A review of the food I bought at the supermarket. With Covid keeping me indoors, writing the blog has ironically got harder..
Cheese chikuwa with sea bream
I bought it at Narita Airport, but it turned out to be a pretty ordinary drinking snack..
Oyster Jin Jjambbong..
I think this might be my favourite jjamppong ramyun. Well, that is probably just because I like oysters.
Budae jjigae ramyun
Budae jjigae really is the sort of thing that is good to riff on.
Oyster mandu
You really get the oyster flavour.. Considering the price there are plenty of cheaper options with bigger portions, but as an occasional thing I think it is fine.
Gwanghwamun Gukbap
The quality was very good.. HMR at this level has nothing to be ashamed of. Of course it is still a bit short of going and eating it at the restaurant.
Gwanghwamun Gukbap with green onion added
Sinuiju Chapssal Sundaeguk
This one was ordinary.. I get the feeling nothing in the sundaeguk category is outstandingly good..
Murgerbon Honey Roasted Peanuts
No Brand was selling them cheap. As you would expect from a brand that has lasted this long, it is the kind of taste you keep reaching for..
Crispy cod skin twigak (Cod Crisps)
Ordinary..
Freshwater shrimp soup
There really are sweet freshwater shrimp in it, but once you boil it the broth ends up looking a bit murky..
Sea urchin seaweed soup..
I could not really taste the sea urchin..
A Chuseok gift
Inside
Gifts came from other places too, and the packaging is meticulous. It is not quite long-term storage, but it is nice that you do not have to eat it the moment it arrives. And of course the meat itself is good quality.
Costco fruit cheese
It was quite sweet. A snack for the kids, a drinking snack for the adults..
Hansaem Mart
A supermarket in Incheon where you can use the Covid local gift certificates.. A really big one has opened up.
Murgerbon Coconut Peanuts
A bit heavy..
Ragu, made from soybeans
Ordinary..
Paik Ham
It looks like some sort of collaboration with Handon pork farms.. The taste feels much the same as Geumdwaeji ham or Jeju black pork ham. If I had to pick one it would probably be the black pork ham.. Well, that is how it is..
Pastry Squid
True to the name “pastry”, it is squid cooked with butter and sugar.. It does have a mellow flavour, but it is sweet way past sweet.. It might be fine as a snack, but as a drinking snack it is no good. Which goes to show a blogger’s recommendation is not to be trusted..
Jjajang sauce
I could not be bothered making jjajang from scratch so I bought a ready-made one.. It is sweet.. To make a jjajang that is not sweet, it seems there is no way around frying the chunjang yourself..
Baek Jong-won’s All-Purpose Jjajang
Honestly, this alone will not give you a tasty jjajang.. (because the ingredients are all ground up, so there is nothing to chew on..) Well, that sort of thing can be sorted out with a bit of a riff.. and thanks to the ingredients in it the flavour has plenty going on (sweet as it is), so it is decent for putting something together quickly.
Maesaengi and oyster soup
Well.. buying maesaengi and boiling it yourself does cost less..
Budae jjigae
This one was a smash hit — for ten thousand won for two packs, it had an unbelievable amount of ham in it. So I strongly recommended it to everyone around me, and in the end they put the price up.. It is not quite the king of value any more, but it is still worth buying.
Since it is autumn, I tried drying shiitake mushrooms.
Drying them yourself gives a better aroma.
Grill them properly in butter and!
They turn into an autumn delicacy. Drying shiitake is unexpectedly fun.. I am starting to think I should buy a bamboo basket.
Samwon Garden beef ugeoji soup
Decent enough. I hardly go out at all these days, so having HMR makes meals easy and varied. This all came about because of Covid, and I do not know whether it will carry on once Covid is over. However comfortable it is to eat at home, when you think about your health, the extreme of never going out at all is not a good thing..
Pasta Tai
A pasta sauce I brought back from Japan, and the quality really is good. It makes a simple, tasty pasta.
Crab and tomato cream sauce
This one was not bad either.
A frying pan called DROPS
I bought it because they said the coating was tough.. and it really is tough, plus the pan is pretty. So I was happy with it.. but there is a problem. First, the coating is so slippery that flipping things does not work well.. And however tough it is, a coating is still a coating — I thought it would last a long time, but it is weak against physical impact. The coating does not peel, but it gets dented and ends up with a hole.. In the end I used it for six months and switched to Tefal.
Stainless pan
Stainless pans stick badly and are so hard to clean that I had sworn off them.. but using a coated pan only for fried eggs and stir-fries and stainless for everything else turns out to be really convenient. I wonder why I never worked this out.. While coated pans keep dying on me one after another, the stainless pan is still going. Fantastic value. (As long as you avoid high-difficulty dishes like fried eggs, it will last a long time..)
The FROG Proshine scrubber, the answer for stainless pans
This is closer to sandpaper than a scrubber.. I am not joking.. It feels like it is stripping the skin off. The thing is, you have to throw it away after one use. Anyway.. if you use a stainless pan I think it is essential. There are a few similar products out there, but this seems to be the easiest one to get hold of.
Green onion oil
These kinds of products are around now, and it seems good for adding flavour easily.
Join the Discussion