Originally Posted by
imm2b
Hmm...I rarely if ever saw soy sauce on the table at a real Vietnamese Restaurant.
Fish sauce is ok to add into Pho if the broth is too bland for your taste, but never soy sauce, that would surely ruin a bowl of Pho, eww.
Fish sauce is a totally different story.
I don't know why but the Vietnamese restaurants (i.e. Vietnamese owners and cooks) in the heart of Texas all have soy sauce on the tables.
Originally Posted by
nycflyer
Originally Posted by
braslvr
The lack of salt in the food there was extremely noticeable and hard for me to handle, and never a shaker on the table. The only place I've had the opposite problem as you.
Eh? Korean food is some of the saltiest in the world. You may not have noticed it because of the even stronger flavors of pepper and garlic, e.g. in kimchi. The few foods that are bland (rice, bindaeduk, dubu/tofu) are meant to be eaten with something saltier...hence the side dishes and soy sauce on tables.
The high sodium content in Korean food is one of the main reasons for higher rates of stomach cancer in Korea.
Originally Posted by
imm2b
I agree Korean food are on the saltier side, because of lots of fermented veggies and fish are consumed. But, the high rates of stomach cancer is probably attibuted to Kimchi and the hot pepper in the Korean diet
And you wonder why
I asked about the heart condition of braslvr?
Originally Posted by
nycflyer
Good catch,
nycflyer! ^
Originally Posted by
nycflyer
Korean food has few items whose main flavor is potato-chip salty (like the dried gim / nori you gobbled up). Saewoo and myeolchi jut (salted shrimp and anchovies) are very salty but are meant to be condiments. Sugar is added to some foods (eg bulgogi) but not nearly as much as salt is.
Even though I am not into Korean food that much (except for Korean BBQ), out of the authentic Korean dishes I've tried, sugary food is much less than spicy and salty kinds.
Originally Posted by
braslvr
I'm sorry, but I don't believe that. Neither did any of our team, and we were there for months. There was a fermented soybean soup that was adequately salted, and strips of nori seaweed occasionally which we fought over. I can't remember anything else that had even close to enough salt. Plenty of sugar though. Perhaps our hosts never selected saltier dishes when ordering, but that seems doubtful out of hundreds of meals.
braslvr, could it be you and your team visiting the wrong part of Korea or your host ordered the wrong kind of Korean dishes?
I assume the soup you referred to is miso soup? Korean miso can be on the salty side. Certain varieties of Japanese miso are saltier as well.
Back to ramen, I've had more Japanese style than Korean. I haven't tried enough Korean style to tell if they are over-salty but generally speaking, they are too spicy for me.