For These Detroiters, Summer Means Korean Cold Noodles #DetroitFood

Danny Palumbo

For Detroiters Lisa Kim and Sewa Wong, making naengmyeon is a salve from the Michigan heat

Lisa Kim keeps a regular lunch date with her friend, Sewa Wong. It’s a summertime lunch — best enjoyed in the sweltering, humid, Michigan heat. At her Corktown home, the pair happily slurp up cold broth and buckwheat noodles stacked with boiled beef, egg, and pickled vegetables. It’s a Korean dish known as naengmyeon.

“It’s a time to eat and talk shit,” says Kim about the lunch. Kim, a second-generation Korean American and a native of Los Angeles, moved to Detroit 12 years ago. She often has a craving for naengmyeon, the beloved, brothy cold noodles served in stainless steel bowls across restaurants in both LA’s Koreatown and across the Korean Peninsula.

Cold noodles are paramount to life in Korea. Meaty and filling, refreshing and rejuvenating, naengmyeon is most popular in the summer, but eaten year round. It’s one of the country’s most iconic dishes, though in the United States it still remains largely underappreciated by people outside of the Korean community.

It’s widely believed that naengmyeon originated hundreds of years ago in what is now North Korea. Two North Korean cities offer the most well-known takes on the cold noodle dish.

Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is famous for Pyongyang-style cold noodles, or mul-naengmyeon. Fresh buckwheat noodles are served in a chilly, sometimes icy broth made from beef brisket or dongchimi, a mild kimchi broth made from radishes. Toppings for mul-naengmyeon vary, but they usually include cooked brisket, cucumber, boiled egg, Korean pears, and an assortment of pickled or fermented vegetables. Kim’s mom often added pine nuts. Hot mustard and vinegar are common tableside condiments, adding a prickly heat or extra tanginess to counter the rich broth. However, they’re not always required and you should taste the broth first before adding the condiments gently; you want to preserve the subtlety of the broth.

Hamhung, located on the east side of the country, is the second most populous city in North Korea. Bibim-naengmyeon, the name for Hamhung’s style of cold noodle, doesn’t feature an icy beef broth, and instead utilizes a fiery red chili paste to dress uber-elastic potato starch noodles. Both styles of noodles are also eaten regularly in South Korea, where naengmyeon houses thrive in the sweltering summer months.

In Detroit, however, naengmyeon isn’t so readily available.

“It’s just hard to find here,” says Kim, “There’s no speciality naengmyeon houses,” though she cites Daebak as serving a pretty good mul-naengmyeon. Americans have yet to catch on to naengmyeon, and the large, hydraulic presses that produce the noodles are a costly piece of equipment. In LA’s massive Koreatown, where Kim grew up, many barbecue restaurants serve some version of it, however, just a handful of restaurants specialize solely in naengmyeon.

Kim much prefers to make the dish at home — largely due to the cold noodle’s unavailability, but also because making naengmyeon at home is exactly what her mom did. “It was something she could easily whip up,” she recalls. “We would eat it at home all year round, but mostly in the summer.”

But, where does one find naengmyeon broth, buckwheat noodles, and all of the proper accoutrement in Detroit?

Why, the H-Mart in Troy, of course.

The largest Asian grocery chain in the United States, H-Mart is a cultural touchstone for many Korean Americans, and a way to effortlessly recreate nostalgic foods at home. H-mart offers convenience, quality, and comfort to those seeking instant versions of their favorite dishes. Naengmyeon from scratch is far too laborious, especially for Kim and Wong’s schedule. Plus, fitting a gigantic hydraulic press noodle machine in Kim’s home kitchen has its drawbacks.

At H-mart, the naengmyeon noodles are sold in dry, shelf-stable form, as well as refrigerated packs. Both packages require the cook to simply boil noodles and add broth. Both offer a great base, but they need doctoring. Thankfully, H-mart has all of the cold noodle essentials.

While choosing radishes, Kim remarks, “My mom taught me to look for the ones that aren’t sad.” Wong then asks a radish directly, “Are you sad?” before they find one to their liking. From there, vinegar, mustard, pears, and kimchi are placed into a grocery cart. Though H-Mart sells plenty of galbi and brisket, Kim decided to purchase a tri-tip from Marrow and eggs from White Lotus Farms in Ann Arbor.

At Kim’s house, the prep comes together quickly. The night before, she boiled the tri-tip and eggs. Now, Wong and Kim bounce around the kitchen, juggling tasks while exchanging stories, quips, and reviews of local restaurants. Kim prepares her kitchen for noodles and broth, while Wong peels the eggs and juliennes the cucumbers on a mandolin. After Kim cooks the noodles, Wong washes and rinses them in the sink. She then vigorously rubs the noodles in-between her palms before they get placed into ice water to shock them, thus preserving their flavor and texture. “Squeeze all the water out, or else it dilutes the flavor,” she says.

“Rinse, rub, rinse some more, ice bath, rinse, squeeze,” she advises. Wong, whose parents are from Hong Kong, began embracing naengmyeon about 10 years ago. In the summer, she eats mul-naengmyeon once a week.

Chopsticks are then used to gently assemble the boiled egg, cucumber, radish, sliced tri-tip, and Korean pear. The mul-naengmyeon is dressed with pine nuts, just as Kim’s mother did growing up, while the bibim naengmyeon is flaked with sesame seeds and nori. The flavor is deeply satisfying and refreshing. The house gets suddenly quiet; only the sounds of slurping echo throughout the living room.

Kim admits that the Pyongyang noodle broth needs a bit more flavoring, and so she dives into the hot mustard. That’s the beauty of naengmyeon — personal taste invites special modifications and flare. There’s really no wrong way to dress naengmyeon. “If you don’t have a pear, use an apple,” says Kim, “It’s like pizza — use whatever you want.”

Though, pizza wouldn’t scratch the same itch as naengmyeon. Not today. This Detroit summer has been particularly hot, and will be for a while longer. Kim and Wong will stay cool, however, because hot summer days call for cold noodles.

from Eater Detroit - All