As far as I'm concerned, my home borough of Queens is the food capital of New York City, Manhattan be damned. Well, that's not entirely true, but with the exception of Japanese, Queens is the best place in the city to find authentic Asian cuisine ranging from Nepalese and South Indian to Northern Chinese and Korean. Lately I've been asking my Korean dry cleaner for restaurant recommendations. When I dropped off some pants Saturday afternoon and told him that I had a bit too much to drink the prior night, he said I should head over to a spot in Flushing called Budnamujip for a steaming hot bowl of sahm-gyae tahng. He assured me that the ginseng-infused chicken soup would help sweat out my hangover and make me "strong." No doubt this was a backhanded reference to ginseng's reputed effect on male virility.

When I arrived at Budnamujip it was filled with noisy revelers who were well into their cups and would probably be finding themselves in need of some sahm-gyae tahng the next day. When the waitress brought over the bowl it was still boiling. It soon became clear this was no mere chicken and ginseng soup. For one thing, it contained an entire young chicken. The cavity was filled with rice and all sorts of other goodies. The first sip of the blazing hot broth was a tad bland, though this was readily fixed with a few shakes of pepper and a bit of coarse sea salt. As I dug in all sorts of treasures emerged: whole jujubes, or dae chu; bits of chestnut; several cloves of garlic; and a piece of ginseng. By the time I finished picking the chicken clean skin and all and slurping up every last bit of broth, I felt like a new man. So new that I had paranormal abilities and clearly envisioned an article on sahm-gyae tahng's restorative powers by Elaine "One Pot" Louie.

When I asked a gent at the next table whether sahm-gyae tahng, was good for curing hangovers he nodded and laughed. Then he held out his arm with his fist raised in the air and said "makes you strong." If you'd like to try making your own sahm-gyae tahng, here's a great recipe.

When I saw a post on ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal about chitlins my first instinct was to exclaim, "Korean soul food? Say what!" Then I thought about it a little more, and I realized that with its hearty casseroles and stews, Korean cuisine has a lot in common with American soul food. It's just that the above dish of gobchang gui is, how to put this, a bit more soulful than other Korean fare I've encountered.

Technically, they're not chitlins, since they're beef, not pork, intestines. Either way, the dish sounds delicious. Some of you out there might be grossed out by the concept of eating a cow's small intestines. Not me, especially when I read that they taste like bacon and are stuffed with Korean pâté. Drool. To complete the organ meat orgy there was Makchang (sliced large intestine), beef heart and tripe smothered in pâté.

ZKFJ's author is lucky to be based in Korea. I've enjoyed Korean blood sausage in my native Queens, but have yet to encounter what amount to pâté-filled sausages. I gots to get me some gobchang y'all.

I hate to be known as the food blogger who cried weird, but this has got to be one of the stranger ethnic junk foods I've come across. You read that headline right folks. Just look at that packaging, a porcine Gene Kelly hoofing away in top hat and tails accompanied by his own musical score. Sarah, my fellow blogger and West Coast connection to all things Korean, tells me those yellow characters translate to dae bah, or pork bar. For some reason, I'm more comfortable referring to this frozen treat as crunch ice.

There are two types of people when it comes to Crunch Ice, those who are disappointed to learn that it's not a frozen treat composed of cracklin, lardo and boudin noir and those who are relieved. I fall into the latter category, I enjoyed Crunch Ice for what is, a vanilla ice cream pop encased in chocolate crunchies with a strawberry center. I'm pretty sure my dear friend Mr. Cutlets was disappointed to learn that Crunch Ice was not a pork-based frozen confection when I gave him a package for his 40th birthday last week. Ah well, pearls before swine; maybe swine before pearls is more apt in this instance.

Move over Jinro. Doosan, your main competitor in the soju game, just teamed up with one of the big boys, Anheuser-Busch.

Who knows, if all goes well A-B might just make soju a household word. As you might have guessed, the Korean spirit brewed from sweet potatoes and rice, among other things, has long been a household word for me. The crisp spirit is a lower-octane, tastier version of vodka that's the libation of choice for Korean food, barbecue or otherwise.

A-B, will be taking over the distribution of Ku Soju, which is distilled by Doosan. I've tried more than a handful of sojus in my day, but I've never heard of Ku. The article I read makes much of comparing it to such premium vodkas as Belvedere and Chopin. Forget that noise, I want to know how this stuff stands up to a blazing bowl of soon doo-boo jji-gae.

It's another late night here in the Slashfood virtual offices, and as we surf the web as we usually do in our last moments before collapsing into bed, we have come across what we think might be The Food Trend of the Year. At the beginning of this year, all the food fashion forecasters put in their guesses as to what they believe will be the "It" food for the upcoming year, whether it's exotic spices from South Asia being used more commonly in the home kitchen or specific products that will gain some traction. Maybe it will be: Korexican.

