Korean Food

A few firsts at this Brunch in Koreatown

I had been wanting to try Her Name is Han for months but reservations have been very hard to get. I don’t remember ever having Korean food before except for a few events at my children’s school when we lived in Amsterdam. When we arrived for a 12:00PM reservation (they open at 12), there was already a line halfway down the block.

For my first ever Korean brunch, I chose the baby octupus pasta platter. I love octupus so I wasn’t worried if I would like it but I think this was the first time I had baby octupus. I wasn’t quite prepared for the jellybean-size little heads to be attached to the tentacles. Eating the heads was fine but I might skip them in the future. The menu description of this dish says it includes three types of banchan which is a new word I had to look up. Banchan is basically just the term for small dishes in Korean cuisine. As you can see in the photo, the entrees included many small dishes including zucchini with crab, potato salad, soup, kimchi, and deep-fried boiled egg - all things I have had before except for the little bowl of squiggly things with eyes. These were “myeolchi bokkeum,” or stir-fried dried anchovies.

We also had a Mint Garden cocktail that was made from Daejangbu (a type of Soju, the most popular liquor in Korea) and green tea. Soju was something new I tried in 2022 so although it’s on the List of 56, it was already checked off. If you haven’t tried soju, I recommend that you do. It’s low alcohol with a distinctive taste.

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So many of my 56 Things tend to focus on food so it’s no surprise that one of the next things I am planning also relates to food. I’m headed to Queens (NYC) to Jackson Heights to try food from India, Colombia, Tibet, Nepal, Ecuador, Burma, Thailand and more. I’ll post the details soon if anyone wants to come along on this food tour but if you let me know you are interested (comment below) I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! - Linda