The local Korean Restaurants can be traced back into history a long ways, to both myths and historical legend from Nomadic traditions in northern Korea and southern Manshuri. Not the same type of food over the entire area, Korean food varies by province, both in dishes and ingredients. Overall, the local Korean Restaurants offer a cuisine based on meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles and rice. With steamed short-grained rice as the main staple, each traditional meal is noted for its number of banchan (side dishes) which accompany the rice. However, every Korean meal offers Kimchi, a spicy pickled vegetable dish such as chard, with various spices that is also a common ingredient added to many other ingredients to make a Kimchi stew. The seasonings of the Korean meals consist of red chili paste, salt, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, fermented soybean paste, and soy sauce. Many Korean eateries make the popular hotteok or bungeoppang that customers purchase to eat there or wrap them up to take home to later on. Hotteok is a Korean filled pancake, with the dough made from wheat flour, water, milk, sugar and yeast – after raising, they are filled with brown sugar, honey, shopped peanuts and cinnamon which is then cooked on a greased griddle. Bungeoppang is a Japanese fish-shaped pastry, made similar to a waffle. Red bean paste is added into the fish mold and covered by more batter. Once it is closed, it is roasted like a piece of "fish bread." It was first introduced into Korea in 1930 when the Japanese occupied Korea. Another type of Korean pancake served is the Jeon, made with chopped kimchi or seafood chopped up and added into a wheat batter before pan frying it. It is then dipped into a bowl of soy sauce, vinegar and red pepper powder.
