Well today it was overcast with a little rain here, so what better to do than go out and sample some Beijing pizza. At the recommendation of our translator, Edward Burger, and in honor of my wife, Anne, I went to a place called Annie's.
What is becoming almost as much fun as eating pizza is actually finding the restaurant. The cab driver left me somewhere close to the restaurant, but because he spoke absolutely no English, I was on my own. I walked and asked a few more non-English speaking people (one woman who spoke a little English told me it was not there anymore). I just about gave up when I noticed out of the corner of my eye an ordinary looking place called Annie's. I always am a little apprehensive when the restaurant is empty, but I was not about to pass up pizza.
Here is what I had:
Crust 6/8
Sauce 6/8
Cheese 5/8
Presentation 7/8
Overall 6/8
This was a good find in Beijing. I think this may be the best yet. What made this pizza so good was that the ratio between cheese and sauce was perfect. If the cheese was a little less greasy, and the sauce a little sweeter, this would have been outstanding. I could eat this pizza regularly. It was that good.
Two more cities to go. I will do my best to find the ultimate Asian pizza, but Annie's is going to be hard to beat.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
6/1 - Seoul to Beijing
after a frantic morning of last minute packing (we both just fell asleep last night) and getting ready, we were off to the airport and beijing. though we were sad to leave korea, pauline and i were also excited to be going to china for the first time. pauline has 2 cousins there right now and i have 1 in shanghai. we also have many friends there.
upon arriving at the airport in beijing, you could already see how much is being done in preparation for the olympics. the airport was very nice and HUGE! i heard it was either just renovated or newly opened a few months ago.
once we got through customs, we were greeted by a lot of press (as this is the 35th anniversary of the orchestra's first concerts in china and because of our earthquake relief efforts).
on our way to the hotel, i was struck at how big everything was. the buildings were massive and there was one still under construction that i think would be scary to work at.
we thought we would be meeting pauline's cousins for dinner but eventually decided to meet the next day. so we went next door to the attached mall and had some thai food and then one of pauline's favorites, ice cream from cold stone.
upon arriving at the airport in beijing, you could already see how much is being done in preparation for the olympics. the airport was very nice and HUGE! i heard it was either just renovated or newly opened a few months ago.
once we got through customs, we were greeted by a lot of press (as this is the 35th anniversary of the orchestra's first concerts in china and because of our earthquake relief efforts).
on our way to the hotel, i was struck at how big everything was. the buildings were massive and there was one still under construction that i think would be scary to work at.
we thought we would be meeting pauline's cousins for dinner but eventually decided to meet the next day. so we went next door to the attached mall and had some thai food and then one of pauline's favorites, ice cream from cold stone.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Pizza in Korea
I am leaving Korea today (Sunday), but having been here since Thursday, it took me until Saturday to finally get pizza. After arriving on Thursday, I spent the evening with Chris Deviney, Don Liuzzi and two local Korean musicians, Ed Choi and Brian ?. Ed is the principal percussionist for the Seoul Philharmonic and Brian is a percussionist in the Civic orchestra here in Seoul. We had a wonderful Korean BBQ that they treated us to. I told them about my pizza blog and Ed informed me that the best place he knew of was a place called Sortino's that was owned by an Italian Canadian.
So on Friday afternoon (that being pizza day), I took the subway to Itaewon to Sortino's. Fortunately I remembered the number for the pizza place because I would have never found it on my own. I finally arrived there at 3:45 after a certain amount of confusion. Unfortunately they were closed until 5:30, and I had a concert later that evening so no pizza. HUGE disappointment!!!!So I went hungry to the concert. To my surprise, the presenters brought some food to the hall that we could munch on. They didn't bring pizza, but they did bring some baked ziti and meatballs. A Korean woman made it for us. I was shocked! It was better than most restaurants back in Philly. I'm tough, so coming from me that's a huge complement. Most people would never even think to ever attempt making Korean food, so my hats off to her for making my day.
Well I did make it to Sortino's for lunch on Saturday with Ed and Chris. And here are the results:
Cheese 6/8
Crust 7/8
Excellent, best so far
Sauce 5/8 A little on the pasty side
Presentation 7/8
Overall 6/8
Ed was right, this was truly a good pizza. (Not to mention, the antipasta was also very good.) This was pizza I could eat regularly. It really had the potential to be amazing had the sauce just been a little lighter and sweeter. The size was generous. Those guys only ate half their pizza. I, of course, ate the entire thing, plus the rest of their pizzas later that night.
