to go to a different restaurant, but since it hadn't yet opened, we gave Better Burger a try.  They had quite a small menu, which matched their very small restaurant, but it was hellagood.  I went for the Mac & Cheese burger, with jalapenos on top because jalapenos make EVERYTHING better, and it was filling and at a great price.  We ordered extra fries but didn't need them, we were so stuffed by the time we finished.

What we were TRYING to make it to that day was the new Dak Galbi Cheese Bar just south of the Peace Bridge.  Dalkgalbi is by far the best Korean food of all time, and I may have squealed like a child at Christmas when I flashed past it in a cab the first time.  It took us a few more weeks to make it there, partly because they were still in the process of opening, partly because Engrish was always off in the countryside during the summer.  Well, this one's a little different than how restaurants in Korea usually do it - they melt the cheese at the beginning (and give you a shit ton of it).  But aside from that it's the real deal.  When I go home afterwards, my tummy is happy and my clothes smell like memories of all my chingus, just like they should.

A few weeks after that we went to Torres, a place on the curve of Baga Toiruu near Namaste.  We decided we'd do a little gallery hopping and then try a new place, but when she came with her Mongolian kid in tow, I was afraid that it might be a problem.  I mean, I was happy that I finally got to meet the munchkin I'd been hearing about for as long as I'd known her, but hesitant to take him to a Spanish and Mexican restaurant.  Well, I shouldn't have worried - they had pasghetti on the menu as well - but since I rarely have anklebiters given into my sole custody, I hadn't really thought much about it.  Torres was another place we heard about through the expat pipeline on Facebook, and it did not disappoint.  Although at first glance, the dishes don't seem super authentic - that's an order of enchiladas you're looking at right there - the flavor was great and the portions were a pretty good size.

I haven't been out for sushi nearly as often this year - the last two times I went to Miko they didn't have any cucumbers for their rolls, which left them feeling kind of empty.  We'd heard promising things about Stockholm Sushi, though, in spite of the somewhat off-putting name, so another day we went and tried it.  There's a problem with this restaurant, though, and that problem is that it's in the middle of a cluster of OTHER good restaurants, which is probably why we'd never been there before...any time we were planning to have dinner in the area we'd already decided to have dinner at Millie's, Silk Road, or Ali Baba.  However, we finally gave it a try and it proved to be pretty tasty.  Full disclaimer: in spite of living in Japan for two years I'm not much of a sushi connoiseur.  Don't get me wrong - I love sushi, and I can taste the difference between fresh sushi and...well, not.  It's just that I'm not a snob about it.  I thought Stockholm's was pretty tasty, but a true sushi lover might despair of it, so take my opinion for whatever it's worth.

Ramen, on the other hand, I can speak about with a little more authority.  Trying to enjoy the ramen at Oishii after all the ramen I ate in the two years I was gone was a trial. For example, there was this place in Yokohama, a trek up and back down a big hill from the old school, that had the thickest, tastiest chashu pork that just fell apart in your mouth, stacked high with beansprouts and swimming with garlic.  The broth was thick and tasty and the noodles were just right.  Takesan Miso Ramen IS EVEN BETTER.  According to Engrish, it's a chain from Japan (Nagano, apparently), and it shows.  The restaurant feels Japanese, from the noren hanging over the door to the greetings of "Irasshaimase!"  And this turned out to be the first restaurant we made it to when lockdown lifted.  I mean, pretty much nothing beats hot ramen during cold weather.  And...well, I'd been cooking Korean and Mexican in my apartment, whereas I don't cook soup.  Pretty much ever.

That said, if we were sure La Rosa had been open, we might have gone there instead.  A UB mainstay, named one of the top 10 restaurants by...actually, I don't know who, Engrish told me about the list...anyways, Rosewood recently opened a permanent restaurant serving Mexican and Spanish-inspired cuisine.  From the time we learned about it we eagerly looked forward to their opening, and finally in October it happened.  We were like kids in a candy shop - we were determined to try everything.  Not that first week, of course, nor have we yet managed it on any of our subsequent Saturday night visits (partially because when I figure out what I like I have a tendency to keep ordering it, but I've tried not to give up entirely JUST yet)...at any rate, we've been gradually working our way through the menu.  Luckily most of the dishes are serves tapas-style, and relatively small, so we're getting there.  Slowly, but surely.

There have been a couple of other restaurants, but between the dalkgalbi, ramen, and Rosa we've found our new favorites.  We're still waiting to hear that La Rosa and the dalkgalbi have reopened, but...well, to be honest, I've kind of gotten used to cooking for myself.  My refrigerator makes it seem like an actual adult lives in my apartment.  Engrish and I may have eaten out three times since lockdown ended, but I think more than anything we just need to see IRL people, to talk to each other without having screens in between us.  I mean, if she said La Rosa was reopening tomorrow and asked if I wanted to meet for dinner, I'd still do it in a heartbeat.  Just not because I HAVE to.