That's the fusion of Korean and Mexican, as we see in kalbi tacos from LA food blogger Eat, Drink n B Merry. Some say that "fusion" cuisine was over all the way back when leggings were in style the first time, but leggings have come back, and apparently, so has fusion. At least, it did at a semi-buzzed barbecue in southern California.

Chopped kimchee with kalbi is always delicious, but not sure how it tastes with guacamole!

For this edition of Midnight Snack I decided to crack open probably some of the strangest stuff I've come across in a long time: Fried Chicken Snack and Hot Chicken Snack. Both of these junk food oddities come to the States from Korea's Nong Shim Co.

First a few words about the packaging. While I've taken this photo vertically with shaky late-night hands to better display the "chicken," the boxes open horizontally not unlike a package of takeout fried chicken. That folks is where the resemblance ends, almost. At least the pieces look like fried chicken drumsticks. Each is about an inch long and has a rough surface resembling breading.

But how do they taste? Sooooo very glad you asked. Even though it bears the words "Fried Chicken Taste" on the package this variety tastes only like fried bird because of its crunch and slightly greasy texture. I prefer the hot variety, which again tastes nothing at all like fried chicken, but rather like a wheat-based version of Andy Capp's Hot Fries. But it's all good, I was down a quart of palm oil anyway.

For those of you who think I'm all about junk food, you're right. But don't worry, future editions of Midnight Snack may feature me eating cold leftovers while standing in front of the fridge.

If you live on either coast, or even in the Midwest in a major metropolitan area, you'll have no problem finding an Asian grocery store. Korean-specific markets are a little harder to find, and if you're somewhere where there isn't a huge population of Korean people, well, you might find yourself at a loss when a craving for kimchee strikes. You can make it yourself, or you can click over to koaMart, an online Korean food grocer.

Sure, they do the dry, non-perishable goods like ramen and rice, but they can send perishable goods like tofu and kimchee as well. I've never shopped at the store since I live in Los Angeles, but if I were in say, the mountains of Colorado (or really, really lazy) I might give them a try. Shipping isn't cheap, but hey, when you need your pickled, fermented cabbage, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The idea for a bulgogi burger came to me last summer when I was thinking about entering a burger grill-off/competition. Little did I know that the "Bulgogi Burger" is already a standard menu item on fast food burger joints in Korea. I was slightly disheartened, since my idea wasn't original, and scrapped it for the competition.

But I never forgot about making it myself. I've never actually tried a bulgogi burger in Korea (it's been about 15 years since I've been there), and decided that I didn't want to know how it is made in tha' Motherland. I wanted to come up with my own. Besides, someone also told me that many "Bulgogi Burgers" are not burgers at all - they are real pieces of bulgogi slapped between the buns. Who knows? I didn't care.

It's the tail end of the Mother's Day weekend, and I didn't get to spend a single second with Mom. She' s still overseas visiting her Mom, so our celebration of Mom will occur when she returns.

So while everyone else was busy cleaning the house, serving Mom breakfast in bed, making brunch for the whole family, or getting ready to take Mom out to dinner, I was spending time just thinking about Mom and home. I started thinking about the foods that Mom used to make for me and my sisters when we were little - some of it is forgettable, as I'm sure at some point my Mom tried to make us eat something that I've chosen to block out of my memory, but most of it is stuff that I will forever associate with my childhood, homes in various cities as we moved all over the country, and of course, Mom. The woman who cooked it and put it on the table for us.

Korean bulgogi is made with thinly sliced ribeye or other beef, but the same marinade, with a slight modification, can be used on chicken.

Simply take the same marinade you use for bulgogi (soy sauce, broth, rice wine vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic, onion, shallots, sesame oil) and about 1-2 Tbsp. goh-cho-jahng (Spicy Korean red pepper paste) for every half cup of marinade. Let thinly sliced pieces of chicken marinate for an hour, up to overnight in the refrigerator, then grill, pan-fry, or broil the same way for bulgogi.

Will wonders at the Korean market never cease?! Sahm-gyae-tahng (that's my spelling, but others may Romanize it differently) is a Korean chicken soup made by boiling a whole young chicken that is stuffed with sweet rice, ginseng, and Korean dates (jujubes). It supposed to simmer for a long time on the stove top to draw all the nutrients out of the chicken's meat and bones, so it's supposedly served as a "healing" soup.

