Getcher RICE on! Asian Food Feeding Frenzy Part 1: Korea

Detail of a pavilion in the botanical gardens on the island of Jeju, Korea.

Darlings, with well over 400 emails yet to read, calls to make and myriad tasks to get La Diva "back to business," here I sit, tired, crabby and delaying the inevitable. Your dear Diva is still jet-lagged, up each day at an uncivilized 4:30 am and drowsy by 5pm!

So, since I'm useless anyway, why not procrastinate and write my blog instead? Yeah, I thought you'd agree too.

As you know, La Diva just LURVES to get her Asian freak on and what better place to do it then in Sydney, Australia aka Australasia? People of Asian ancestry make up over 8% of Australia's population with the highest concentration in Sydney at 16%. To La Diva, that figure seems very low....

Bird-land Donald Duck, 2008 by Artist Kim Joon and on view at Saatchi Gallery, London.

Chatswood is a northern suburb of Sydney and in the eight years since I've lived in Australia, it has further grown as a Korean epicenter and is now known fondly by the locals as "Cha Woo." As it happened, gal pal and wine rep Amanda was going to be in the North Shore for business and wanted to meet me for lunch so La Diva made her way to Chatswood to get my Asian freak on!

Living in the Land of Rice, Beans and Plantains, I don't often get to eat Korean food, and Jang Gun Restaurant was suggested as a delicious option.

Menu from Jang Gun (Korean) Restaurant in Chatswood offered many delightful selections at a great price. Click to see more detail.

I chose number 17 also known as "bibimbap" or literally, "mixed rice." A hot stone bowl of rice is topped with ground beef, bean sprouts, spinach, seaweed, egg and I'm not sure what else! I just know it was deeply satisfying and very tasty!

Naturally, lunch came with the de rigueur "kimchee" or Korean pickle. From top left clockwise: Some kind of agar agar jelly in chile, spinach and egg cakes, chile marinated tofu (I loved this), bean sprouts, cabbage pickle in chile paste (standard kimchee) and green salad. All of this and a bowl of miso as well for $10 AUD. (Of course you can click to see in detail, darling!)

Well, now that I've satisfied your curiosity and my belly is grumbling, I might mosey on over to my kitchen and see if lunch will help me alleviate this terrible procrastinating and give me the energy to tackle all those emails and phone calls! Ciao for now, darlings!
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