Street Noraebang

On our way home from seeing How to Train Your Dragon (awesome & so cute!), we decided to walk through Nowon's Culture Street.  We came upon a street noraebang (music room/karaoke) session!

Although Nowon is pretty far from Seoul center, it's pretty lively on the weekends.  People come from even 10 stations away in any direction to party and have a good time since Nowon is the biggest district within that radius.  It was no surprise that there were many people eating, drinking, and having a good time all over this street.  However, today we encountered something very different.  There in the center where the clown statue blows bubbles and smoke was what looked like a public noraebang session.  There was a clothes rack of costumes and wigs.  There was a sound system complete with mics and screens running the selected song's words.  And making full use of this equipment were random people willing to put their pride on the line to sing in front of everyone on Culture Street.  The three sings were saw were all guys singing Korean songs.  One duo actually sang a Korean song with English words.  Most were very impressive.  Others tried their best to be impressive but at times wouldn't be able to reach certain notes.  People smiled and chuckled, but at the end of each person's performance, applause encircled the brave singer.  I am so impressed with the district of Nowon making this service available to the public.  What a great way to get the masses together and enjoy what they love so much in this country: singing!

Man v. Food & Cake Boss

With Top Chef in hiatus till Season 7 airs Wednesday June 16, Dave and I have had to find new shows to fulfill our cooking show cravings.  Two not so new, but awesome shows we've been watching are Man v. Food and Cake Boss.

Man v. Food is a Travel Channel food reality show about Adam Richman who travels all over the U.S. showcasing "big food" of different cities.  Each episode he goes to a different city trying anything from sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, burritos, or steaks.  What is special about these foods is that they are prepared in ridiculously massive proportions.  At the end of the show, he faces a local restaurant's food challenge.  Some amazing feats have been:

• 72 ounce steak with a bread roll with butter, baked potato, ranch beans, shrimp cocktail, and a salad in one hour.
• 6 "Atomic" chicken wings in a 150,000 Scoville unit sauce in 30 minutes without help of milk, icecream, or napkins.  After, he would have to wait 5 extra minutes without aid.
• Spicy P'haal, claimed to be "the hottest curry in the world" in one hour.  They had to wear a gas mask to cook it because the combination of peppers were so toxic.
• 180 oysters in on hour with only help of cocktail sauce.
• 12-egg omelet. The omelet, which includes beef brisket chili, salsa, sour cream, and cheddar cheese, weighs roughly five pounds and is served on a pizza platter in one hour.
• 2-gallon sundae consisting of 8 scoops of ice cream, 8 different toppings, and 8 servings of whipped cream, all served on a "kitchen sink" in one hour.

There were just some of his conquests.  Currently he is 24-14 with these challenges.  He has only attempted on Guinness World Book of Records attempting a 190lb burger with the help of 40 other people.  The burger was topped with 4 pounds of bacon, three pounds of tomatoes, three whole heads of lettuce, pickles, onions, and 10 pounds of assorted cheese.  He and his team had to finish in 2 hours but only ate 160lbs.  Only!

Check out more about this show here.

Another show we've been loving is TLC's Cake Boss.  It showcases Carlos' Bakery in Hoboken, NJ.  It is a family run bakery featuring Buddy, the head and owner going through the everyday trials and successes of his family and a cake business.  The show is only 30 minutes long showing the process of making on average 3 speciality cakes per episode.  Some notable cakes were a New York landscape featuring the statue of liberty, a burning building with a fire truck, and a roulette table.

To read more about this show and their awesome cakes click here.

I had to include this clip of Bridezilla.  She couldn't come up with a concept she wanted.  In fact, she wanted her wedding cake to feature funeral flowers.  Her mother wanted a more traditional white tiered cake.  Buddy compromised with both.  In the end the bride sabotaged the already beautiful cake.  You'll have to watch to see how unbelievable some brides can be!

My Mom Would Be So Proud: Filipino Adobo

I have only tried to make this twice in my life.  Both times, I did not have bay leaves, and used basil.  Don't they sound like the same thing?

INGREDIENTS:
600 g of pork, cut into cubes

16 cloves of garlic

1 large or 2 medium onions, sliced

3 bay leaves

1 tsp. whole peppercorns

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

4-5 Yukon gold potatoes, quartered

Layer all the ingredients except potatoes in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes of cooking, add the potatoes and cook for another 20 minutes or until sauce has reduced but not quite dried out yet.

Before I made this, I found a YouTube clip of how to step by step make adobo.  Unsure of myself still, I needed exact readable steps, so I followed this recipe I found online.  However, I bought some really lean pork so it was a little tough.  I couldn't get the sauce to thicken or dry out.  I ended up uncovering the lid for a while and added corn flour to thicken the sauce.  It was a little too vinegary, so I added sugar.  In the end, after a couple finger dips to taste and more soy sauce (you can never go wrong with more soy sauce), I came out with a decent pot of adobo.

This was my best attempt at my making adobo.  Since I was a child, my mother would make this at my request.  I remember each time, she would make it, I would ask her to put more garlic and more onions.  Eating this now made each spoon full with rice bring me back to those memories.  Although it's not even close to my mother's, I'm glad I was able to mimic it and share it with good company (ie. Dave & Mike Santos) while watching our new favorite show Man v. Food.  Check it out!