Koreatown New York Food Crawl + Mushroom Recipes

This is super cool what you're using right here. It's like a gigantic pair of eyebrow tweezers. I might just have to take care of any loose ends I got a little later. What's going on everybody? Welcome to a special Korean episode of Fung Bros Food. We are here with special chef guest Shin from Banchan Story and we got a special video for you. Now I know a lot of people are familiar with K-pop, K-dramas, but what about K-mush? Well K-mush is a lot of mushrooms from Korea. They're high protein, high antioxidants, and low in calories. Could we call it the vegetarian's protein? Yeah definitely and also known as meat of the mountain. Chef Shin is going to be teaching us the top three best Korean mushroom recipes and then we're going to be going on a food crawl around New York's K-town to try other Korean mushroom dishes. We're not just talking about Korean barbecue, this is K-mush. I got three dishes today. First one is bulgogi with enoki mushrooms. You know for those of you who don't like mushrooms, this is a great introduction to mushrooms because enoki mushrooms are so delicate and mild with a little bit of fruity flavor to it. So this is a great way to start. Well and a little starter mushroom. Yes exactly. Just like a starter pack mushroom. Just remember we just got to fully cook them and they are about to be the meat of the mountain. So I just added and you're hearing the sizzling right? So we just want to... I can already smell it. It just smells umami. I can't even taste it yet but the umami is wafting into the nasal cavities. The bulgogi meat is already cooked with onion slices and some scallions. So we're just going to add that here to warm it up. By cooking with the rest of the ingredients, the enoki mushrooms are really soaking in the flavor of the rest of the ingredients. Previously people would have called this bulgogi with enoki but maybe after this we could shift it to enoki with bulgogi. Right. So we're shifting the focus. What if we called it bulnoki? Now the japchae. So japchae is a very traditional festive dish. Anniversaries, birthdays, weddings but it's also now become an everyday dish in Korea and we're using all three mushrooms here. We're using enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, and also fresh shiitake mushrooms. When you were saying the names between the enoki and king mushroom, basam is at the end. Does basam mean mushroom? Is that mushroom? Yes, that means mushroom. This is such a good looking mushroom. This is a k-grade k-mush. This is a k-grade k-mush. This is super cool what you're using right here. It's like a gigantic pair of eyebrow tweezers. I might just have to take care of any loose ends I got a little later. We have this japchae already ready to go. We're going to heat this up with the mushrooms. So the glass noodles are made with sweet potato starch. You just need to, they come in dry form, you just need to boil them in water for about six to eight minutes in high heat. Now we're moving on to round three. This is the burger. Very excited about this because these are more traditional Korean dishes and then the burger is going to be a more, you know, modern take on things but you're going to be able to incorporate the k-mush beautifully. There is a simple way to, you know, add Korean textures and flavors into your regular burger and it just gives you a flavor bomb. We're using king oyster mushrooms and we have this cut into the discus. This is the discus throw. Coins perhaps. Why are you choosing to use the king oyster mushroom in this dish in particular? It has a very meaty texture to it. Just the right degree of this, you know, like soft chewy texture. You know, there's a sesame oil, soy sauce, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of honey and we're gonna let that cook. Oh my god, can you smell this? That's crazy. Unbelievable. We're cooking the mushrooms and let the mushrooms soak in this amazing flavor. All right, so we're gonna assemble it together. So what makes it a K-style mushroom burger? So we saute the king oyster mushroom rounds or coins as you say and this is gochujang aioli. So gochujang with a little bit of a spicy heat and a little tang. I love how gochujang mixes well. You know, it's like a sriracha aioli but then, you know, you got the gochujang. A little bit of sweet and like a little pasty. A little heat. Yeah, a little heat. A little fermented. Yep. And this burger patty also has chopped up shiitake mushrooms in here so that adds a little bit of texture to the meat patty. All right, now that will top off. Oh, that's lit. Wow. That's lit. What I love about the shape of that is that they lay flat so you can stack it up. Yes. So now you see why we cut it this way. So it soaks up all the flavor and it lands nicely on the burger. Man, I'm excited. And we have some friends over here also enjoying it. Hi, I'm Danika. You guys ready to add, you know, K-Rap. You got K-Pop. You got K-Dramas. Could we add in K-Mush into that lexicon? Absolutely. One