[지금 미주지역은] 설렁탕, 미국 인기 아침메뉴로 부상

[socratax]

팬케이크·와플 등을 아침식사 주 메뉴로 삼았던 미국인에게 한국의 설랑탕이 아침 메뉴로 큰 관심을 받고 있다고 21일(현지시간) 로스앤젤레스타임스가 보도했다.

그동안 아시아에서 유입된 아침 식사로는 중국식 만두인 '딤섬'이 고작이었는데 미식가들은 딤섬을 아침이라기 보다는 '브런치'(조반 겸 점심) 음식으로 적당하다고 여겨왔다. 미국내 많은 아시아 식당에서 한국의 설렁탕이 알려지면서, 설렁탕은 미식가들에게 또 하나의 새로운 아침 메뉴로 인기 몰이를 하고 있는 것으로 나타났다.

아시아 음식에는 항상 미국의 수프와 비슷한 국이나 탕이 등장하는데 설렁탕은 특히 미네랄이 풍부한 아침 식사로 알려져 인기가 더해지고 있다.

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Best Asian breakfast restaurants in Los Angeles

For a soothing morning meal, sample such Eastern delicacies as steamed buns, fresh soy milk and Chinese doughnuts.

By C. Thi Nguyen, Special to The Times
August 20, 2008

BREAKFAST IS the last great dining frontier. Los Angeles is full of intrepid culinary explorers, venturing to all corners of the city in search of lunch and dinner; but as for the morning, we're often breakfast conservatives. Everybody knows about pancakes and waffles, and many are at home with Latin American breakfast staples. But Asian breakfasts are perhaps less well known. Except for dim sum, which is more of a fancy brunch option, what is Asian breakfast?

One of the first things the explorer discovers about Asian breakfasts is that, a lot of the time, they don't exist.

"Koreans don't really have a separate breakfast concept," says Kathy Shin, a Korean American food theorist. "You just sort of eat the same thing that you'd eat at any other meal, but less."

So at many Asian restaurants the same dishes show up at breakfast and lunch; some, particularly soups, are served all day. Rice porridge is served either for breakfast or as a post-clubbing midnight snack. Pho -- Vietnamese beef noodle soup -- is a perfect example of the type of soup that makes a great Asian breakfast -- radiantly light, greaseless and full of mineral tang.

The most intense experience of morning minerality, though, is sul lung tang, a Korean soup that's basically just beef bones boiled for half a day. After a misspent night of carousing and electrolyte loss, a bowl of sul lung tang is a bowl of pure, sunny health flooding your body and your brain.

Northern China does have a distinct breakfast concept. Many dishes eaten all day long in the rest of China are breakfast-only foods in the north, including congee (rice porridge), wonton soup and baozi (meat-filled steamed buns), Chinese scholar Valerie Washburn explains. But the crowning glory of Chinese breakfasts, she says, are two items you'll see only in the morning: youtiao and jianbing.

Youtiao are long, slender, ultra-crisp fried doughnuts, rather like crullers or churros. You dip one in a hot bowl of soy milk or some steaming rice porridge. It's China's version of doughnuts and coffee. Jianbing are bizarre but tasty hybrids -- part pancake, part crêpe and part scrambled egg.

In Southern California, purely Northern Chinese places are rare, but there are plenty of Northern Chinese-style breakfasts as interpreted by Taiwanese-style and Thai places. San Gabriel Valley, in particular, has a concentration of breakfast places that make soy milk fresh every morning (it degrades quickly, so arrive early).

Perhaps the most Western-friendly Asian breakfast is Filipino breakfast. A typical Filipino breakfast is like an American diner breakfast crossed with a garlic festival: a garlic-fried egg over garlic fried rice with a side of sweet garlic-pork sausage.

Here's a selection of some of the best examples of Asian breakfasts in the area