Left: an approximation of Korean kim bap; grape tomatoes
Right: mandarin oranges, apple bunnies, rambutans, longans
I wanted to make kim bap this morning, but didn't have time to look up a proper recipe, so I made things up as I went along. I used regular cooked rice, beef (marinated in tamari before searing), omelet (seasoned with salt & pepper), shredded carrots (lightly salted before steaming to soften), and fresh spinach (steamed). So...it's not really kim bap, but it's really close. ;-) I wish I had used some toasted sesame oil in the beef and spinach. Some pickled daikon would have been nice too. Anyhoo, it is pretty tasty nonetheless.
The red spiky fruit in the dessert tier are rambutans. When we were in Vietnam, my aunt often would serve us a big iced bowl of longans and lychees, or a plate of rambutans with their caps cut off. We always joked that they looked like alien eggs sitting in special incubation pods. The edible flesh of rambutans, lychees, and longans are fairly similar, but the rambutans are more meaty and are sweetly tart. The longans have the least flesh, are the sweetest, and their pits are very smooth. Lychees are kind of in between.