Weekend cooking plans down the drain

So much about grand cooking and trying new recipe plans for the weekend as it didn’t materialize for the nth time. Instead, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant last Friday and Saturday morning was spent grocery shopping in a Korean market. Anyway, it’s always a fun experience shopping at Zion and it must have been my lucky day because I didn’t have a hard time looking for a spot to park. There was a crowd of people by the door and for a while I thought the hodduk man moved there but it was a young dude making peanut butter squid which I haven’t seen (or noticed?) in my previous trips to the market. They must be good judging from the throng of people waiting to be served.

I got the chance to look for milk that is not Rockview or Altadena- something Korean but all they have is soy milk. I guess I just have to agonize and dream about the delicious milk Michelle talked about in her blog- for now. It’s easy to be diverted with all the beautiful sights and wonderful aromas of food in the market and the fruits and vegetables are always fresh. It’s even easier to get carried away so I have to “stay calm” and just grab what I need for sure or find myself wasting food again because they expired in the fridge unattended.

I ventured in the cooked food section and could not resist getting a tray of purple rice and imitation crab cakes. Everything looked delicious but again, extreme restraint was in effect so I only bought the two delicacies and a couple of hodduks. I got my free fish waffles again from the hodduk man and I kind of regretted not getting them instead of the hodduk. Those fish waffles with sweet bean paste inside are really good.
Lunch was at the restaurant just beside the market. I need my Korean food fix after reading Michelle’s blog and looking at her pictures. This is not the usual all-you-can-eat joint that we love going to so meat was not in abundance lol.. But I enjoyed the spicy rice cake because of the smooth texture of the rice cakes. The sundubu on the other hand pales in comparison with home cooked one … ahem …. my own sundubu. I also love the purple rice with beef which is my favorite now. I can’t remember the name of the dish though. It is purple rice in an earthen pot topped with beef and a bed of lettuce spread on top. I guess I shouldn’t be planning my menus anymore. I’m just going to go with the flow and whatever appears here in my blog- you can bet that those are spur-of-the-moment creations.