On icy winter days, there are few better ways to thaw out than with a bubbling hot bowl of Korean tofu soup. When it arrives at your table in an earthenware dish, this robust brew is boiling over with vegetables, soft tofu chunks and comes in one of eight flavors. These flavors range from beef and seafood to miso and vegetables; you control the spiciness by telling your server what your heat threshold is. Along with the soup comes heavy stoneware bowls of sticky rice, three to four types of kimchi and raw eggs to drop and stir into the burbling broth. Whether you eat your rice in between sips of soup or mush it all into your soup, you’ve got a hearty meal that will keep your furnace stoked on the coldest day. You can find Korean tofu soup packed with ginseng, seafood, beef, kimchi, pork, miso, or vegetables for ($6.90) at So Gong Dong (3307 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. 773-539-8377) where the only other item on the menu is barbecued beef ribs, which aren’t bad. We haven’t made it out to Cho Dang Tofu Restaurant (1719 W. Algonquin Rd., Mount Prospect; 847-956-8638), but we’ve heard that its tofu soup ($7.99) is quite a treat. When you are done scooping your rice out of its stoneware pot, don’t forget to ask your server to pour hot water over the bits that are still stuck to the bottom. Once the stuff softens, the rice-water combo is considered a delicacy, although we are still not quite sure why.
Tofu soup
$6.90-$7.99
Thanks in Korean: Gam sa ham ni da.
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What’s your favorite form of tofu?
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