There was another place across the street that I would have liked to try, but I ran out of time. On to Beijing, Iam really curious to see what I find there.
So on Friday afternoon (that being pizza day), I took the subway to Itaewon to Sortino's. Fortunately I remembered the number for the pizza place because I would have never found it on my own. I finally arrived there at 3:45 after a certain amount of confusion. Unfortunately they were closed until 5:30, and I had a concert later that evening so no pizza. HUGE disappointment!!!!So I went hungry to the concert. To my surprise, the presenters brought some food to the hall that we could munch on. They didn't bring pizza, but they did bring some baked ziti and meatballs. A Korean woman made it for us. I was shocked! It was better than most restaurants back in Philly. I'm tough, so coming from me that's a huge complement. Most people would never even think to ever attempt making Korean food, so my hats off to her for making my day.
Well I did make it to Sortino's for lunch on Saturday with Ed and Chris. And here are the results:
Cheese 6/8
Crust 7/8
Excellent, best so far
Sauce 5/8 A little on the pasty side
Presentation 7/8
Overall 6/8
Ed was right, this was truly a good pizza. (Not to mention, the antipasta was also very good.) This was pizza I could eat regularly. It really had the potential to be amazing had the sauce just been a little lighter and sweeter. The size was generous. Those guys only ate half their pizza. I, of course, ate the entire thing, plus the rest of their pizzas later that night.
There was another place across the street that I would have liked to try, but I ran out of time. On to Beijing, Iam really curious to see what I find there.
5/31 - Such a short stay in Seoul
i can't believe it's already our last day in korea. it feels like we just got here but we also did so much. pauline, julie and i had lots of plans today, especially since the weather was so nice, but ended up not doing very much before dinner. thankfully, julie was able to do my laundry at her place (which should get me through the rest of the tour). but other than that, we just took it easy. pauline briefly met up w/ a high school friend in the morning so i caught up on this blog while watching the celtics beat the pistons to get into the nba finals.
for dinner, my uncle, (dad's younger brother) who is a piano professor in korea, held a dinner for our family at bellagio (restaurant attached to sejong hall). we had such a great time talking and laughing and the food was excellent. i realize how rare this kind of meeting is and i'm not sure when we will be able to get together like this again.
tonight's concert was another great program. we started off w/ bernstein's candide overture followed by mozart's sinfonia concertante w/ juliette kang (first associate concertmaster) and cj chang (principal violist). julie and cj sounded so good together and as always, the candide was a lot of fun. we played shostakovich symphony #5 in the 2nd half and tonight's audience seemed even louder and more excited despite the smaller size (probably due to the demonstrations which i will talk about later). it was so surreal to be playing here in seoul w/ my entire family watching (as well as about 100 friends).
this is after about 20 people had already left since they had to catch the last train to taegu (about 150 miles away)
such a rare and memorable occasion for our family
my family meets maestro eschenbach
after the concert, we went to my uncle's apartment for dessert. there, the fun continued as we took tons of pictures (i think there were 4 cameras going at the same time), laughed a lot and ate a delicious cake one of my cousins brought as a gift. on the way, we saw tons of policemen (there was even a barricade of them right in front of my uncle's building). for the past few days, there have been protests throughout the city. at one point, there were about 40,000 people in the city hall plaza nearby our hotel. due to all of this, there have been some delays when taking buses from our hotel to the hall and back. walking has been the best option although there are huge crowds all over the place which slows things down. the hardest thing has been trying to get taxis in our area since many roads have been closed. it took my parents almost an hour to get from their hotel to the restaurant/hall.
one of the many police barricades - thankfully, they let us through
hanging out @ uncle tony's after the concert
wish we weren't leaving tomorrow. i'm so thankful my entire family could share this memorable experience all together and already am looking forward to playing here again (and eating the food!).
for dinner, my uncle, (dad's younger brother) who is a piano professor in korea, held a dinner for our family at bellagio (restaurant attached to sejong hall). we had such a great time talking and laughing and the food was excellent. i realize how rare this kind of meeting is and i'm not sure when we will be able to get together like this again.
tonight's concert was another great program. we started off w/ bernstein's candide overture followed by mozart's sinfonia concertante w/ juliette kang (first associate concertmaster) and cj chang (principal violist). julie and cj sounded so good together and as always, the candide was a lot of fun. we played shostakovich symphony #5 in the 2nd half and tonight's audience seemed even louder and more excited despite the smaller size (probably due to the demonstrations which i will talk about later). it was so surreal to be playing here in seoul w/ my entire family watching (as well as about 100 friends).
