Oh It's Such a Perfect Day

Husband and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day.  Instead, we have our own celebration of our love on February 21st, because that is the day Husband proposed to me.  And so, every year after the hubbub of Valentine's has died down, and we've helped everyone else through their holidays, we get our own.  We took the day off, and Husband even volunteered to go to Ladies Eighties at Skully's, something I love and he hates.  I let him off the hook for that one, but I did request we go to Diaspora for lunch.  I went there when they first opened, and have begged him to go back with me ever since.

It's quite possible Diaspora is the most beautiful restaurant in the (North) Campus area.  In a sea of divey, cockroach-covered holes, Diaspora is awash in soothing colors, with a soaring ceiling, giant light-allowing windows, and lots of paper lanterns:

Although they sell pig's feet as an entree (I was sure Husband would choose those), we both settled on the Dol Sot Bi Bim Bop, a Korean favorite consisting of a rocket-hot stone pot wherein rice is topped with beef, vegetables, and an egg.  It's the perfect thing for the cold, snowy day we were having yesterday.

One of the charms of dining in a Korean restaurant is the panchan, the little gratis plates of kimchee, pickles, fishcake, and whatnot which arrive at your table when you order.  Typically, if there is one item of which you are particularly fond, you can request an additional plate.  At Diaspora, our panchan consisted of 7 plates - seaweed salad, fish cake (my second favorite, below, lower right), the potato in a sweet sauce (favorite favorite; above, lower right), standard cabbage kimchee, daikon kimchee, a funny little potato salad with cucumbers and apples, and a tasty, great-textured tofu in chili sauce.  I love these little nibbles, and it's always fun to see what you're going to get.

Now, on to the bi bim bop (below).  There's the aforementioned stone pot, with a nice mound of rice.  Artfully displayed over the top of the rice are a variety of vegetables and meat - ground beef, carrots, mung bean sprouts, mushrooms, daikon, what I think are some sort of pickled fiddlehead, and slivers of toasted nori (seaweed), and of course, a raw egg (my favorite part).  I believe the proper way to eat this deliciousness is to add the mild chili sauce provided (Diaspora gives you a dish of chili sauce and a squeeze bottle of sesame oil) and stir the entire mixture together, (the heat kind of cooks the egg as it coats everything, making a sauce) and then eat it with a spoon.  I'm addicted to eating with chopsticks, so I only lightly stir, cover everything with salt (alas) and eat with chopsticks.

As a sidenote - and of course, I can't remember my source on this, but I've read that Korean cooking doesn't include a lot of salt, so one adds salt when eating.  It goes against my nature to add salt to Asian food, but here I have to.  And, I can't eat an egg yolk without salt.

The rice which maintains contact gets a nice crunchy texture which can be enjoyed throughout the eating of the hotpot and at the end.  I know it's probably completely gauche, but I like to add a pinch of leftover miso soup to the very end of the rice (very crunchy by now) and then eat it with a spoon.

I love Diaspora.  In fact, I would go back again today given half the chance.

A perfect day should include eating with chopsticks (check), going home to find Netflix delivered the next disc of Alias (check) and to find that your new shoes came days earlier than expected (check) and a nap (check).  And then, it should include a super cool event, such as Pecha Kucha (check), and then another meal with chopsticks and something I've never eaten before, such as a Snapper's head (check):

So, it was a Perfect Day, Husband.  (wait for it) I'm glad I spent it with you.

Info:  Diaspora Korean Restaurant 2118 N. High St (just south of Lane) 614.458.1141 Bonus - open late on the weekends.

Comments

[Johaun]

Many of my friends here are korean, and i've often lamented to them how much i wish their parents would open up a good, reasonably priced korean restaurant here in columbus. this has always been nagging me: why is it that chinese restaurants can consistently dish out outstanding food for a LOT less $$$ than korean restaurants? generally speaking, korean restaurants are pretty over-priced. thus, my plea to my friends' parents (who make great kalbi and chop chae). i digress... the only thing my friends get at Diaspora is their jam bong: an ENORMOUS bowl of spicy, seafoody, noodley goodness. otherwise, best korean in columbus has to be Silla on Henderson, imo.

[Johaun]

Many of my friends here are korean, and i've often lamented to them how much i wish their parents would open up a good, reasonably priced korean restaurant here in columbus. this has always been nagging me: why is it that chinese restaurants can consistently dish out outstanding food for a LOT less $$$ than korean restaurants? generally speaking, korean restaurants are pretty over-priced. thus, my plea to my friends' parents (who make great kalbi and chop chae). i digress... the only thing my friends get at Diaspora is their jam bong: an ENORMOUS bowl of spicy, seafoody, noodley goodness. otherwise, best korean in columbus has to be Silla on Henderson, imo.

[Ed]

Diaspora is pretty good, definitely has a beautiful interior. In response to Mark, I'd say the menu at Min Ga on Bethel Road is a little more extensive (though the dining room at Diaspora is prettier). Food is pretty comparable at both places.

Those potatoes (panchan) that you like are really easy to make. Basically you peel and slice regular potatoes into 1 - 2 inch pieces. Then you put them in a saucepan filled with about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of vegetable oil. Mix together a few teaspoons of sugar into some soy sauce and then pour that into the oil at the bottom of the pan. You can add a few teaspoons of sesame oil for flavor too (but don't try to cook the potatoes with just the sesame oil because the flavor will be overpowering and the sesame oil will burn unless you cut it with vegetable oil). Then cook over medium heat for about 20 min or so - until the potatoes are nice and soft. Shake the pan every once in a while to make sure the potatoes get evenly coated.

The potatoes just kind of suck up the soy sauce/sugar mixture out of the cooking oil. You can always start with a small amount and add more depending on how sweet (sugar) or salty (soy sauce) you want it to be. You can cook other starchy veggies this way too (carrots, etc) but it works best with plain old potatoes. You can add garlic and ginger for flavor, but I think it works best with just sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Oh, and mixing soup into the cracked bits of rice at the bottom of the bowl is not gauche at all. At some restaurants in korea, the waitresses will actually bring kettles to the table at the end of the meal and pour hot water into the bowls to soften up the crackly bits of rice stuck to the bottom of the bowl. When I was a kid, that was my favorite part.

I'm new to Columbus and really enjoy reading your blog. Hope this is helpful.

[Mark]

How does it compare with other Korean restaurants in town, like Kaya or Min-Ga?

[Bear]

Glad you're so fond of Diaspora -- one of my favorite places in the campus area by far. The spicy octopus is really, really delicious! And for culinary thrill-seekers, it's hard to pass up the dish whose English translation is simply "pupae." (For the curious: they're silkworm pupae, they taste a bit like fish but sweeter, they're perfectly edible, and the most off-putting part is getting exoskeleton caught in your teeth....) But pupae aside, the kim chee is delicious, the octopus is great, etc., etc. Very worthwhile place to go.

[Emily]

Did you happen to notice if there was anything vegetarian-friendly on the menu? I'd like to check it out but I didn't know anyone who'd gone yet until you!