I am a food adventurer (unless it means eating animal guts or unidentifiable parts or fluids) and LOVE when I get to try a new-to-me food, as I did when I was last in Seoul. The sign sitting next to the dish said “Deodeok.” It was coated in a very spicy and tasty red pepper sauce. The texture was somewhere in between pineapple and pork. I looked it up afterward. It was Grilled Deodeok, or, Deodeok gui, AKA Mountain Meat, a Korean traditional vegetarian dish. “The aroma of wild Deodeok (bonnet bellflower root) can be sensed even from a great distance. Sweet and pleasantly bitter, it is claimed that wild Deodeok grows on dewdrops in the mountainsides. Deodeok is rich in fiber and has earned the nickname ‘mountain meat’ because of its firm, chewy texture. In China, deodeok has been used purely as a medicinal herb, but Koreans have used it mostly for cooking.” Not bitter at all. Nom nom. I loved it!
I’ll stick to egg foo yung