Pyeongtaek's Pizzas Supreme

Pizza Mall's "Chicago Deep Dish" pizza. 

Korean pizza (피자) is a great experiment in glocalization. Where else in the world can you find sweet potato mousse stuffed crusts, obligatory sprinkles of canned corn on every variety of pizza including cheese, plus pizzas topped with hearty potato wedges? Love or hate it, the Korean twist on pizza is insanely popular in the country. However, quality varies widely. If you're looking for a decent slice of pizza in Pyeongtaek, here are three places to get pizzas that are at least a crust above the others. 

Pizza Mall - New Core's Pizza Mall is the oddball in Pyeongtaek. And by oddball I mean they are the one that experiments the most with the American way of doing things. They were one of the few places I've seen in the whole country to offer an 18 inch pizza. The crust was soft and chewy. The toppings were fresh, large, numerous, and normal by American standards. What's more, the pizza was only 11,900 won, which is insanely cheap for a pizza that large. Sadly, they don't sell that size of pizza in Pyeongtaek anymore. However, they are the only place around that sells a Chicago style deep dish. It's one of those super cheesy-saucy pies that can turn into a big mess if you're not careful. And while it doesn't beat anything in Chicago, it beats a lot of Pizza Mall's competition. Their normal pizzas are good too, but I go there exclusively for the deep dish. 

Pizza Alvolo's "Super Deluxe Combination Pizza."

To get to Pizza Mall, take the 15, 1-1, 2-2 or any bus that says "뉴고아" (New Core) on the bottom left of the bus windshield. New Core's stop is in front of a Samsung store and across from a Paris Baguette. Walk all the way down the alley across from Samsung. New Core will be on your right. Pizza Mall is in the food court.

Pizza Alvolo - Pizza Alvolo (피자알볼로) has surprisingly good pizza for a native Korean chain. You can find outlandishly Korean pizzas at Pizza Alvolo, the kind of bizarre, expensive topping monsters that are not out of place at Korean Pizza Hut or Dominos. But Alvolo's pizzas are actually really good. Their pizzas have lots of stretchy cheese, a crispy-chewie crust that isn't tough or tasteless, and a sauce that isn't sweet. Plus, they serve an excellent garlic sauce on the side to dip your crust in. The listed prices are the same as most Korean chains, but cheaper than the mega chains mentioned earlier. Plus, when the NetBot and I order they always knock a couple thousand won off the top. It's a relative newcomer to Pyeongtaek, but with good prices and great pizza, Pizza Alvolo quickly became our favorite place to get pizza in the city. 

In other cities Pizza Alvolo has a dining room. Pyeongtaek's Pizza Alvolo, however, only offers delivery and take-out. You can find their menu here, and order at this number: 031-655-8495. The NetBot, Eat Korea's robot taste tester, recommends the "Hot and Spicy Chicken Pizza." If you can't speak Korean, you can take the bus and wait in their lobby. From the New Core bus stop in front of Paris Baguette, take the 3-5, 7-1, or 7-2 bus and get off at the stop after Deokdung Elementary School. You will pass the school on your right.  Walk down the street after you get off the bus.  You'll end up at a large intersection with a Paris Baguette. Pizza Alvolo is in that intersection on your right beside the big seafood restaurant with the fish tanks in front. 

If you are coming from Pyeongtaek Station, take the same busses to Myeongbeop Temple (명법사). Hit the stop button after you pass the grassy park on your right and can see woods on both sides of the street. When you get off the bus, walk down the street to the intersection with Paris Baguette. Pizza Alvolo will be near the opposite corner.

Costco's 18 inch "Combo Pizza."
(Decent photo pending)

Costco - The first two restaurants on this list make great Korean Pizza. However, if you want a genuine taste of home you need to go to Costco. The closest one is not in Pyeongtaek. But, located in Cheonan, it is close enough to sneak onto this list. 

Korean Costco is so American friends of mine say it even smells like America. The pizza in their food court is no exception. Costco's pizza is 18 inches of cheesy, American glory. There is enough sauce so you don't notice the lack of it, but not so much you think, "man this is really saucy." The doughy but firm crust is familiarly American in its elasticity, something Korean style crusts lack. And anyone who grew up in the USA will recognize the uniquely American flavors of Costco's pepperoni, sausage bits, peppers, onions, and olives on their Combo Pizza. Their pizza can even be bought by the slice. 

