Jasmine, Ian, and I made the most of a long weekend to trek out to the McMansion dotted North of New Jersey where the rich Koreans live. We were on the hunt for delicious cold Korean noodles, and we found them too, at Homung Nangmyun in Closter, NJ.
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| Bring on the noodles please. |
Although Homung also serves hot noodles, anybody in the know will opt for the cold kind when it comes to Korean food, especially in the humid, waning days of August. Maybe serving noodles cold is just a better showcase for this unusual and verrrry chewy pasta which is made from sweet potato flour. The Koreans have a thing for the sweet potato, excellent drinks like Soju are also derived from it.
I order the spicy noodles with a sliced boiled beef in the style of brisket but without a morsel of fat. Boiled beef doesn't sound good right? Actually nothing could be farther from the truth. Combined with the spicy peppery sauce and the sour kimchee, the beef was uber tasty.
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| Goki Bibim Nangymunin in the house- an order was $12.45 |
But lets not jump too far ahead. This being a Korean joint, there were bonchon, and pretty tasty ones too.
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| Bonchon included sour Kimchee |
Melt in your mouth potatoes served in a soy sauce and refreshingly pink sour kimchee, basically sauerkraut's more grow up cousin with a snappier texture and a less cloyingly sweet flavor. The salad was just there, just like at every Korean restaurant I have ever been to, but I guess it's time I admitted I really like eating completely nutrition-less iceberg lettuce. They should vitamin enhance this stuff.
They are very serious about cold broth here, and Ian even found a small iceberg in his Goki Mool Nangmyun.
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| Noodle and iceberg still-life |
Still it doesn't look like it detracted from his enjoyment.
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| Sluuuuurp |
We also ordered up some Kimchee Mandoo, they were good but to be honest the Koreans are in third place when it comes to dumplings after the Chinese and the Japanese.
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| Kimchee Mandoo |
Jasmine also loved her veggie version of the spicy noodles. These noodles are very chewy and just feel so nice and refreshing sliding down your throat. Eating cold noodles is much more of a textural experience and the very good cold noodles like these are nice and light. The slightly snappy sour kimchee is also a nice foil to the chewiness of the noodles.
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| All for me? |
After lunch, We hit up the little bakery next door for a frozen taro bubble tea and some chewy almond cookies and began the tasty voyage back home across the Hudson. As Cameron Diaz once famously said, "I travel for cock"... Only we just travel for noodles.
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| I adoringly ogle my noodle baby. |
