Hello K-poppers,


I have been thinking, eating, breathing, dreaming, living Korean food all week, because that is what the third week the K-pop Academy has been about.

For this weeks homework I picked assignment c: pretend like you are preparing a meal for your favourite k-pop star and make a menu.

There are quite a few K-pop stars, but there are only two I really really like: SHINee's Taemin and BIGBANG's G-Dragon. Asking me to chose between them is like torture to me. I can't make that decision to safe my life. So I thought about it rationally for a while and figured that, if I really was to cook for one of them, I would prefer it to be G-Dragon, simply because I would feel a little awkward being in a date-like situation with someone as young as Taemin (though I do really like him a lot).


Research

So making a meal for G-Dragon it is. But what kind of food does he like? To find out I simply typed into Google search "G-Dragon favourite food" and I noticed there were three dishes that were mentioned quite frequently: ochazuke, pho, beef and fried rice.

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, usually served with beef or chicken. The soup includes noodles made from rice and is often served with Asian basil, mint leaves, lime, and bean sprouts.

Ochazuke is a simple Japanese dish made by pouring green tea, dashi, or hot water over cooked rice, usually with savoury toppings.

The assignment didn't specifically say that the dishes had to be Korean, but since I'm making it as a part of the K-pop academy program of the Korean Culture Center, making sure that the dish is Korean is the bare minimum I could do. Luckily for me I found a recipe of a Korean version for Ochuzuke. Nice!

I did some more research about various Korean dishes I remembered from when I was in Korea and came up with the following menu:

Starters

Ochazuke (GD fav.)

Gimbap

Rolled Omelet

Main Course

Kimchi Fried Rice (GD fav.)

Bulgogi (GD fav.)

Omerice (GD fav.)

Desserts

Chocolate Green Tea Cupcake

Pot Bing Soo

Iced Green Tea Latte

I also did some research about what kind of drinks G-Dragon likes and found out the answer is 'Casablanca' beer and the Korean soft drink 'Sunny10'.

Casablanca beer

Sunny10

Apparently G-Dragon really likes this stuff as he posted about it on his me2day.

But also Soju should be on the list since it's typically Korean.

Let's get Cooking!

Now I menu had an idea of what the menu should be like I was eager to try it. I wanted to see if I could actually pull it of. For those who don't know me, normally I can't cook to safe my life, and therefore I usually try to spend the least amount of time in the kitchen as humanly possible, so this was totally out of my comfort zone. Still I went to the local toko in Almere, the Netherlands (I spend last weekend at my hometown ^^), bought all the ingredients and spend more than 5 hours in the kitchen. It was a new world for me, but a surprisingly fun and tasty one!


The results
(I put links to the recipes I used underneath the pictures for those who want to have a go themselves.)

Starters

Ochazuke: http://www.koreaforniancooking.com/2011/07/secret-recipe-club-ochazuke-with.html

Gimbap: recipe from Mrs. Kie Jo

Gimbap Sauce: recipe from Mrs. Kie Jo

Rolled Egg: http://koreanfood.about.com/od/sidedishesbanchan/ss/GaeranMariStep_7.htm

Main Courses

Bulgogi: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-bulgogi/

Egg Fried Rice: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/kimchi-fried-rice-recipe.html

Omerice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTf5EgVY5uU


Desserts

Chocolate Green Tea Cupcake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNVgg9RNNs

Pot Bing Soo: http://michunya.blogspot.com/

Iced Green Tea Latte (with Pepero sticks): http://www.food.com/recipe/matcha-green-tea-smoothie-or-iced-latte-133955

The Assignment

I wanted to create a menu that not just contained the food G-Dragon likes, but also reflects him a little bit (or at least how I see him).

G-Dragon is a very stylish guy and his look is always quite bold and colourful. I did some research about restaurant menu templates and found one which I think would fit his style quite well.

It's a Japanese sushi menu with a dark background, which helps the images to stand out. I think it looks rather stylish.

I tried to base my menu onto this menu and add something I will also associate G-Dragon with: one of my favourite songs, 'Butterfly' and especially my favourite line "It's all about you, my butterfly".


Here it is:

I hope you guys like it! ^^