this is after about 20 people had already left since they had to catch the last train to taegu (about 150 miles away)
such a rare and memorable occasion for our family
my family meets maestro eschenbach
after the concert, we went to my uncle's apartment for dessert. there, the fun continued as we took tons of pictures (i think there were 4 cameras going at the same time), laughed a lot and ate a delicious cake one of my cousins brought as a gift. on the way, we saw tons of policemen (there was even a barricade of them right in front of my uncle's building). for the past few days, there have been protests throughout the city. at one point, there were about 40,000 people in the city hall plaza nearby our hotel. due to all of this, there have been some delays when taking buses from our hotel to the hall and back. walking has been the best option although there are huge crowds all over the place which slows things down. the hardest thing has been trying to get taxis in our area since many roads have been closed. it took my parents almost an hour to get from their hotel to the restaurant/hall.
one of the many police barricades - thankfully, they let us through
hanging out @ uncle tony's after the concert
wish we weren't leaving tomorrow. i'm so thankful my entire family could share this memorable experience all together and already am looking forward to playing here again (and eating the food!).
Friday, May 30, 2008
5/30 - Sejong, Sookmyung and Subway
thankfully, the weather has been very nice in seoul so i opted to walk to the morning rehearsal at sejong performing arts center. during the rehearsal, pauline met julie at sookmyung women's university where she is teaching. after rehearsal, i headed to sookmyung as well to check out the campus and her office.
sookmyung campus
julie's office
it was cool to see where my sister has been working and the campus was beautiful. we had dinner plans w/ an old family friend before the concert so we went back to get ready. he took our family to the best naeng myun (cold buckwheat noodles) place in myung dong (the area we are staying at). it was sooooo good. i wanted to keep eating but didn't think it would be a very good idea to go overboard right before the concert. he told us that myung dong is like the expensive ginza section of tokyo. offically, 36 square feet of commercial space costs around $600,000! pretty crazy.
the best naeng myun!
on a side note, the subway system in seoul is also pretty good (like tokyo). it's so easy to get where you need to go. at times, it can be a little jerky though.
tonight's concert was very meaningful since my entire family could be there. several more old family friends were able to come as well as some of pauline's college friends. it was an evening of 6th symphonies w/ the beethoven in the 1st half and tchaikovsky in the 2nd and was such a great program to play. i had a lot of fun and felt the audience really got into it.
banner outside of sejong hall
sookmyung campus
julie's office
it was cool to see where my sister has been working and the campus was beautiful. we had dinner plans w/ an old family friend before the concert so we went back to get ready. he took our family to the best naeng myun (cold buckwheat noodles) place in myung dong (the area we are staying at). it was sooooo good. i wanted to keep eating but didn't think it would be a very good idea to go overboard right before the concert. he told us that myung dong is like the expensive ginza section of tokyo. offically, 36 square feet of commercial space costs around $600,000! pretty crazy.
the best naeng myun!
on a side note, the subway system in seoul is also pretty good (like tokyo). it's so easy to get where you need to go. at times, it can be a little jerky though.
tonight's concert was very meaningful since my entire family could be there. several more old family friends were able to come as well as some of pauline's college friends. it was an evening of 6th symphonies w/ the beethoven in the 1st half and tchaikovsky in the 2nd and was such a great program to play. i had a lot of fun and felt the audience really got into it.
banner outside of sejong hall
5/29 - Food, Family and Fun in Seoul
a big reason i am able to pack lightly when going on tour is that i don't have to put my tails and other concert dress in my suitcase because the orchestra brings wardrobe trunks for us to put those in. w/ this extra space, i usually pack a suit (in case of a formal event), dress shoes, extra socks/t-shirts and this time, put a few of pauline's dresses in there. unfortunately, i forgot we wouldn't have access to these trunks until 3 p.m. and i needed my suit while pauline needed one of her dresses for a big family lunch. pauline had some dressy things she could wear but i only had a pair of jeans and shorts. so we rushed next door to the lotte department store and i was able to get some slacks (and have them altered) in 20 minutes! my dad had an extra shirt and tie so i was all set.
this being the first time both of us are in korea since getting married, my mom wanted to have some kind of post-wedding reception/lunch for our relatives who could not attend. about 15 of us gathered and had a wonderful time catching up and it was nice that pauline could meet them all.
