Mash-id Potato

TGI Friday operates a few stores in South Korea. One used to operate in downtown Daegu. The menu was strictly American and appealed to American tastes. Foreigners patronized the restaurant, but it was a novelty to Koreans, and they rarely went there.

A short aside. There are fifty-two million citizens in South Korea. There are two hundred thousand foreigners. What I am telling you is that foreigners in Korea comprise less than one half of one percent of the customer base.

TGI Friday in downtown Daegu failed, but resurrected itself in a tower near the train station. We discovered this by happy accident when my wife had an interview with a restaurant in the tower. That is how we came to the food floor. Leaving the elevator, we passed TGI Friday on our right.

Bunny finished her interview and made a beeline for TGI Friday. You see, in her mind, I need Western food. She takes me to 'Western' restaurants as often as she can. I put Western in quotes, because Koreans do Western cuisine with a heavy Korean accent.

For example, Korean chefs cook omelets with olive oil, not butter. French chefs use butter. Watch Jacques Pepin cook omelets. Korean chefs know that classic omelets are cooked with butter. Why do they use olive oil?

90% of Koreans are lactose intolerant. Korean chefs know this. That is why they use oil olive, not butter.

Yes, Koreans eat yogurt; yes, Koreans eat cheese; but both yogurt and cheese are the products of bacteria that eat milk. That means the bacteria ate the lactose and excreted lactic acid and carbon dioxide. Evidently Koreans have no problem with lactic acid.

What about ice cream? How do Koreans – with their lactose intolerance – consume ice cream? I don't know. I do know that Korean markets sell small bottles of bulgaris – yogurt-making lactobacilli – to drink. It appears that drinking bulgaris together with milk products protects the intolerant from trouble with digestion of lactose. I do know that Koreans LOVE ice cream, and they will eat all they can get.

One more thing. Koreans have a low tolerance for salt. How low? They eat French fries without salt. All Korean fried-chicken houses cook without salt. Instead they add a packet of salt to the order so the customer can salt the chicken if they choose. Koreans sell pork belly unsalted. Koreans cook beans without salt – and what an abysmal flavorless concoction that is. I once made a 10-inch pizza for a girl with 1/8 t of salt in the dough – and she said it was too salty.

Back to TGI Friday.

We entered and sat down. Bunny ordered chicken. And pasta. She encouraged me to order a steak.

Ordering a steak in a restaurant in Korea is like ordering a Model T. Ford gave its costumers a choice of colors but delivered black. Likewise, in Korea steaks come well-done. You can shout 'Medium rare!' until you're hoarse, but the waiter will bring you well-done.

So I ordered a burger. If it will come to me well-done no matter what, might as well be a burger.

The French fries did not appeal to me, so I ordered the 'Mashed Potato'. Koreans pronounce this 'mash-id po-tay-to'.

The burger came. I found it satisfactory. Some while later our waiter delivered the mash-id potato.

Recall that most Koreans are lactose intolerant. So no butter, no milk in the mash-id potato. All Koreans have low salt tolerance. So no salt. Oh, and Koreans use red pepper powder liberally – that is what gives kimchi its color – but black pepper is foreign and rare.

In short, what I had before me was a mashed potato. Nothing more.

I called the waiter over and asked for salt, black pepper, and lots of butter. With these and effort I got some taste from my mash-id potato. But not much.

When in Korea, do as the Romans do. Eat pasta.

Dingfelder's: Beef Tongue on Rye (Six of six)

Link to Dingfelder's Delicatessen.  

You may think beef tongue is an acquired taste. It isn't. Not if the tongue is done right. 

To do tongue right, it has to be 1) cooked right and 2) sliced right. 

Dingfelder's does tongue right: Just cooked and sliced paper thin. 

Bought the sandwich on Thursday. Friday, the sandwich du jour was the chopped liver, and you know about that already. Tongue took Saturday in the schedule. 

Except Saturday we flew out of SeaTac at oh-dark-thirty. Changed planes once and flew home. Or as close as we could get. Snuck the sandwich through customs and got on the train to go home. 

My wife gave me grief about sneaking a sandwich through customs, but halfway into the train ride, hunger overcame her habit of civil obedience. She asked me to share the tongue sandwich. 

