I was in Columbus for quite a long time, but we were all well fed by my mom’s cooking the whole time. Here are some of the highlights. Her famous spring rolls! As usual, they kicked ass. We accidentally bought the wrong noodles (cellophane noodles instead of rice noodles), but they were still darn good.

Spam fried rice! This happens to be a favorite of my brother. I’m not nearly as into it as he is, and he is also a SPAM freak, but I like it. With egg on top and ketchup. It totally takes us back to our childhoods.

Some spicy kimchi soba noodles. A ridiculously easy dish of soba noodles, chopped up kimchi and maybe some cucumber, and some kochujang. Maybe a little sesame oil, soy, sugar too. It’s great for a hot day, which most of the days in Columbus were.

A big bowl of kalguksu. Kalguksu literally translates to knife noodles (kal is knife, guksu is noodles). The noodles are thick wheat noodles that were traditionally hand-cut with knives. They don’t exactly do that these days. The dish isn’t the most flavorful, so we eat it with kimchi. Everything tastes better with kimchi!

My mom also made another big batch of dumplings, or as we call them, mandu. Here are some of the little half-moon beauties after being steamed.

We also ate some on another day in soup. Manduguk literally means dumpling soup. Mandu is dumpling, guk is soup. See, you’re all getting a free korean lesson.

A little bowl of spicy dubu jjigae. That’s tofu stew to you. Can you figure out what means tofu and what means stew? Congrats! You’re well on your way to be fluent in food korean.

And a random smattering of banchan and other dishes. Some galbi or bulgogi, I don’t even remember which it was anymore. Some of the japchae, whose recipe I shared with you earlier. Some marinated cucumbers, whose recipe I will soon share. And some marinated file fish. The file fish, or juipo, was languishing in my brother’s freezer for who knows how long. So my mom freed them from their frozen cell and promptly led them into our bellies.

So while we roamed Bite of Bend and had a few snacks, towards late afternoon, we needed a proper meal and we needed to get out of the oppressive sun. So we headed for some sit down noodles at Soba. It’s a little mini-chain in the area. They sell various asian style dishes. You’re bound to find something that everybody likes. You can pick rice, noodles, soup, and whatever flavor you want and whichever protein happens to float your boat that day. J got the shrimp yakisoba because he wanted broccoli. It only came with two pieces of broccoli, but otherwise, he was happy with this. It was very mild.
I had the vietnamese chicken rice bowl. It was like a vermicelli bowl, except it was brown rice and the only veggie you got was lettuce. But it was essentially the same nuoc cham sauce. The chicken was perfectly grilled chicken breast and it was delicious. You get plenty of food for a small price. It’s nothing mindblowing, but it’s a nice, cheap, solid meal. You order at the counter and take a number, and then they bring the food out to you. The food came out fairly fast. If you’re not in the mood for pub grub or the really expensive fine dining options on the Bend downtown strip, give Soba a go.

Eugene ended up being a good half-way stopping point for the long journey from the coast back to Bend. Plus, we had to stop so that J could watch a World Cup game. Much to my surprise, the Eugene Saturday Market was taking place, which of course had a farmer’s market along with it and a food court. Everything was locally grown and looked fabulous. There were berries everywhere.
White raspberries!

And all kinds of cherries!

But really, what everyone had, and what looked the best, were the oregon grown strawberries.

There were veggies as well, of course. Here are some beautiful cherry tomatoes of different colors. Although I know that tomatoes are actually fruit.

There were also tons of root vegetables, like these turnips and beets. Potatoes were also all over the place.

Along with some cucumbers and some onions and some even more gorgeous red torpedo onions.

This dude was selling crazy mushrooms that he grows. I wonder what other kinds of non-food mushrooms he grows? Because after all, this is Eugene, and man, hippies abound!

Dungeness crab is everywhere in Oregon, and you can even find some here.

Here, they were selling freshly homemade salsas as well as fresh corn tortillas that a lady was cooking up, right on the spot.

There were food vendors in the proper food court, which was part of the regular craft vendor part. But in the farmers market, there were also a few food vendors, including this pastie shop.

J got some fish tacos. He liked these, but was surprised by the spicy salsa that was plopped on top.

I got a little teriyaki bowl from a food court vendor called “nice rice”. My nice rice bowl was brown rice topped with teriyaki chicken and veggies. It was perfectly fine. All the produce looked amazingly fresh, and if I lived in Eugene, I would hope to get my fresh fruits and veggies here all the time!