If you don't have a car or a friend with a car, Cheonan Costco is really hard to get to. For those who like to make a day-long adventure out of riding public transportation, you have two options. Option 1: take the subway to Cheonan Station (천안역). Take exit 1, cross the street in front of the station and turn right. Keep walking up the street until you find the bus stop. It isn't a far walk, maybe a couple minutes. From there most busses will take you to your next destination: Cheonan Bus Terminal (종합터마널) (aka: Shinsegae Department Store). There is a big bus stop in front of the terminal. Take city bus 25 for 28 stops. Costco will be on your right. It's big and hard to miss. Option 2: take the subway to Cheonan-Asan Station. Take Exit 1, and from the large bus stop in front of the station get on city bus 19 for 18 stops. Costco will be on your right a little up the street. 

If you do not enjoy long adventures on public transportation, do not go to Cheonan Costco. But if you really want to go, go to Seodaejeon Costco. A 4,800won train ticket will get you to Seodaejeon Station (서대전역) in about an hour. Costco is right next to the station on the left as you exit. It's so close you can see Costco's parking garage when you get off the train.

There are so many pizza restaurants in Pyeongtaek (and nearish by). If you have a favorite place to order pizza in Pyeongtaek, please let us know where by mentioning it in the comments.

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Blog: Are Mirang Oats Gluten Free?

Oatmeal is hard to find in Korea. Koreans have their own hot cereal. It's a rice mush called jook (죽). So when I saw oatmeal at Costco, I thought it would be perfect for my new gluten free diet. Oats, after all, don't contain the same kind of gluten as wheat, but then Mayo Clinic had to spoil everything.

"Certain grains, such as oats, can be contaminated with wheat during growing and processing stages of production. For this reason, doctors and dietitians generally recommend avoiding oats unless they are specifically labeled gluten-free." - Mayo Clinic, 2011

Well, that's terrific. Time to read the whole box looking for "gluten-free."

Many items at Korean Costoco stores are American brands. These oats, though, are not. They were made by Mirang (미이랑), a Korean company. So the box is completely covered with Korean except for the product title, "Oatmeal." It took me seven and a half minutes to scan the box top to bottom and back to front looking for "글루텐 프리" or something similar, but there wasn't a sign of it.

Clearly this doesn't mean these oats are gluten free. Yet one heartening fact is that the oats were grown in Korea. By and far, Korea grows considerably more rice than wheat. A report by the International Grain Council showed Korea's 2011-12 rice production at 4.3 million tones. In comparison, the country produced a mere 51,000 tones of wheat the same year. While the government is pushing to achieve the production goal of 200,000 tones of wheat by 2015, this is still small in comparison to the amount of rice produced. As a result, I'm not terribly worried about it being cross contaminated with wheat gluten.
Moreover, I have yet to be convinced that gluten free labels are commonly used in Korea. Since Koreans generally do not have gluten related health issues, there is no gluten free market among mainstream Koreans. Thus, if the oats are truly gluten free the company has no incentive to label it.

Unfortunately, a lack of conclusive information doesn't make these oats any more positively gluten free. For all I know there could be a central grain processing super-conglomerate that processes all kinds of grain on the same machinery, polluting everything with wheat gluten. So if I genuinely had a problem with gluten and it excluded avenin, an oat protein that a small percentage of celiac patients are sensitive to, I should contact Mirang to be certain their oats are gluten free. If I was as lazy I could just eat them and then check how my stomach feels, but I can't do that. My tummy likes gluten. And depending on how badly my system would react if I did have a problem, that second alternative might not be feasible.

Time to call Mirang! ...as soon as I can get a translator.

But in the meantime, I'm still going to eat those oats.

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Blog: Is This Gluten Free?

It has been three weeks since I started eating gluten free. So far I've eliminated all the obvious sources of gluten in my diet. You know, all those delicious things at the bottom of the food pyramid: pasta, bread, crackers, and heavenly things like cinnamon buns. But what about those sneaky foods that aren't at the bottom of the food pyramid?

For obvious reasons, trying to determine if a food is gluten free in Korea is not simple if you can't understand Korean. You can find English food labels on imported foods. However, even then many foods are processed on shared equipment with gluten products or they include gluten as an additive or there are other ingredients mixed in that contain gluten. And this doesn't make reading labels for gluten any easier. For instance, I recently purchased some salami and prosciutto at Costco. A lot of their inventory is just the exact same thing that you find at an American Costco but with a Korean nutrition information sticker slapped on the back, so virtually everything on the packaging is in English. Looking at the ingredients, the salami states in tiny print at the bottom of the English nutrition label that it is indeed, "gluten free." The prosciutto, however, does not. But neither meat mentions any ingredients that would even hint at gluten. They are both produced by the same company, Daniele Foods in Rhode Island, and they have identical ingredients but for one thing — the prosciutto has garlic. Last time I knew, garlic was naturally gluten free. The only other option would be the unspecified "spices" that both meats contain. Presumably, the proscutto's spices include gluten — terrific. But I don't know for sure, and being a good, cheap Yankee who doesn't waste food and isn't allergic to gluten, I'm still going to eat it.

