It’s almost as good as sex. 
Kiminy and the little Igors went shopping at an oriental food store today, and came back with kim chi. I was first introduced to kim chi in college by a cute Korean/American girl, and have been on a quest ever since for the best kim chi available in the US.
So, who wants to try some kim chi from a freshly opened jar?
Vlad/Igor
I like it when it’s stinky and gives you a nice fizzy feeling in your mouth. Mmmm. Thanks for whetting my appetite, Vlad. Now I need to make a kimchi run.
My aunt (by marriage) has a Korean sister-in-law and one time brought by some kimchee that she had been given but didn’t want. Being curious, I took a bite and almost fell over from the heat of it but I liked the flavor so I kept eating it gingerly for the next hour or so until it was gone. For a couple years after that, I got a bowl of it every time she came back from visiting them on the holidays but it’s been years since I’ve had any. Would love to have some again.
Triskadecamus brought a large jar to Gettysdope I last summer. Yum! 
Wow, I eat kim chi almost everyday, so it’s hard for me to see what’s so great about it. But all my non-Korean friends seem to love it. I love home-made kim chi more than the kim chi you eat at restaurants. My female adult relatives don’t trust the kim chi you can buy at the local Korean grocery store, so they make huge containers of it. My mother said she’ll pass on the secret of making fabulous kim chi to me one day. :dubious:
I really, really don’t like it. Nasty cabbagey stuff. I don’t like cabbage.
I tried to make it once, and even bought ko chu ka su, but it looked horrible in the jar, and I never opened it. Secondary to finding the best kim chi, I’ve also tried bul go gi whenever I have run across it, also looking for the best. I’ve really come to appreciate Korean cuisine over the years, and even learned to read the alphabet so I knew what to look for (but I don’t know Korean otherwise).
Vlad/Igor
Kin chi is wonderful. There used to be a little Korean restaurant on Fireweed St. in Anchorage, Alaska that had the best kimchi imaginable. We always got a takeout order to pack on our camping trips, because the stench of our sweat kept away the mosquitos (and the bears!) The only catch is that both people in the tent had to eat it, because otherwise there would be…problems.
So what is it like, spicy sauerkraut? I usually love cabbage (sauerkraut, cole slaw, stuffed cabbage, corned beef and cabbage), but I’m unfamiliar with Korean food and the types of spices they use. Could I get some kimchi at a normal supermarket?
The stuff I’ve found in stores is always pretty bad, unless it comes from a small Oriental grocery store. I prefer mine a bit fresher, not quite so, umm… ripe. Nothing beats my mom’s that comes from the little stone jars. Of course, it smells so bad we have to keep it in a special kimchi fridge in the garage, but it’s more than worth it. dare_devil007_, do you have one of these fridges? Our’s isn’t a true kimchi fridge in that it isn’t from Korea (my mom insists that somehow the true kimchi fridge is better), but it’s where we store anything that smells.
There are many different kinds of Kim chee. I like kimchi made from cucumbers too. and from moo (gak du gi), but I’ll be damned if I have any idea what the word for that is in English. It looks like a radish. I think it’s the same thing as dakwong, but I could be wrong.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Kimchi
There’s a typical version of it.
My friend’s mom makes the best kim chee. Once when I visited her, her mom gave me a jar to bring home. She sealed it up super tight and wrapped so that it wouldn’t break in my carry on bag.
Well.
1/2 way throught the flight, I guess the pressure popped the lid open.
:eek:
At first the oder was faint but by the time the plane landed, it was full on. I put my coat on top of my bag to try and cover the smell. In the mean time, everyone was sniffing and saying they smelled garlic.
I felt so bad about that!
I’m not a kimchi fan, but I have it on Ultimate Authority (viz, Triskadecamus) that the second-best kimchi in America is made in Annandale, VA – I forget where the best is, but it’s nowhere in MAD country.
Me too. I like certain kinds well enough, but there are some that I can take or leave. My mother-in-law’s is my favorite–which is fortunate, since she provides most of our kimchi needs.
Some is a bit spicy, but not so much. The ubiquitous spices in Korean food are ground red pepper and vinegar, and although I like that combination, it can get a little tiresome.
The thing about some kinds of kimchi is the smell. It’s popular in Korea these days to have a separate refrigerator for kimchi, since even Korean people agree that the stuff stinks up everything else in the fridge, at least when stored in the quantities that most families consume. Kimchi doesn’t smell bad, but it isn’t a smell that I want mixed in with my milk.
Nope, I don’t think so. We just keep the stuff in huge containers in the fridge. In fact, I’ve never heard of this kim chi fridge before. I’ll ask my mom about it.
What are good brands of Kim Chi that I might find in asian supermarkets?
I like Kim Chi when it is spicy enough that you don’t realize you are eating cabbage, specially when there are nice hints of garlic and other flavours in there.
I have yet to find a single brand that is consistently good. Usually your best bet is to ask the ajooma (woman) or ajushi (man) if the kimchi is good or not. If you like very strong flavors (usually spicier too), you want it to be ripened longer, and if you just like crunchy, almost cabbagey stuff, you want as fresh as you can get. If they don’t really understand what you are saying, then you’re probably in the good Asian market. If everybody other customer there is Asian and speaking in another language with the owners, then you’re probably in the best.
My freshman year of college, there was a Korean exchange student in the dorm. He would eat kimchi and it would stick up the entire dorm. It was awful. That is, til the time I followed the smell to find out exactly what kimchi was. He offered me some and it was delicious! How something that tastes so good can smell so bad is beyond me.
It would stink up the dorm, too.
Well I bought a little jar from the produce case at Albertson’s today… not exactly from a neighborhood Asian market, but I’m looking forward to trying it anyway. The SDMB is always getting me to try new things!