Not to spoil the end of the story or anything, but for all those impatient people out there, I found it – my MSG-free gochujang. Except it has corn syrup in it, which is disgusting. But at the same place I found it I also found a vegan apple-brown sugar hot sauce, homemade, unfermented, MSG-free, and completely believable. Now all I need to do is cook it myself, since it’s not available for purchase (possibly since it’s preservative-free, but mostly since it’s made in a small restaurant called Bi Bim Bap around Bathurst and Eglinton in Toronto). That’s not Koreatown, for all those who don’t know Toronto. Instead of cheap porkbone soup, 24 hour DIY-marinated beef BBQ, and owls with creepy eyes, these northern digs are all about healthy food that the restaurant owner would feed his own family, happily.
Bi bim bap is supposed to be the healthy-ish Korean food. Diet food, even. Lots of steamed veggies – zucchini, marinated mushrooms, spinach, bean sprouts, carrots, nori (seaweed) strips, cucumber, red pepper, daikon radish – on top of short-grain rice in a stone bowl that crisps the rice as you eat, after stirring in a fresh egg (the yolk and white cook in the hot bowl as you stir) and a sweet and spicy red hot sauce whose main ingredient is red pepper powder, or gochujang.
The deal at this restaurant is you pick your rice (white or brown!), pick your toppings (to go on top of the heap or sesame-marinated veggies) – egg, chicken, beef – and pick your gochujang (one of six made in-house sauces ranging from mild to hot, all MSG-free (but 3 with the corn syrup red pepper powder) and one home-made – no gluten, no dairy, no MSG, no corn syrup!
The other two sauces are more salty and savoury – garlic soy and bean, to go on marinated mushroom bi bim bop (not so traditional, but the mix of mushrooms is a nice riff on a rice bowl meal), and one with seeds and sprouts and things you’d find in Kensington Market. Why aren’t they in Kensington, then? The owner likes it up where he is. No competition in the area. It’s upscale enough but not hoity-toity. There are adventurous eaters in the area, and it’s not too far for adventurous foodies from outside the neighbourhood to come.
The brand of red pepper powder without the MSG is called “Haechandle” (it’s got a red top on the plastic container and a green jalapeno on the front) and the owner spent forever looking for it. The MSG stuff makes him loopy, he says. It’ s all about the bi bim bap here, but the appetizers are delicious, too. Beets, carrots and daikon radish in a mild yellow-wasabi dressing. Mild to me. Maybe not to you. Jap chae sweet potato starch noodles, massaged after resuscitating with water so you don’t have to use as much oil. “That’s the secret,” says the owner. ”You don’t need a lot of oil,”. It takes patience, though, he insists. Then not to be missed kimchi and MSG-free miso soup that comes with the bi bim bap. A feast. The beef tacos are new on the menu, and the raw bi bim bap with all seeds and nuts and who knows what kind of rice is gone, but there’s plenty of innovation and plenty of flavours. Most importantly it’s unique and well-executed, and the chef lights up when you ask a million questions, which in turn makes me happy because I ask a million questions all the time.
Bi bim bap success? Yes. Now if only I could make his apple gochujang at home. The secret?
Well it wouldn’t be a secret if he’d told me, now would it?
Where: 950 Eglinton West
When: Tues-Sat 11am-10pm; Sun 11am-8pm
How much: $17 for a bi bim bap and an appetizer, including tax and tip
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