I love kimchi! I make my own kimchi. I prefer it on the slightly less fermented (and stinky) side, though it’s delightful after the bubbles form and it’s oh-so-slightly fizzy in your mouth!
Another kimchi lover here.
I teach Taekwondo. We’re coming up on our annual trip to Korea Garden restaurant for our rite of passage. All the new students have to eat kimchi. You can’t be a true Taekwondo student without experiencing the joy that is kimchi.
Gimme some bulgogi or bibim bap and a big bowl of kimchi and I am as happy as a clam in mud!
Hm, I’ve never had radish kimchi. Given that my problem with regular kimchi is that it tastes too cabagey, the radish version might be pretty good.
So, the stuff they sell at Super H Mart is pretty good? I just made a batch today, but I’m wondering if I should have just bought it instead. I have no idea if the kimchi in the korean grocery is quality or not.
I’m with you. Have never noticed anything special about the smell (and this thread has given me some ideas about what to cook tonight).
I like it. The stuff they make in house is good and is sold in little plastic bags or containers. As a plus you can get tons of other stuff like pickled garlic, radishes, I think I remember seeing green beans, scallions, and cucumber as well.
Really a nice selection of banchan. The only problem I’ve has is that sometimes when I ask the grocer about an item he’ll try to talk me out of it - “That’s for Korean people, you won’t like it”.
From the semester of Korean I took in college, I got the distinct impression that the Koreans really don’t distinguish between a hard G and K, phonetically. I got into the habit of using hard K’s when referring to American things (Kunsan Air Base) and hard G’s when referring to Korean things (the city of Gunsan, located just far enough from Kunsan that you pretty much have to spend money on cab or bus fare if you want to go off base).
Also, Kimchi is great, but definitely an acquired taste. I miss Korean food.
Kimchi is great, but yeah, it does have an, ah, distinctive aroma. I classify it with a lot of other foods, OK to eat at home or in a restaurant of that ethnicity, but not OK to eat at lunchroom next to other people who may find the smell off-putting.
Seriously? I thought the poster above you was just joking, as that’s probably the most notorious attribute of kimchi.
Thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to try the radish variety when I make kimchi stew in a couple of weeks. Is their stuff usually already a couple weeks old when they sell it?
I never asked. I’m sure if you ask they’ll point you in the right direction.
Back in my college days I was crashing on a friend’s couch. I was woken in the morning by my body convulsively gagging, from the smell of the kimchi being prepared in the next room by my friend’s Korean girlfriend.
My first thought was that a sewage pipe had burst somewhere in their complex.
Hands down the most vile odor that has ever assaulted my nose.
Yeah, it kind of boggles my mind that people say they don’t notice the smell. I don’t have a great sense of smell and I love stinky foods (perhaps because of it), but kimchi definitely has a distinct aroma you can smell across the house. Maybe people are eating very young, very mild kimchi.
Assuming your house is the size of Flushing…
To be honest, it never struck me as a particularly offensive smell, either. It has a really strong smell of cabbage, and I’d definitely know it if I smell it, and I’m not eager to eat it, but I’d hardly say that it stinks.
I don’t think the smell is bad at all. I’ve had traditional kimchi (home made by a Korean) and thought it was one of the most delicious things I’d ever eaten.
Well, perhaps my sense of smell isn’t as bad as I thought. I love kimchi, as well, but it stinks to high heaven. Just like cooking sauerkraut stinks up the joint, although kimchi is a good bit more pungent. I mean, this really is odd to me. I like the smell of kimchi, too, but it friggin stinks. Just google “kimchi smell” and see what pops up.
I love kimchi. I’ve even made it myself several times, but like bread, while homemade is best, it’s easier to simply buy it.
My only rule is no kimchi for breakfast.
Yes. Talking about “kimchi” is like talking about “cheese”. There’s many varieties, many recipes.
One of my favorites has little thumbnail-sized crabs fermented with everything else. They add a little juicy crunch to the kimchi.
The “smell” comes from the seafood sauces that are added to kimchi to increase the umami. In the bottle, those smell vile to me, but when mixed into food they taste great. I think the fermented veggies combined with the fishiness can trigger the complaints about odor.
To me, it’s not too difference from smelling the ocean. To me (from Ohio and never seeing the ocean until I was about 30), ocean smells like dead fish and seaweed. Very disgusting. Now I’m in SoCal and go to the beach often. I still smell the same odors, but it’s not as bad.
The South Korean government finally settled on one official romanization in the run-up to the World Cup that was jointly hosted by them and Japan. They updated a lot of traffic signs then, mostly where they expected foreigners to go. Once you get out into the country, it’s a mixed bag of romanization.
Personal and family names are still often romanized in traditional or non-standard ways.
Actually, it’s Americans that have trouble distinguishing the K/G sounds.
American English has two: an unvoiced, aspirated K, and a voiced, unaspirated G. Korean has three: an unvoiced, aspirated ㅋ (K), an unvoiced, unaspirated ㄱ (G), and a voiced, unaspirated ㄲ (KK). The first and the last are close enough to American English sounds, but the middle one is problematic. I’m just at the point that I can hear the differences, but I cannot reliably speak it.
I guess it depends on the home it is made in. My wife made some and it wasn’t great to eat. However, it was excellent in Kimchi fried rice…much, much better than regular Kimchi.
Regular Kimichi Fried rice is only OK, but my wife’s was amazing. But for Kimchi on its own, I would eat store bought.
Hm, this might account for it: The Korean restaurant I used to frequent didn’t use any seafood sauce in it, just the fermented cabbage. At least, I don’t think they did.
The smell is just the fermentation. The shrimp and garlic and all that make it all the more pungent, but come on. If you’ve made your own sauerkraut or pickles (which, yes, I understand most people don’t do these days), you know that fermentation smell. That’s a good bit of the kimchi smell that people find objectionable.