We Had Our First Korean Bibimbap Last Night

A trip to Seoul! I'm excited for you. Really, just thinking of all the food... all... the... food... oh my. My head is just filling up with recommendations all over the place. Mmm mmm mmm. Is there anything you particularly do/don't want to try? I don't know whether to start listing things now or wait until you have planned things out a bit more. I'm making myself really hungry here...

You should also check out Koreatown in Los Angeles and New York! It's honestly almost as authentic.

How long would you say it takes you on average to get through a report with 150+ pages and make sense of the numbers? Do you feel the IFRS slows you down at all?

If we're talking about doing a quick analysis and knowing whether or not a company is going to be good enough to be put on the permanent shopping list of businesses I want to own for the rest of my life, I can normally make a determination of within 3-5 minutes of looking at the financial statements, GAAP or IFRS not making much difference.

If we're talking about a full-blown, nuts-and-bolts, down to the foundation of the numbers understanding how everything fits together analysis once a company has piqued my interest? Then, yes, there is a difference.

Specifically, if we're talking about a company squarely within my wheelhouse, such as a packaged food, beverage, or retail business, I can get through it very, very quickly. I can grab the Nestle filings, go out to lunch, and within an hour or two feel comfortable with where the money is being generated, what the risks are, what things are going to be the big drivers of value, etc. There isn't a huge difference between studying it and something like J.M. Smucker's GAAP-based filings.

If we're talking about a hugely complex enterprise in an industry that I'm not usually dealing with on a day-to-day basis and large multi-national subsidiaries or transactions, then, yes. IFRS slows me down considerably relative to GAAP because there are still a significant amount of differences between IFRS and GAAP and most of my day-to-day work is done in the latter. (This is a good overview of the divergences as of last year) but the two standards seem to be converging. It's certainly a lot easier than back when I was in college!

For example, though it wasn't the report I was referencing in this post, it took me 2-3 days last week to fully get through and appreciate the complexity of the couple hundred pages that make up the BP, plc annual report. Part of this was the changes in IFRS accounting standards for equity-accounted investments, which are considerable for a company such as BP that generates a lot of production, and holds a lot of reserves, through non-controlled subsidiaries. Small changes in how those positions are treated can result in big fluctuations and/or non-comparability on the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. One of my self-assigned homework assignments in the coming months is to pull the IFRS rule changes and study them as if I were an accounting student. None of that would have been necessary were I reading the Exxon Mobil or Chevron reports because I'd have instantly, and subconsciously, begun making whatever adjustments were necessary in GAAP to get to the heart of what concerned me. I could have probably dealt with one of those firms in a half the time, maybe even less (BP took so long because I'm concerned about the nearly 20% stake in the world's largest publicly traded oil company, Rosneft, which means you really need to analyze two different oil giants to value BP and then try to understand the effect sanctions and geopolitical risks could have on it).

As with most things, exposure and experience make all the difference. In the past couple of months, 90% of the investments I've been making for the KRIP portfolio have been in British stocks as I'm finding a lot more value across the pond than I am here in the United States.

Interesting. I am nowhere near that kind of proficiency, but it is definitely improving. I often feel like I am not getting the full picture with IFRS, but the problem is most likely my lack of experience rather than the system itself.

Your comment triggers another question, how much focus do you think an average investor should place on currency? When you have money coming in in Euros, Pounds, Sterling and Swis Francs (I'm disappointed with the lack of Norwegian Kroners...) do you worry about the dollar value against those currencies and take measures in order to minimize your risks, such as hedging, or do you feel like as long as the fundamentals of the company are still the same, forex won't matter as much on the long run?

I am the opposite, living in Europe and seeing parts of my money coming in in Dollars.

hey joshua, thanks for the input .... what i wanted to ask was could you kindly suggest some books on packaged food, beverages and retail businesses so that i can better understand the businesses.....your suggestions will be most helpful! thanks!

I'd highly recommend trying this dish at a Korean restaurant to get the full experience. At Korean restaurants they serve these dishes in a hot stone bowl, which makes each bite extremely hot. Hot enough to burn your tongue if you're not careful! A layer of of the rice at the bottom of the bowl gets crunchy due to the heat. It's so delicious, especially during the winter when it's cold outside, I've even considered buying a stone bowl.

Looks good! A recipe I like to make in the winter months is kimchi jjigae which is soul satisfying as long as you like kimchi.

Joshua,

Have you had dolsot kalbi bi bim bap? Its basically the same thing you made, but utilizes a heated stone bowl. This makes the rice crispy and carmelizes a lot of the vegitables. The downside is that )a you have to heat the bowl and b) it takes a while before the food is cool enough to eat!

http://s3-media1.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/mcNrTxpZ_kcgbv_0f-HGNw/l.jpg

My wife has made bibimbap before, but we both prefer it in a stone bowl.

Your food always looks awesome! Did you follow an online recipe for this, or did it come from a book? I'd like to have a shot at this one.

You can make your own sprouts, if you plan ahead, and thus free yourself from the tyranny of supermarket supply lines. http://www.tammysrecipes.com/make_your_own_bean_sprouts Apparently there's some e coli risk which may be eliminated if they're cooked for the dish.

After reading many of your food and life postings for the past two years ,You can have all the money and fame in this world, but its these routine moments in our lives that defines real success for many of us. Enjoy your meal,( it looks delicious from looking at the pictures.), and if you decide to go on your trip, have a safe travel and fun time in Seoul.

Cool. Bibimbap is delicious. I learned to make my first dish recently which is pad thai. I want to learn some more similar dishes so I can grow my cooking knowledge...

Joshua- I asked my friend (who is German but lives in Texas) about the name of the cake you mentioned. This is what she said: "It might be Christmas Stollen. Some of those recipes are made with amaretto liquor. There are many recipes in general made with amaretto liquor paired with almonds or chocolate."

This could make you cherish the freedom you have to watch Korean dramas even more:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-28/kim-jong-un-purges-10-officials-for-watching-soaps-yonhap-says.html

If you do wind up going, quick recommendation - watch the Korea episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations." It's an oldie but goodie, and I understand a lot of the featured dishes are quite tasty.

I get hungry almost every time I read one of your posts. I really need to learn how to cook something more than meat, veggies and potatoes. 😉

Go to Seoul! Do it! It's amazing. And the official Korean tourism website is chockful of information. Keep digging and you'll find some interesting stuff like the Millenium Eye and Fish Alley.

At the exact moment you wrote this comment, I was looking at vacation house rentals in Seoul, thinking about what we would want to do, where we would want to go, etc. ... you must have ESP, haha!