I Didn't Watch The Superbowl

I went out for Korean barbecue instead.

1. I am vehemently opposed to the Tebow ad that was scheduled to run and that was funded by Focus on the Family, a group I detest.

2. I was even more upset by the fact that Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org were denied advertising spots on CBS.

3. I wanted New Orleans to win, but the again, I didn't really care all that much.

We went to Madangsui, on 35th Street. First: jap chae, or slimy rice noodles, cooked with beef and onions and probably a lot of MSG, not that I cared. With that, steamed pork dumplings that were, to be honest, a little dry and tasteless. As for the actual barbecue part, well, I know I've been really anti-beef lately, and I continue to remain true to my values, but this was some of the tastiest meat I have ever had. saeng galbi and bulogi, both marinated. One is essentially shaved beef marinated with a bunch of delicious stuff, and the other is fatty pieces of short rib, also marinated, and cut off the bone by a deft waitress yielding giant scissors. On the grill, too: large circles of white onion and halved button mushrooms.

Part of the genius of Korean barbecue is all the stuff that comes with it: kimchi soup (good), chawan mushi or something to that effect (I had no room for this), sweet pickled vegetables (addictive), two types of kimchi--daikon and cabbage (yum), nori (fine), really spicy radish and peppers (they weren't kidding when they warned us), a salad of shaved onion and celery (perfect for crunch with the beef), and lettuce for wrapping. If I omitted any delicious snacks, I apologize. Wrap whatever you feel like combining with meat and lettuce and you have teeny little ssams. My friend used rice in hers, but I preferred the unadulterated taste of the meat. I'd like to go back with more people and eat more of the menu; as it stood, two beef selections, a noodle dish, and dumplings were the outer limit of what we could eat--and I had run fifteen miles that afternoon.

Well, anyway. I'll be back.

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Madangsui

35 West 35th Street

New York, NY 10001

212.564.9333