I might have said this before but I don't mind saying it again.
This place has become one of my favorite post-caregiving meals in recent days.
It may not be everyone who understands the impact of what unlimited rice, unlimited kimchi, and unlimited seaweed soup is, but for someone who has spent several caregiving hours doing physical chores, with nerves and heart on high alert, it is important, critical, almost a life-saver.
It has come to a phase where I can actually have just the kimchi and rice alone.
Which, before our orders come, I do.
There is a pattern we've established every time my friend and I come here.
I tell him what I wish to have, he makes the orders, I go get the soup.
Two bowls of seaweed soup I bring to the table, then I go get a small dish of kimchi. The rice I wait until the dishes come, if not it gets cold.
There are a couple of dishes that I like to have whenever I come here.
One is the dish I call Sliced Angus Beef which comes served in this charming bronze, golden color pot and has a huge portion of tang hoon vermicelli underneath all that meat inside a lovely, tasty sauce.
The other is this dish of braised chicken pieces and braised potatoes that are soft and mushy and tasty and come with more potatoes than pieces of chicken.
Most of the time we come here for the Angus beef.
The portion is large enough to share.
But in recent times when my friend and I decide that we want two dishes instead of one, we go for the chicken and potatoes, then get an additional order of mapo tofu, which portion, and size of tofu is more than enough for two.
If there's one thing about the food here at Mi Bibimbap, it is that their portions are large.
I don't mean the size of the plate.
I mean the size of the food itself.
When it comes to the chicken, the pieces are of the perfect size. Small enough to pick up with the chopsticks, big enough for the bite. Same goes too for the potatoes. They're soft, cut into thick sliced rectangular shapes, so not only is it easy for the chopstick to pick it up, it's easy to bite, let it mush around on your tongue, and have together with the rice.
I have tried squishing the potatoes to eat together with the rice.
I have tried eating the potatoes on their own.
Either way it is the sauce that gets to me.
Honestly the gravy of all their dishes here are great on their own.
Even if it be a common one like the mapo tofu.
Generally I am quite selective of the tofu I eat- there are certain kinds I prefer, there are certain kinds which I try not to have, if possible- but this one is of the silky type which texture I don't mind. The tofu is cooked so soft that it crumbles right away, and the tofu, together with the bright red, slightly spicy, slightly tasty sauce goes perfectly well with each spoonful of rice as well.
Perhaps what I like most about the food here is the balance I get out from one single meal.
The seaweed soup provides a warm, palate-cleansing start to the meal.
The kimchi gives me the spark and kick I (genuinely) need.
And the food, whichever I order, however it is prepared, grants me the much-anticipated warmth and comfort that settles down wonderfully in my tummy.
I like how I can alternate the warm rice and warm food together with a little bit of chew from the spicy kimchi.
I also like how I can still go and get another dish of the kimchi on its own after the dish is finished.
If I do, I eat it without rice, without anything else, just plain cabbage kimchi on its own.
There's no contrast of taste.
It doesn't wipe out the lingering flavors of my meal.
There have been times when I've gone for two bowls of rice.
There have been times when I've gone for three servings of kimchi and three bowls of soup.
Doesn't usually happen, I tell you, but the food here is such a charm for those days when my senses need both the stimulation and the comfort that I wish I could have this every week just so long as there are them caregiving hours to attend to.