since we had dinner plans in nearby insa-dong, we decided to just hang out and rest in our hotel. people took turns taking naps while i ran over to get some ppad bing soo (red bean shaved ice - it's better than it sounds) and chocolate covered green tea ice cream bars - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
we left for insa-dong at around 5 and met up w/ my sister julie there. if you ever get a chance to come to seoul, this is an area you have to visit. although it's very touristy, there are so many cool things to see, eat and buy here. we went to a restaurant well-known for their jeon (fried pancakes - not for breakfast but more like the ones we had in japan). we also had some dol sot bibimbop (fried rice in a stone pot) and lots of bahn chahn (the many tasty side dishes). afterwards, we walked around the stores and took many pictures, some sillier than others. here are just a few.
he is pounding a batch of dduk (sticky rice cake) to soften it
they even let pauline try
julie may have found a new calling while putting that guy out of a job
catching a big break and landing a magazine cover! basically being a ham.
now you can see where i got it from
the ham's..... errr.... i mean, han's!
this being the first time both of us are in korea since getting married, my mom wanted to have some kind of post-wedding reception/lunch for our relatives who could not attend. about 15 of us gathered and had a wonderful time catching up and it was nice that pauline could meet them all.
since we had dinner plans in nearby insa-dong, we decided to just hang out and rest in our hotel. people took turns taking naps while i ran over to get some ppad bing soo (red bean shaved ice - it's better than it sounds) and chocolate covered green tea ice cream bars - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
we left for insa-dong at around 5 and met up w/ my sister julie there. if you ever get a chance to come to seoul, this is an area you have to visit. although it's very touristy, there are so many cool things to see, eat and buy here. we went to a restaurant well-known for their jeon (fried pancakes - not for breakfast but more like the ones we had in japan). we also had some dol sot bibimbop (fried rice in a stone pot) and lots of bahn chahn (the many tasty side dishes). afterwards, we walked around the stores and took many pictures, some sillier than others. here are just a few.
he is pounding a batch of dduk (sticky rice cake) to soften it
they even let pauline try
julie may have found a new calling while putting that guy out of a job
catching a big break and landing a magazine cover! basically being a ham.
now you can see where i got it from
the ham's..... errr.... i mean, han's!
5/28 - Tokyo to Seoul
after saying bye to our friends, pauline and i headed to narita airport via taxi and keisei skyliner (train). since we were not flying w/ the rest of the orchestra, we got to the airport a bit earlier and had our final meal in japan. pauline had udon and i had ramen (of course).
we got to seoul a little before the orchestra but once they arrived, we had a bit of trouble actually getting on our buses to the hotel since the airport police wouldn't let us stop anywhere to load. our touring manager, julie kim (who by the way is doing an amazing job), did everything she possibly could to change their minds but they would not budge.
walking to our buses at the airport
as our buses pulled into lotte hotel, we were greeted by my parents who were waiting for us. soon after, my sister julie met us in the lobby and from there, we went to her church to attend a wednesday night service. it was great to finally meet many of her friends i had heard so much about.
afterwards, we went to my parents' hotel to meet up w/ my aunt grace (dad's younger sister) who is in town to take care of some things. we decided to go to a nearby restaurant to eat and just hang out. by the time we finished, it was pretty late so we caught a taxi, dropped my sister off at her place and headed back to our hotel.
thankfully, tomorrow is a free day but we have lots of plans, including a lunch w/ many relatives and dinner in insa dong, a very famous (and touristy) area of seoul.
we got to seoul a little before the orchestra but once they arrived, we had a bit of trouble actually getting on our buses to the hotel since the airport police wouldn't let us stop anywhere to load. our touring manager, julie kim (who by the way is doing an amazing job), did everything she possibly could to change their minds but they would not budge.
walking to our buses at the airport
as our buses pulled into lotte hotel, we were greeted by my parents who were waiting for us. soon after, my sister julie met us in the lobby and from there, we went to her church to attend a wednesday night service. it was great to finally meet many of her friends i had heard so much about.
afterwards, we went to my parents' hotel to meet up w/ my aunt grace (dad's younger sister) who is in town to take care of some things. we decided to go to a nearby restaurant to eat and just hang out. by the time we finished, it was pretty late so we caught a taxi, dropped my sister off at her place and headed back to our hotel.
thankfully, tomorrow is a free day but we have lots of plans, including a lunch w/ many relatives and dinner in insa dong, a very famous (and touristy) area of seoul.
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