We’d been trying to get out to Han Dynasty for what seemed like months. But trying to coordinate schedules around the holidays can be rough. But we finally made it out to Royersford the other night to eat some tasty chinese. It’s in a nondescript strip mall. Once you get inside it though, you notice something immediately. The place is a carbon copy of Sangkee Asian Bistro in Wynnewood. I mean seriously. The layout is the same, the floors and tiles on the walls are the same. The table layouts are the same. They have the same bar with the tv’s. They have the same waiting area. It’s an exact copy. The only difference is that there are no persian rugs on the walls at Han Dynasty and the light fixtures are different. That, and of course, the food! This place cracks me up because they have an “americanized” section and an “authentic chinese” section in their menu. How great is that? We ordered everything from the “authentic chinese” side. And everything was ordered in chinese by our two chinese speaking dining companions. It was awesome to witness. I had NO idea what was being ordered, and I loved the mystery of it all!

So, here we have the mystery dishes. In the front is some kind of beef with hot sauce. See all the crushed red peppers on top? Yes, this dish was hot. There was also cabbage under the beef. Loved this. I especially loved the cabbage! Behind that is double cooked little pork riblets with leeks and black beans. Not spicy here, and quite delicious.

Ok, we are moving over to seafood now. Sliced fish with tofu in wild pepper sauce. Spicy and awesome! But spicy in a way completely unlike the beef dish. So nearly as hot, but the taste was very different. And I loved that.

H/A selected this next one – the mayonnaise shrimp, or “hup toe ha”. I’m not sure if this was even on the menu, but he ordered it anyway and it showed up! It’s battered large shrimp served with a sweet mayo based sauce. It’s quite good!

Last, but certainly not least, the baby bok choy in garlic sauce. We wanted to get the chinese okra, but they were out of that, so we just got them to make it with baby bok choy instead. This was beyond good! It was super garlicky and just perfect. I love simple veggie stir-fry dishes like this.

Service was good. After we ordered the food, it came out super duper fast! And they let us take as long as we wanted. We were there a long time, so long that everyone from the kitchen eventually came out to the dining room to have their own dinner! E said that chinese restaurant do not close until their last customer has left. I think we may certainly have been there beyond their official closing time, but they did not kick us out! And I can definitely appreciate that.

I love chinese from my neighborhood take out place as much as the next person (shout out to Pak Yue!) but eating this type of authentic cuisine is so much better. I wish I could do this at every ethnic meal! Everything is ordered in the country’s native language and I have no idea what I’m about to eat. And then I just get to enjoy it!

I headed up to the far burbs for the first dinner party of 2010 at N’s house. There are 5 cats in that house, most are unfriendly. There’s a lot of N’s art all around the house. Naturally, as she’s an artist. What’s a dinner party without cheese and crackers? And grapes! I ate an unfairly large share of these grapes.

There was tons to eat. Bread, with butter and nutella! Little tiny crab cakes with a remoulade. A made those. Some little phyllo dough puff things filled with spinach.

Garlic broccoli, and some random flatbread type of stuff.

Rice and some dip for the flatbread!

There was even a warming tray to keep the food hot! Hello chicken marsala! Hello veggies! And hello veggie ravioli! A made the ravioli too. It was all freakin delicious. I loved all the red and white dishes too, they were adorably old school.

For dessert, a ginormous fruit tart! It wasn’t much of a tart, it ended up being pretty much just a cake with fruit on top, but it was still quite tasty. We ended up trying to play this game, Quelf, later on in the evening, but it wasn’t so easy. There were too many people and too many of them were drunk, so game playing proved quite difficult. But we’ll have to give it a shot another time. Thanks N for the lovely party!

For a proper meal, we headed back to koreatown, because we had both been wanting to go back to KumGangSan. We had gone here together a bunch of years back and had remembered how good it was. We had a bit of a wait though, but it was worth it. The place has two floors and lots of tables, but it was absolutely packed. And you’re talking about a street that is chock full of other korean restaurants. Yet on a tuesday night at 7, this place was still packed. You know that’s a pretty good sign. Oh, and the thing I love about koreatown is that so many of the restaurants are open 24 hours as day! It’s a dream!

Holy banchan! Marinated spicy squid, which almost seemed raw or nearly raw. Two different kimchis, one was regular, but was a bit watered down, and the other one was an actual watery style kimchi. Broccoli and imitation crab meat, and some mystery fungus dish at the bottom. We’re thinking it’s a mushroom of some kind.

Spicy squash, a savory eggplant, two different types of tofu (one was bluish?!?), some type of mystery sliced root, and a salad.

I really loved this salad! It had some kind of dressing that I absolutely fell in love with, yet I can’t really describe what it tasted like. I couldn’t distinguish its main flavor. But it was awesome. I wish they’d bottle it.

We got some kimchi fried rice. Kimchi fried rice isn’t nearly as kimchi-y as you’d think it would be. It’s actually quite mild, not at all spicy, and a bit nutty. It’s basically just a fancy rice, in case plain old rice doesn’t do it for you. This one had meat in it, but it was tiny little bits of meat and there was barely any in it. You can get it with chicken or veggies too. It was good and as you can see, a huge portion.

The dish that we came back for – the ojingaboekum. I’m all about this squid dish at most korean restaurants I go to. And I remember coming here before and absolutely loving and devouring it. As before, it didn’t disappoint. There’s tons of hunks of meaty squid in a spicy, sweet, and savory sauce. Yes, it’s all three of those flavors. There was also a few slices of rice cake in there, as a little added surprise. But it was only a few, as in maybe 5. I wish there had been 50! This dish is just particularly good here. Can’t describe why, it just is.

For dessert, we were given complimentary samples of this ice bean thing. The placemats at the tables were hocking a few different products that KumGangSan makes, including this ice bean stuff. What is it? Well, as A described, “it’s like science in your mouth.” That’s what it is. It’s fruity and icy, and then in your mouth, it turns into a creamy yogurt type consistency. Very sciencey indeed. Made by the power of sugar and chemistry. So it has the word bean in it, and it does have a slightly bean-ish aftertaste, so it must be made from something involving beans, and not regular dairy.

The service here is ok, nothing stellar, just standard korean restaurant service. One thing to note, you will stink like korean bbq after you eat here. The smell is everywhere and it will seep into every crack and crevice on you, and of course, your clothes. So you will smell like this until you wash yourself and your clothes.