It was a good sandwich. Don't have to make allowances for the day it sat in a refrigerator and the day it spent travelling in my luggage. It was good. 

Here I have to pause and say the sandwich lacked something. Don't know what. I think next time I shall swap the rye bread for an onion roll. The mustard was okay, but I think next time I shall try a different spread. Note that I will not add or subtract anything from the meat. The meat was as close to perfect as it could be. I have eaten tongue many times, and never had I better than that on Dingfelder's sandwich.

Wife enjoyed it. So there's that. 

Beef tongue on rye: A 

+++++ 

The Question you have been waiting for. 

Will I choose Dingfelder's Delicatessen again? 

Yes. In a New York heartbeat. 

If I eat the same things again -- gribenes, latkes, Reuben, Chopped liver on onion roll, Beef tongue (on onion roll this time); borscht (maybe not) -- I will be happy. 

But variety is the spice of life, so next time we shall get the Pastrami. I will still get the chopped liver, because it is SO good. Now, my favorite sandwich is the Reuben and Dingfelder's is the best I have eaten, so keep that in mind when I tell you I want the chopped liver again. 

How much was it, you say? 

IIRC the price on the Reuben was twenty-eight dollars. Steep for a sandwich. 

Was it worth it? Did it give value for the dollar? 

Oh! yes, and then some. And isn't that what matters? 

Want to go on a Wednesday, 'cause I like lentils, or a Friday, 'cause I like cabbage soup. Yeah, really I do. 

Wife wants to see Alaska this summer. All the flights to Anchorage I see have stops in Seattle. Betting chance (2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1) that we will stop and ask Vance Dingfelder for sandwich suggestions. Maybe meet the Unseen Steve. 

Yeah, I say Dingfelder's is a good place to spend your money. If you like great sandwiches, you will go away happy. We did. 

Dingfelder's: Chopped Liver on Onion Roll (Five of six)

 

Link to Dingfelder's Delicatessen. 

An apology.

I took no photos of my food at Dingfelder's deli. My bad. Worse, I found no photos of chopped liver on onion roll on the internet. What you see above is a chopped liver sandwich on the left and onion rolls on the right. Please imagine those together minus the rye bread and the lettuce. 

We sat with Vance and ate our gribenes and latkes, and Vance gave us his mother's chicken soup to sample. I told Vance I wanted to enter my order for sandwiches and asked him for suggestions. He in turn asked for my choices. I answered, "Reuben, chopped liver, and beef tongue." Vance agreed those were good choices and asked what bread I wanted. I said, "Rye for the Reuben, and what do you suggest for the chopped liver and beef tongue?" 

Vance said, "I think the liver is best on an onion roll, but the onion rolls weren't good yesterday. Lemme check and see if they are good today." He stood and disappeared into the kitchen where -- according to legend -- worked the Unseen Steve chopping meat. Vance returned and proclaimed today's onion rolls good. 

Looking back, Vance's concern with the quality of the onion rolls may have been a ruse. Why do I think that? I have searched Dingfelder's online menu and pictures of Dingfelder's menu boards but cannot find any offering of a chopped liver sandwich. Perhaps Vance used the time he alleged to spend checking the quality of the onion rolls to set a price for a choppped liver sandwich and communicate that to Olympia. If he did, I thank him for that courtesy. 

It is called chopped liver, but it looks more like pureed liver. And it all sticks together by some kosher magic. We did not finish the Reuben at the deli and we took the remainder of the Reuben and the chopped liver sandwich back to the hotel to enjoy later. And the tongue sandwich, too. 

Next day, I unwrapped the chopped liver sandwich. The meat that lay between the split onion roll was two fingers thick. I cut the sandwich in two. Surprise, surprise! The liver held together. 

My wife is a professional chef, but she does not like organ meat. Not just liver. She feels the same about heart, kidneys, tripe, brains, and sweetbreads. She knew this was chicken liver, but I persuaded her to sample it anyway. She loved it! Devoured her half and asked for more. Disappointed to find there was no more. 

On the menu or no, I encourage you to order a chopped liver sandwich. On onion roll. Dingfelder's chopped liver sandwich is delicious. 

Chopped liver on onion roll: A++ (This is really, really good!) 

Next: Beef tongue on rye.