Asian Adventures

I love food TV almost as much as I love food.  I love watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people who have run their kitchen into despair.  I love to watch bakers build sky high show-stoppers on The Great British Bake-Off.  But more than anything, I love to watch shows that combine travel and food.  

My new favorite show is “Somebody Feed Phil”, which you can find on Netflix.  It features Phil Rosenthal, a comedy writer turned food journalist.  He travels to far flung places, eating his way through exotic cities and making new friends everywhere he goes.  It is my dream job.  I am sure that Phil and I would get along famously and I should come along as his eating assistant.  I think we would make a great team – tall, thin, funny Jewish man, with short, fluffy renegade Baptist woman.  The jokes would write themselves.  A girl can dream.

Until I get my call from Phil or his people, I have to find more local, economical ways to try new foods.  This week, I went on a food adventure to H Mart.  It is a Korean grocery store and much more. Not only can you shop for a wide variety of Korean, Japanese and other Asian items, you can order food to eat there or to go.

True confession – I liked H Mart so much I went twice in one week.  The first time we met up with friends for a big ol’ family evening out.  Everyone was able to order what they wanted and we even ordered some things to share.  We ordered Pad Thai, Korean Hot Stone Bibimbap, Fried Pot Stickers, Korean Fried Chicken, and Steamed Buns. It was a little crazy, as there were 9 of us all together, but it was delicious fun.  

While we were there for dinner, we only saw enough of the store to pique our curiosity, so we made a plan to come back to shop again.  

Our next trip was a mid-morning trip that conveniently overlapped into lunch.  I actually had a list with me, but as usual, I diverted from it a bit.

One of the most fun areas of H Mart is the produce department.  You will find exciting fruits and vegetables you can’t find just any where.  There are overflowing bins of plums, peaches and pears in many varieties.  And then there are REALLY exciting exotic treats like Mangosteen, Dragon Fruit and Rambutan.  

I am terribly tempted by all of these things, but they do not come with an instruction manual.  If I had Phil along, he could help me out, but until then I plan on doing some research before I buy them so I know how to eat them at their best.  That will have to be a future blog…. In the meantime, I selected some delicious-looking black plums, a couple of Korean Pears, some baby bananas and a jicama.  There are plenty of unusual roots and vegetables as well.  If you are looking for something for a recipe, you can probably find it here.

H Mart also has many varieties of fresh fish and seafood.  You can pick out live crabs and lobsters and you can find some enormous shrimp.  If you want fresh fish, they clean and cut to your specifications.

The aisles in between the produce and the fish are where you find the really interesting things.  I found so many varieties of soy sauce, I was a little overwhelmed.  If you need dried sea weed in any shape or size, you got it.  Pickled ginger? No problem. Funky flavored chips? Of course.  Fun fruit gummies and fizzy drinks?  Indeed!  There is also a wall of fresh dumplings and buns ready to take home, and a humongous variety of frozen goodies to fill your freezer with Asian fare sweet and savory alike.

You can also find small kitchen appliances, like rice cookers, or smaller gadgets like this cool grater I grabbed for the low price of $4.99.  This tool is so handy for grating fresh ginger or garlic.

All of this fun shopping put me in the mood to make something deliciously Asian for dinner.  I have made a few variations of chicken lettuce wraps before, but I wanted to use some of the new goodies I had just purchased, so I tweaked my old stand-by even more.

The recipe I used called for canned water chestnuts. I decided to substitute my recently purchased jicama for this ingredient and it was a great swap.  Jicama is slightly sweeter, still adds crunch to the dish and has lots of vitamins and minerals like vitamin C, Folate, Magnesium, and Potassium.

I also swapped out chili garlic sauce, instead of Sriracha.  I was kicking myself for not buying the very Korean chili paste Gochujang while I was at H Mart.  This could easily be a chili sauce substitute to make the wraps have a more Korean taste.

Most lettuce wrap recipes call for butter lettuce because of its nice cup shape.  However, I generally can’t find that when shopping so I often substitute hearts of romaine or even just nice green leaf lettuce.

These little babies are delicious and healthy and very easy to make.  Have them on hand while you watch my buddy Phil travel the world. I guarantee “Somebody Feed Phil” will make you hunger for travel and really good food.

AuthorMelissa JoyDifficultyBeginner