GTB FARE SQUARE

Korean Rice Dish Sizzles!

By Ellen "EJ" Sackett

Try a food that’s as fun to order it is to eat! “Bibim Bop (BEE-bim-bahp) served in a Hot Stone Bowl” is a traditional Korean all-in-one meal, and it’s also Royal East Asian Cuisine’s most popular dish. It’s more accurately called Dohl-sot Bibim Bop—not to be confused with Bibim Bop—which is not served in a hot stone bowl.

There’s lots of ways to spell it: Dohl-sot, dolsot, bibimbap, bibimbab, bibimbob, bibimbop--even b-bop, for short! It’s all the same thing. Literally translated, “dohl-sot” means “stone pot” and “bibim bop” means “mixed rice”. Even though there are as many ways to make it, the basic recipe includes three main ingredients: rice, vegetables and meat.

Royal East’s stone bowl arrives at the table too hot to touch. White rice is mixed with thin shreds of bulgogi (beef marinated in soy sauce), carrots, potato, spinach, soybean sprouts and the root of royal fern. All this has been added to sizzling sesame oil that carmelizes with the rice along the bottom of the bowl and turns it a crispy brown. On top sits a fried egg, over-easy. (Some versions use a raw egg.) The server breaks the yolk and combines the ingredients, still cooking away inside the hot stone bowl. He adds red chili sauce for spiciness, and I add a little soy sauce for flavor.

But that’s not all. Dohl-sot Bibim Bop also comes with banchan, typical Korean side dishes served at every meal, especially kimchi, Korea’s famous pickled cabbage with a kick, and often times cucumber kimchi, another variation on that theme, as well as other seasoned vegetables.

Dohl-sot Bibim Bop, priced at $10.95 at dinner ($8.95 at lunch), doesn’t come with a money-back guarantee, but no worries. Even the pickiest eaters will come back for more of this warm and wondrous Korean comfort food.

Royal East Asian Cuisine (Korean, Sushi, Japanese)
1622-A W. University Drive, Denton
(940) 383-7633
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Also published in Denton Record-Chronicle, January 14, 2010