Purple (/black) rice + a recipe + a restaurant

We enjoy eating at the fast casual restaurant called Bibibop. During #promdressquest, Alyssa and I stopped in for a repast every time we went to Dillard's as there is a Bibibop near the Dillard's at Liberty Center. Bibibop is a chain that is most prevalent in Ohio. Nationwide, there are only sixty six restaurants so chances are, depending on where you live, you don’t have easy access to this restaurant. I will explain a little bit about the restaurant since it inspired my purchasing black rice in order to make purple rice.

The name of the restaurant is due to its sound proximity to the word bibimbap, a common rice dish in Korea. The man who started Bibibop was born in South Korea. He came to the United States to attend Ohio State U. in Columbus, OH. He decided to open a Korean fast causal restaurant, but he made most menu choices with the typical American palate in mind. The concept is sort of like Chipotle- customers chose a base for their bowl, a protein, vegetables and then a sauce. Workers behind the counter assemble the order as customers make their various selections. 

Here is a sample of some of Bibibop's choices...

One of the base options for the bowl is purple rice. That is what I always order as my base at Bibibop...I had never heard of purple rice before eating at Bibibop. The main reason that I chose purple rice the first time I had Bibibop was because of the rices’ vibrant and unique color. {I am a sucker for richly pigmented food- most notably in how I am attracted to richly dyed candy but apparently the pigment love extends to grains as well :)} I could not really tell you how different purple rice tastes from white or brown rice because I always get a sauce in my bowl and that kind of flavors everything. Like I said, I chose it based on the color. I hoped it was more healthy than white or brown rice (it definitely is more healthy than white rice, but I just recently found that out).

Here is a bowl that I got one time at Bibibop. The purple rice is hardly visible since it was at the bottom and I had not stirred the contents of the bowl. 

Here is a picture of a bowl that shows the purple rice. 

About a week ago, I was looking at a food blog for some meal inspiration. (Gotta have more meals in the rotation that the girls like for the rest of the summer and so that they will look forward to coming home from college more!!) In the Popular Posts section, a dish called Korean beef bowls caught my eye. I looked at the ingredient list and was fairly certain this was something that everyone would like. In addition, I stock all of the ingredients for this dish already with the exception of gochujang sauce. That was readily attainable at Kroger so I was ready to make Korean beef bowls.

Here is the ingredient list- just had to buy the sauce. I had everything else on hand.

The bottle says that it is a cooking sauce; in the recipe that I made, the sauce is not cooked in anything. Rather, it is added to the final product.

But then I had a thought... what if I prepared purple rice a la Bibibop with the meal instead of brown rice? (I’m telling ya, sometimes I come up with some half way decent ideas...) That would put a Bibibopesque spin on the meal that may make it stand out even more.  I started doing some research on where to buy purple rice (I had looked for it at Kroger before and knew they didn’t carry it).

My research yielded some interesting results. First, purple rice is actually black rice. As in, you buy black rice. It becomes purple. I read that the rice becomes purple when it is cooked- it releases a chemical that turns it purple. I read on a site about Bibibop that their black rice turns purple when it is mixed with white rice. That’s right- Bibibop’s purple rice is actually a black//white rice blend. I decided to do what the Bibibop site said and made black rice and white rice and combined them. When I prepared the black rice, mine stayed black even when cooked. However, like the BB site said, when I mixed it with white rice, it turned purple. 

Here is just the black rice prepared

And here it is when I mixed it with white rice

Here is some good news/ bad news about purple rice (though maybe I should be saying black rice? I guess I will say purple since it did end up being purple in color!). The good news is that is healthy. It contains a plant compound called anthocyanin which accounts for its vibrant color and provides health benefits including preventing inflammation. 

The bad news is that black rice is pretty expensive to buy especially compared to its less vibrant hued rice counterparts. I ordered mine at Walmart.com and paid about ten dollars for 16 ounces. It was delivered the next day- to get free shipping, I had to order $35 worth of stuff which was pretty easy to do :).

This one pound package was $10. A one pound package of long grain white rice at Wal-mart  is .92. One pound of long grain brown rice is .88- Great Value brand

Ok, I just did a search on purple rice on Kroger's website and it says my Kroger store sells it and it is half the price that I paid for it on Wal-Mart's site. It´s $4.99 a lb at Kroger. That is still not nearly as reasonable as white or wheat rice. Also, I stand corrected. Kroger does sell it!

Here was my Korean beef bowl the first evening that we had it (I made a double batch banking on us liking it (we did!))

The second evening that we had it, I sliced the cucumbers smaller and I baked a couple of potatoes, diced them and then had them available as toppings. At Bibibop, potatoes pieces are an option for a bowl. I didn’t take a picture of my bowl from the second evening. It looked a lot like my bowl from the evening before except that I added potatoes to it and the cucumbers were sliced smaller. 

Bottom Line: 

Purple/ black rice- I will probably pass on this as far as future purchases go (obviously I'll finish the rice in the package that I bought). I think I will use brown rice as the base for the bowls when I run out of the purple rice.

Korean beef bowl recipe from Skinnytaste.com- really good--> great flavors,  common ingredients except for the sauce, easy to make. Like I said, I will be making this again!

Bibibop restaurants- Really good for fast, casual- reasonable prices for lots of fresh topping options. Alyssa does not care for the chicken at Bibibop. She thinks the chicken is of a poor quality (she is fairly fussy though especially pertaining to meat). She ordered steak as her protein the last time we were there and liked it better than the chicken. I think the chicken tastes just fine. I would definitely recommend this restaurant if you find yourself near one!

Linking up with Joanne at My Slices of Life for Talking about it Tuesday.