At the market, I came across sahm-gyae-tahng all ready to go in a bag - rice, dried ginseng, Korean dates, and even the seasonings. All you have to do is add a chicken and follow the directions on the package. Kind of like those Hormel add-your-own meat mixes.

Few things help me to kick the winter blues better than a steaming hot mini-cauldron of soon doo-boo jji-gae, or Korean silken tofu stew. And, truth be told, I've also counted upon its therapeutic effects to chase away many a hangover. Some may balk at the idea of silken tofu stew as inherently boring and probably envision a pale porridge. But soon doo-boo is anything but boring.

The tofu itself consists of rich, creamy curds bobbing in a reddish orange broth that's spiked with plenty of red pepper. I’ve seen people order the mild version and that does resemble a boring porridge. At the other extreme lies "very spicy," which I have tried only once. I have no desire to do so again, not that I'm a wimp when it comes to heat. It was just too hot. "Spicy" is just perfect for me. There are several varieties, including vegetarian, seafood and intestine. I have not had the fortitude to try that last, but I am quite fond of "suh-kuh," combination soon doo-boo. Clams, shrimp, mussels, beef and mushrooms make for a heady mix when combined with the nutritious homemade tofu. Crack an egg into the bubbling stew and you’re one step closer to shaking off that winter hangover.

The other day, on a whim, I took my whole family to the Melting Pot, an outlet of the U.S. fondue chain. I was in the mood for quality fried food, and what's more quality than food you fry yourself, in oil only you've used? ("I think we'll have the Bourguignonne, or however you say it," I told our 20-year-old waiter, scraping up my best guess at its pronunciation. "Wow, that took me nine days of training to learn!" he said.)

As I was frying up tempura zuchhini and beef tenderloin au natur on the little hotplate in the center of our table, I remembered a Koreatown restaurant with mini copper hoods that descended when it was time to start frying. And I thought: I want one of these tables!

So my wishlist for my future kitchen is begun. The dining room will have a traditional table, but my "breakfast nook" will have its very own grill, with a mini hood. I'm sure it will cost thousands - so my future kitchen is FAR in the future. Now all I need to do is figure out where to get the hardware. Am I going to have to go to a restaurant supply distributor or are these in-table grills available commercially? Anyone ever installed one?

If you didn't already know about it, then you know about Korean barbecue now with all of my posting about how Korean will be the new "it" cuisine this year. Korean barbecue restaurants serve raw, marinated meats, and diners cook the meat themselves at the table over a gas or charcoal grill that is usuall embedded in the table. Galbee (marinated beef shortribs), bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated flank steak), dae-jee bulgogi (spicy marinated pork) - these are all Korean barbecue meats.

But you don't have to restrict yourself to Korean restaurants for Korean barbecue. Japanese restaurants also serve their version of Korean barbecue and call it "yakiniku." They keep the same principle of grilling at the table and the same basic marinade for the meats. The Japanese restaurants add their own flair with fancier grills and different types of things to cook over the grill. Korean barbecue traditionally grills only meats with an occasional sliced onion or mushooms and get their vegetables from bahnchan. Japanese add vegetables to the grill - sometimes directly on the grill, or in small foil packets with butter.

In LA, Gyu-kaku and Manpuku are the only strictly yakiniku restaurants I've tried. Places like Musha in Santa Monica and Torrance serve yakiniku style items as part of a widely varied menu.

January 29 may be the debut of the Year of the Dog, but I'm quite certain that 2006 will be the Year of Korean Food. It's going to be my personal mission this year to see that red (pepper) will be the new black, Korean barbecue will be the Asian answer to South Beach, and kimchee will be right up there with salsa and sauerkraut. 

If you look on the bottom shelf, toward the back, of any Korean kitchen refrigerator, you will find at least one large jar of kimchee. A house full of Koreans can eat through jar after jar of kimchee, but there may be times when a jar of kimchee lasts a little longer than usual, resulting in kimchee that has pickled to a point that makes even a hard core Korean pucker. The kimchee hasn't gone bad (I doubt that it ever does, with all that salt and red pepper), but it's a little too sour to serve straight up. There are a lot of things to make with over-ripe kimchee. Kimchee jji-gae ("jj" is pronounced somewhere between "j" and "ch") is one of my favorites. Jji-gae is a general Korean term that is similar to a stew served in a hot pot.

Like Mario Batali explains that recipes for the exact same thing varying from house to house in Italy, so does the recipe for kimchee jji-gae differ from one Korean family to the next. Traditionally, kimchee jji-gae is made with pork (that's what my family does), but some use beef, some use Spam (which I just cant bring myself to categorize under "pork"), and others leave their kimchee jji-gae vegetarian and add tofu or nothing at all. You can adjust just about everything in the recipe below from my family.