Busan Part 4: tteok poki and bibim mandu

WE didn’t feel like rice. We didn’t feel like noodles.
It was a culinary slump if ever I’ve had one in this country, and we were flailing at the bottom.

But along came the mother tteok poki.
I had already decided on the destination of our last lunch in Busan after seeing they served bibim mandu - a snappy little dish good for hot days and bored palates.
So when I saw they also served up a whopping tteok poki special, I was clapping my hands with glee.

Any variation on the original tteok poki is always worth a try and that was just the case with this one, which was so enormous it could have fed a small family.

The sauce was rich and thick, clinging to twirls of ramyeon (two minute noodles) and thicker udong. There were ribbons of odeng, chunks of cabbage and carrot soaking in a puddle of spicy sweetness. There was a whole boiled egg and instead of plain sticks of tteok, there were little nubby ones filled with cheese that oozed like runny butter. A little strange, that addition, but all in all it was the mother dish.
Good in every way.

Bibim mandu - vegetable dumplings - also rose to the occasion.

Dumplings in Korea usually consist of ground meat, herbs, kimchi and glass noodles. They are steamed and brought to the table plated with soy sauce for dipping. Sometimes they're spectacularly brought out on the steamer, plump and moist and ready to be devoured.

But bibim mandu are like no other. They're messy and spicy and lots of fun to put together.

Fresh shredded coleslaw vegetables are arranged on the plate alongside strips of nori drizzled in a cold spicy sauce. You then mix it all together with your chopsticks and make little parcels by filling and folding the vegetables in semi-circles of fried pastry.
The pastry tends to be a little oily, but works quite nicely with the vegetables as they cut through the grease followed by a wallop of spice.

Masshisoyo (delicious)!