Bibimbap Binge

You’d think a food blog would have pictures of well, food. I was too hungry to take a picture before eating. This is a shot of what was my lunch, a bowl of dolsot bibimbap. Me and my friend went to the Korean restaurant Arum after spending half the day at Camp Fortune’s Aerial Park. It was my first time at the aerial park. It was very cool. Basically, the Camp Fortune people have set up an obstacle course in the trees where you balance on tightropes, crawl through wooden tubes and swingng on ropes – all done ten feet or more off the ground. We were all very sore (a lot of upper body use) and tired afterwards.

Kate and I had a slightly comatose conversation while waiting for our food at Arum. I hadn’t been to Arum in half a year, but the dolsot bibimbap was as good as I remembered. Bibimbap is a mixed rice dish – this one had veggies and ground beef. The dolsot part refers to the black stone bowl in the photo – heated so that the dish sizzles when it’s brought to the table. The rice touching the bowl turns golden brown and crispy. It’s served with a fried egg on top (traditionally a raw egg is cracked on top, but I think they don’t do that here because of public health concerns over salmonella -- someone correct me if I'm wrong). In the past, the egg was fried over easy but this time it was served sunnyside up. That made the dish even better, because the yolk was runner and could more easily mix with the rice, beef and veggies. I think Kate was slightly disturbed by how quickly I wolfed it all down. She got through about three-quarters of her's. I love the little side dishes that come with a Korean meal – we had kimchi (fermented cabbage), bean sprouts, radishes and potatoes yesterday. And we also slurped down bowls of fermented soybean paste soup. Needless to say, I felt like I should have been rolled out of the restaurant after eating. The walk home did me good.