of the best japchae I've had. Honestly. I like the texture, honestly. I'm not gonna lie. I've been trying to cut out meat so it's a really good replacement. It's so funny because, you know, until you see something like Shin explained to us, you don't really notice it. And this whole time I've been eating japchae, I never noticed the backdrop of umami that the mushrooms really provide. All right, you guys, we're going with the enoki bulgogi. To me, you know, obviously this is bulgogi enoki, but I think I'm gonna go with enoki bulgogi. This bulgogi is from Soju House. Shout out to Soju House. This is a dish that you can get at Soju House. Exactly. Bulgogi. Wow. Seems like that blew you guys out the water. What are you guys feeling right now? Heaven. It's so good. The flavor alone is spot on. The mushrooms are essentially, like we said, and we've iterated before, it's like another meat. K-Mush burger! Like the mushrooms just complement it so well. This, this just hits. I think actually the mushroom being incorporated into the patty was big for me too. And on top of that, kind of the sweetness, but it's not like a, it's not like a candy sweet. That sweetness that came from kind of the caramelization of the mushroom. So the gochujang aioli too. All right, you guys, that was amazing. We just left Soju House, but we got to try K-Mush Korean mushrooms at other spots in New York's Koreatown. And we are outside of one of the most famous Korean barbecue spots in all of K-Town, New York, Jongro BBQ. I'm so excited to eat here. And they got a whole bunch of other Korean mushroom dishes that we didn't have. So we got to check them out. Dude, I'm on a K-Mushroom vibe right now. And you know, the thing is you can eat a lot of mushrooms and it's healthy for you. You're All right. So the food is coming out here at Jongro, and it's amazing. We got a lot of beef and we got a lot of mushrooms, but we got the waitress Alicia here. She's going to describe to us and explain what is going on and how people order this. This is our mushroom platter. There's a shiitake, oyster mushroom, king oyster, that's gnocchi, and then button, and that's Koreabang. Each mushroom has their own flavor. So it actually goes very well with the meat. So there's a house soy sauce seasoning that's already on the mushrooms here at Jongro. I'm not even lying. No cap. These are some of my favorite mushrooms in the entire world, all on one plate. And I'm getting them with short rib. All right, you guys, the king oyster mushrooms are ready to eat here at Jongro. When I was young, I wouldn't order the mushrooms. And I don't know what I was missing out on. Because when you get older, your taste buds become more sophisticated, your palate, your spectrum of experience is larger. You need the mushrooms. All right, I'm going on a triple mushroom medley, all mushroom, no meat. I got my gnocchi, king oyster, and shiitake. My favorite combo is the brisket gnocchi because the gnocchi gives a lot of texture and brisket is really thin and soft. All right, so our next spot is Maze. It's a bar that's been around in K-Town for about six years. And we're about to try some other Korean mushroom dishes. Let's go up. All right, you guys, we're on floor three here at the Maze in Koreatown. And we are looking at K-Mushrooms in a fusion dish between Korean and Mexican. Will, tell us about it. Yeah, this is one of our signature menu, bulgogi fajita. Bulgogi means marinated beef. And then we just combine Mexican and the tortilla, the guacamole, and the Korean garbage. Yo, and I'll tell you this, Mexican-Korean fusion really works. Those two flavors, they tend to like balance each other out a lot. We are looking at the king oyster mushrooms with the bulgogi. We are about to be putting this with sour cream, guac. All types of mushrooms. There we go. Korean mushroom fajitas here at the Maze. It works with the sour cream. You get a little jalapeno, a little guac, a little bit of sour cream, and the bulgogi, of course, with the king oyster mushroom. The mushrooms, they do a really good job of soaking up the rest of the seasoning and the flavors and even a little bit of spice of the jalapeno. So this is hitting. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching that video. Big shout out to AT New York and K-Mush. Was it kind of crazy to just only focus on mushrooms this video, but like you just really saw the range of it? To be in Koreatown, we're on the first floor, second floor, third floor. There's so many people in the streets here. Go get some K-Mush. Gnocchi, shiitakes, king oysters. When we were thinking about Korean food, you're not always thinking about mushrooms first. You're thinking about K-Barbecue and stuff, but they're growing some very tasty and meaty mushrooms up there in the mountains of Korea right now, guys. So definitely go to your local Korean market, check them out. We're on 32nd Street, New York Koreatown between Broadway and 5th Ave. I feel like I'm in Seoul right now. It's an amazing vibe. Come check it out. Let's walk.