This process is annoying enough in English. Now, try standing in the refridgerated isle at Lotte Mart with your smart phone in one hand and a sausage in the other trying to translate the ingredient label. Even if you study Korean, without the aid of a fluent native, this is a chore and a half. I can read and write well enough, but my vocabulary is deplorable, and like any language, Korean words have multiple meanings, slang uses and abbreviations unknown to the best translation apps. And I certainly don't want to stand around in the isle for five minutes per label, translating everything I want to eat. I have far better things to do with my time, like walk home and eat.

Western stickers, though, at least have "gluten free" labels to help. Korean foods, on the other hand, from what I have seen, do not. "Gluten free" in Korean is "글루텐 프리." It is basically a Korean spelling that sounds like one of my students trying to pronounce English. I've lived in Korea for nearly four years, and in that time I have never seen those words on Korean packaging. It can be argued that, in not needing to eat gluten free, I just never looked for it. This is true. However, when I first started talking to my Korean friends about eating gluten free they did not know what it was. Plus, for dietary and genetic reasons Koreans rarely develop gluten related health issues. As a result, they have no need to label things "gluten free." The gluten free diet is largely a Western trend. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking for 글루텐 프리. I could be wrong. We'll see.

Given these difficulties, as I enter this diet I'm a bit paranoid. Many people who are sensitive to gluten do not need to worry about things like cross contamination. Others, who are affected more severely by gluten, really have to watch out. I have heard about people who are so sensitive that they can't even kiss someone who has eaten wheat. A casual gluten-free diet is easy enough in Korea. One expat teacher I interviewed, Kelsey Riordan, does not have celiac disease but needs to avoid eating gluten for other health reasons, and she manages just fine by eating like a Korean minus wheat noodles and dumplings. But let's suppose that I took on the role of that person who can't even kiss bready lips without risking stomach aches or worse. Just what can I eat? If the smallest amount of gluten is harmful to me am I munching my way across a minefield of glutenated doom? With this mindset, and mindful of the fact that many processed foods contain gluten, a number of foods from my daily life are making me think twice about whether they are gluten free or not.

- Gummy vitamins. A bunch of nutrients are sourced from different places and compressed in a squishy, fruit-flavored teddy-bear-shaped substrate. Can you get more processed than a muli-vitamin?

- Soy. Soy is everywhere in Korean cuisine. It is an essential part of so many soups, stews, sauces, side dishes, and main courses. In additon to rice and red pepper, Korean food wouldn't be Korean without soy. Soy itself doesn't have gluten. It only gains it through processing. So do Korean soy processing plants also process wheat on the same equipment?

- Rice bread. Rice bread is fairly popular in Korea. Though, having grown up on wheat, I was never much impressed with rice breads. Rice breads tend to be bland and dry and simply do not have the same texture and bounce of wheat bread. There are some exceptions, but nothing a Frenchman would feel uncomfortable tossing in the bin. But are they gluten free? Given the amount that raw ingredients are processed and rice bread's marginal attempt at being decent bread, who is to say those breads don't have gluten in them? They need all the help they can get.

- Bubble tea. My girlfriend and I have been on a big bubble tea kick lately. Bubble tea pearls are made from tapioca, but is that all that is in there?

- Packaged nuts. I bought a large bag of mixed nuts to munch on at school. It was meant to save money spent daily on chips and to reduce the calories collected daily above my belt. At the same time, it's a snack with enough energy to push me through six hours of playing with elementary and middle-school kids. There is more to those nuts, and lots of nuts mixes in Korea, than just nuts. These ones in particular have an unadvertised dusting of mystery dusty dust on them. It's tasty, but is it gluten free?

- Coffee. Right now I'm drinking a vanilla latte. Straight coffee is fine. My brother, a celiac suffering Starbucks barista extraordinaire, lives on coffee. But are mixed coffee drinks okay?

