Before I report on how I spent my week in Korea (which is not difficult to guess - a lot of eating), I am very excited to share how things went for me and my sister at the Asian Feastival yesterday.
About 20 Asian restaurants in Queens prepared 2-3 kinds of tasting samples, as diverse as yak dumplings and Burmese tea leaf salad yet as familiar as japchae and bubble tea. Sake and beer samples were flowing as much as refreshing soy milk and ginger ale mini cups. The place was packed, yet the service smooth. The only place that seemed to have a few minutes of wait was for the juicy pork dumplings, mostly because they were made and steamed on site. When we got too full, we took a break by learning about different types of rice and fundamentals of sake. The sun was warm so we came back outside to see Red Cook introducing durian and later, Maangchi's kimchi making demo.
We expanded our taste buds to many new flavors I didn't know to look for, learned about a few things that I thought I knew so well, and most of all, we were very full and (therefore) very happy.
You can also check out NY TImes Diner's Journal note on Asian Feastival here.
Also, more and better photo coverage of the event from Maangchi herself here.
