behemoth chicken! September 2, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in stuffed stuff.Tags: Behemoth, chicken
7 comments
My boyfriend has been coughing since we came back from Gen Con. No fever, no headache, just dry coughs. It went on for about a week or so. Just when he was getting better, I started to have the same dry cough. I’d wake up in the middle of night from coughing. It is absolutely annoying! I even lost my voice from coughing too much. So my co-worker told me to take a day off to get some rest, because guess what? I’m going to another convention! (Just me this time. My boyfriend will be staying home with my kitty.)
The convention I’m going to is called PAX. PAX is held by the creators of Penny Arcade guys in Seattle. (PAX is short for Penny Arcade Expo) It’s a pretty big video gaming convention, and this is the last convention for Alteil this year.
I know that the Behemoth studio (creator of Alien Homid and Castle Crashers) will be there. They gave me a super rare pink castle crasher figure last time I made bento of Castle Crashers, Animal Orbs and Pink Castle Crasher so I decided to make something for them, just as a token of gratitude for being so awesome.
Behold! The behemoth chicken!
Not sure if they’re able to take it with them, but if they can’t, I’ll just mail it to them.
Look at his cute beady eyes!
This is just a sneak preview, since I haven’t found right eyes for it. (I just used pins for now) Once I finish it, I’ll have my boyfriend take more pictures and post them on my flickr.
Check out his behemoth crown!
I just checked the Behemoth site, and I was pleasantly surprised that they just posted the squishy Behemoth chicken toy they’re making! Dammit. The squishy chicken looks much cooler than my stuffed one. Of course, I’m so getting one. 😉
He'll stomp you on with his behemoth feet!
Hopefully it’s not swine flue, but if I don’t get better by tomorrow, I’ll make sure to wear a mask or something on the airplane.
Watch out for the behemoth tail!
I’ll try to blog about PAX while I’m there!
the most tasteless bibimbap I’ve ever had – part2 August 30, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else.Tags: bibimbap, omelet
2 comments
So I wrote about my experience with the blandest bibimbap I’ve ever had. (see the picture of the bibimbap by clicking here.) I’ve read the comments, and I’m sure gochujang/gojoojang would’ve probably given it a bit of flavor, BUT my friend and I agreed that even if we added gochujang/gojoojang, it would’ve probably been absorbed into the bowl of …”stuff.” It was that flavorless! (By the way, this was not my first bibimbap experience, and I’m Asian, so I don’t think they didn’t give it to me because they thought I couldn’t handle the spicy food.)
You can see the carrots, meat, other veggies in the picture, but they just had no texture OR taste! I realized that “no texture” was part of the bland taste. I remembered that once I started mixing it, the veggie & rice lost its shape, and the meat disappeared. I was talking to my friend and we came to the conclusion that it was as if they boiled all the ingredients in water for a very long time, got all the juice and flavor out, and used the water for some soup, and used the veggie for the bibimbap.
I’m not trying to say the all bibimbap is bland, but you really had to try this one to understand what I mean by “tasteless.” (But of course, I won’t give you the name for this place.)
Anyway, this is bibimbap make-over day 2. I decided to make an “omurice” with leftover bibimbap. Omurice is a very popular meal for kids in Japan, and it’s basically fried rice (usually seasoned with ketchup) inside an omelet.
The bibimbap rice was still a bit mushy and had no texture, so I cooked sliced onion in a frying pan. When the onion turned clear, I added the bibimbap, seasoned it with salt and pepper and a bit of ketchup, and I removed the rice from the pan. Then I beat 3 eggs, poured it on the pan. After cooking the egg for a couple of minutes, I put the bibimbap rice on one side of the egg, and flipped the other side of the egg onto the rice. I put worcester sauce and mayonnaise on the top of the omelet, and sprinkled powdered seaweed on top.
The omelet looked lonely all by itself, so I sauteed chopped garlic and asparagus and put some lemon juice, and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top for the side for the omelet. (I cooked more veggie too, but I only took a picture of the omelet)
I think the texture of onion made a big difference. It was quite delicious. 😀
I still have a small bowl of bibimbap left. Not enough for a dish, but I might make rice crackers with it. 🙂
the most tasteless bibimbap I’ve ever had – part1 August 29, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else.Tags: bibimbap, croquette
7 comments
Last Friday was the going away party for one of my co-workers at a karaoke place nearby work. But since it didn’t start until 8:00, my boyfriend, my friends/co-workers and I decided to grab something to eat before going to the karaoke place. The karaoke place was in Korean town in NYC, so we just went to one of Korean restaurants by the karaoke place.
Two of my other friends and I ordered bibimbap (rice, vegetable and raw egg on the top, usually comes in a sizzling hot stone bowl), my boyfriend and other friend ordered jap chae (stir fried mix vegetables and rice noodle), my other friend ordered bulgogi. (Korean BBQ)
When the waitress brought my food, it looked so good that I took a picture of it.
Looks can be so deceiving.
I mixed it, and started eating.
…
I mixed some more and ate some more.
A couple of minutes after we started eating, my friend who was eating bulgogi asked my friend who was eating bibimbap. “So how’s your bibimbap?” She said “Well, it’s a little…” then she paused. So I finished her sentence with “…bland.” We had a “I’m so glad that I wasn’t only one thinking that!” moment. When I started eating, I couldn’t taste anything, so I mixed more, thinking that there was some flavor hidden inside. I kept on mixing and eating, waiting for the explosion of flavors, but it didn’t happen. It was like a puzzle from Professor Layton that’s worth about 99 picarats. “Where did the flavor go?” There was meat and so many vegetables in it, but you could taste NOTHING!
My friend put a little bit of salt on it, I even tried dumping a bit of the sauce that came with pa jun (Korean pancake) on it. But anything you put in, it was quickly absorbed by the mass of flavorlessness! My boyfriend usually helps me finish my dish when I can’t eat it by myself, but he couldn’t even finish the two spoonfuls of my bibimbap. My other friend who also ordered bibimbap said if I put a lot of hot sauce in it, it’d be fine. But I refused to numb my mouth just to eat the flavorless mushy rice.
It didn’t taste bad, it just had no taste whatsoever. I’ve never had a bibimbap like this one before, and I’m not a picky eater or harsh food critic at all. I wasn’t angry or anything though. Actually, it was so tasteless that it was funny. We spent long time talking about how it was possible for something packed with so much food to taste so bland.
I still didn’t want to waste it, so I took my leftovers and my friend’s leftovers home, and I decided to make rice croquettes with it tonight. I didn’t feel like deep frying, so I used a toaster oven this time. I mixed the bibimbap with a little bit of ketchup and parmesan cheese, made small rice balls using plastic wrap. Then I put mayonnaise on plastic wrap, rolled the rice balls over, and put them in a bowl of panko.(Japanese bread crumbs) I baked them until they were golden brown.
Born-again bibimbap
Yum!
The outside was crispy and inside had much more flavor from ketchup and parmesan cheese. The inside was still a bit mushier than I wanted, but the crispy panko on the outside definitely helped.
I still have more bibimbap leftovers. So I guess I’ll try making something different with bibimbap tomorrow. It’s weird but I must say I’m kind of enjoying this leftover food make-over. 😛
AnnaTheRed's bento factory 