- Street food. Korea has terrific street food. Some, like tuigim (튀김 - deep fried food), are obviously not gluten free. However, others like tteok-bokki (떡볶이 - chewy, penne pasta sized rice cakes in spicy sauce) are not so clear. Rice cake itself may be gluten free, but what if the rice was cross-contaminated by wheat in processing? Plus, I have no idea what is in the sauce besides red pepper.

- Chocolate and candies. This is another one of those cases where the primary ingredient is naturally gluten free, but you don't know if that ingredient was cross contaminated, or if gluten or a gluten containing ingredient was added into the mix at some point.

- Drinks. Basically my entire diet is geared around keeping me energized enough to put on the equivalent of a lively and interactive Ted Talk with overworked children during the hours when, in America, kids are eating dinner, playing, or finishing their homework. Water just doesn't cut it. Normally I brew my own black or green tea at home and bring it to class honey-sweetened. There is nothing unusual about my tea except sometimes some bergamot, but that's gluten free. Sometimes, however, I forget to brew my tea or my energies are such that I need a big boost that day, and I buy a Cola or more often a Gatorade or a Nature Tea. Are these gluten free? And what about that glass of OJ in the morning? Could that have gluten in it too? Is it purely orange juice?

- Cheese. When I started eating gluten free the first food that came to mind was cheese. Real cheese, which is most likely gluten free, is depressingly expensive in Korea. Three cheese omelettes worth of cheddar will set you back ₩8,000. This is around $7.50. Affordable cheese is out there, but it is so processed that at least one brand boasts of containing a jaw dropping 83.5 percent "natural" cheese. How much of that remaining percent may be gluten? (Or, for that matter, food?)

- Beer and soju. I don't drink as much as I used to, so this is less of an issue for me. But living in a country that, as a nation, drinks enough every day to crown Jinro soju as the most consumed alcohol in the world, drinking now and then is hard to avoid. Beer is clearly not gluten free. However, in Korea, where the local mass produced beers taste more like a certain human excretion than even American industrial beers, it is often claimed that Korean beer is disgusting because it is made with rice. Is it really? And is soju, the rice spirit of choice, pure enough to be free of any cross contaminants?

- Is communion gluten free? I heard it wasn't. But I also heard about a group of nuns somewhere in the US that make a 99.9% gluten free wafer. But that is in the USA. This is Korea. Is there a similar option here? Can you just take the wine instead? And would the church be kind enough to let you take the first sip or use a different challace to prevent cross-contamination?
I have a lot of translating and research to do.

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Blog: Goodbye Gluten

A week ago, in one gluttinous fury, I bought more breads and pastries from Paris Baguette, a popular Korean Bakery chain, than I ever have in a single visit in over three years of living in Korea. Soon after my kitchen table was piled high with a celiac's nightmare (or fantasy): a collection of bakery goods ranging from a walnut donut ball to a cinnamon bun slathered with cream cheese frosting, all the while slices of freshly baked bread browned in my toaster oven, filling the air with scents of yeasty goodness.

Yet, like so many professional men who don't have enough time, or commitment, to visit the gym every day, my middle was a little bit squishy. I was active enough in my daily life to keep from being overweight. I walked or biked everywhere and spent up to six hours a day standing when teaching. But maintaining an average body at my level of physical activity required reducing my sugar and carb intake. Beer, sugary drinks and pastries were replaced with soju, homemade ice tea, and mixed nuts.

So why was I gorging on pastries?

It was Fat Tuesday! And on Ash Wednesday I gave up one of the most treasured slices of my diet — gluten.

Despite being a devout Catholic, the initial reasons for the sacrifice are less than spiritual. Simply put, I'm a journalist, or at least I was, and dietary stunts make great stories. Great stories get picked up by paying publishers. Paying publishers put articles in real magazines. Real magazines get read. And this looks a lot better on the resume of a journalist stuck in a teaching job since 2010 than three mostly neglected blogs. In other words, I have to put myself back out there, and this is my first major project.

My reasons aren't entirely self-centered, though. I have a brother. He's a younger brother — a very sick younger brother for whom I care very much. Since I moved to Korea he was diagnosed with severe lymes disease, bartonella, celiac disease, and the MTHFR congenital gene mutation. He suffers from a host of symptoms, most notably, occasional, epilleptic seizures. Eating gluten free, however, has helped him mangage some of his symptoms, allowing him to return to and finish college while allowing enough peace to dream about his future. For me, giving up gluten is a way to connect with a brother that nearly four years and over 7,000 miles have, except for the occasional Facebook message, separated. Also, depending on how successful I am, my adventure may open up the world to my brother who would otherwise be confined to the mundane realities of Western civilization.

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