Seattlite blogger Lovely Lanvin gave me some recommendations for eats during my trip. One of her recommendations was for korean food, with a twist, at Revel. It’s in the Fremont area and it’s fairly new. It’s a pretty gorgeous restaurant. It’s one long rectangular room, with the open kitchen taking up most of one side. There’s a chef’s table along the entire length of the kitchen. The other side has some tables. The walls have several large pop-art paintings. I dig it.
I love sitting at the chef’s table because it’s dinner and a show. And it still boggles my mind how the whole thing works. I love to watch everyone. Revel also has adorable plates and flatware. It’s all minimalist. The entire chef’s table is just one giant raw butcher block. I love it. Can I have my kitchen look like this?
The menu is quite stark and small, which is the way I like it as I tend to get overwhelmed and indecisive when given too much choice. I started with one of their pancakes, the pork belly, kimchi, and bean sprout. This is definitely korean. It is a good sized pancake served with 4 different sauces. Aren’t they adorable? I liked the pancake, but I would have preferred that the pork belly was more evenly distributed throughout the pancake, and that the pancake would have been thinner. The middle, where it was the thickest, had all the pork belly and had too much not-cooked-all-the-way batter concentrated there. I prefer my korean pajeons to be a bit more crispy on the outside and well cooked on the inside. I think if they made it thinner in general with less batter or if they made the pancake bigger with the same batter, they’d get a better result. But the flavor was definitely good and the pork belly was delicious!
My other dish was a noodle dish with five spiced duck meat balls, lacinato kale, smoked chili, with medium thickness noodles. This was definitely tasty, but there was absolutely nothing korean about it. Zilch. Nada. So instead of this being korean with a twist, it was just plain twist. In fact, there was cilantro in this. And cilantro is not in any korean dish, ever. And if you asked korean people of my mom’s generation or older, they would probably not be able to stand cilantro, at all. To see it in this dish was odd. It’s ok though, because I like cilantro! This dish was tasty, nonetheless, until the the unthinkable happened. I suddenly bit into raw thin strips of ginger. How could this be? I’d eaten half the bowl already free of this raw evil, but then all of a sudden it became a raw ginger fest! So then I spent a lot of the rest of my time picking out or deftly avoiding the ginger pieces. This is not easy to do! But I made sure I did it. Oh well. Despite these little glitches, I enjoyed this place immensely. The service was good and I am absolutely in love with the feel of this place. The food was also good, despite how non-korean some of their dishes may be.

Sometimes you have to go into scary parts of town to eat amazing food. I’ve wanted to go to Jong Ka Jip for a gazillion years, but somehow, never made it. After actually craving soondubu, we made the scary drive. Ok, it’s not really that scary. Just be aware of the red light cameras! And speaking of cameras, don’t worry. The Jong Ka Jip parking lot is well-monitored by at least 4-6 cameras. It was definitely a relief to me.
As is standard with korean grub, you get a variety of banchan. None of it was extraordinary here, but it was all ok. I really liked their cucumber kimchi though. So props to you for that, Jong Ka Jip.
They may have some other things on the menu, but you come here for one thing – soondubu jjigae. It’s a spicy stew with a whole lotta soft tofu, and you can choose what kind of meat, or non-meat, you want in it. When it comes out to you, it’s boiling in a stone bowl. I like to call this a mini cauldron. While it’s boiling, you crack a raw egg into it. You also get a bowl of rice in a similar cauldron. And you eat the stew with the rice. Easy as pie. And infinitely more delicious. I can’t even tell you how awesome this is. And it’s $9, tax included, free well-lit well-monitored parking lot included, call button included. And when you’re done with your stew and rice, the bottom layer of rice that was exposed to the cauldron will hopefully be a little burnt and toasted. You then pour hot water into this, mix it up, and then eat that. That’s only if it’s physically possible for you to shovel more food into your already distended belly. This food is beyond awesome, super cheap, and more than worth the trek. So do it.

Our family christmas feast seemed like a near carbon copy of our thanksgiving feast.
We had the kalbi stew, again.
We had chicken wings, again. But this time, they were a tiny bit burnt. Thanks toaster oven!
Yep, here’s the japchae, again. We’re like a broken record, right?
Kimchi, because no korean meal is ever complete without it.
Oh wait! Something different! Tempura shrimp! We did not have this at thanksgiving.
And more! Ddukpokki, which is one of my favorite korean foods, ever! My aunt’s friend A made it, and she makes some of the best darn ddukpokki this side of the east china sea.
And christmas cookies, courtesy of my cousin’s girl. We certainly did not have christmas cookies at thanksgiving. Hope everyone had a nice holiday season this year!