I had a very large Korean dinner last night. I had yukejan (a rich and spicy soup), bibimbap (sticky rice topped with egg, meat, and vegetables and drizzled with sesame oil), and tteok boki (rice cakes with eggs and vegetables), bulgogi (marinated barbecued beef), and an assortment of appetizers like kimchi and sauteed vegetables.

My companions didn’t like the rice cakes so I ended up having most of it. The servings at that Korean restaurant were large so I believe I had more than 4 servings of the rice cakes. I also had a healthy amount of the bibimbap and bulgogi plus a small bowl of the yukejan.

I was kind of worried with the caloric content of the tteok boki (rice cakes) so I googled it. And what I found out almost had me shouting in surprise. According to a website called TheDailyPlate, 4.75 cups of rice cakes contains about 995 calories so if I consume a cup, I’ll be getting approx. 209 calories.  But then I had 3-4 cups…WTF??!!!

And the bibimbap, well, two sites I found actually say that a cup of bibimbap contains 430-634 calories.  An ingredient analysis was made by FatSecret and I’m more inclined to agree than not.  The bulgogi has about 310 calories per serving so If I add up the calories I had from the bibimbap, bulgogi, and the tteok boki– I consumed more than 1367 calories.  And that’s a very conservative estimate because I haven’t even considered the appetizers and the yukejan yet.  By the looks of it, I had more than 1800 calories for dinner alone.

I also found out that 100 grams of kimchi has about 20 calories. So even if I have 300 grams of kimchi, I’ll be comsuming just about 60 calories.  So should I just forget about having my occasional bibimbap and rice cakes and settle for kimchi then?

Sheesh.  Tough luck.