Korean Food at Myung Dong Tofu Cabin
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Went out for lunch yesterday at Myung Dong Tofu Cabin in Santa Clara. For a while I had lunch there at nearly every week, but haven’t been there for a while. As the name suggests, they specialize in tofu, specifically soon du bu, which is sort of a tofu stew served in a very hot stone bowl.
Many people are only familiar with bulgogi (sliced BBQ beef) or kalbi (BBQ short ribs), plus the ubiquitous kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage), and don’t have any sense of what else might be available at a Korean restaurant.
Korean meals at restaurants normally come with a variety of small side dishes, collectively called banchan. The specific dishes will vary, but will usually include one or more sorts of kimchi, and various, mostly vegetable dishes.
Soon du bu is usually served in a boiling hot pot from the oven, and you typically crack an egg into it and mix it up before eating. You can get it in permutations of beef, pork, seafood, vegetarian, spicy, and other varieties. In contrast, nang myun is Korean buckwheat noodles in cold broth with a boiled egg and thin slices of beef, radish, and other vegetables. The server will often carry a pair of cooking scissors to cut up the noodles if you’d like. Most people also add vinegar and mustard.
The food here is pretty good at a reasonable price, most items are currently around $7 to $9 (including banchan and rice). If you’ve never had Korean food other than bulgogi or kalbi, you might give this a try.
Update 2005-06-23 06:46:50: A lot of people seem to be finding this post around lunch and dinner time, so here’s the address and phone number:
Myung Dong Tofu Cabin
1484 Halford Avenue (at El Camino near Lawrence Expressway)
Santa Clara, California 95051
(408) 246-1484 (map)
