There is a small Korean store a block from my house that also carries some Japanese products. One day I went there to get some agar-agar but could not find it. I asked, but the one person who speaks English was not there. They have some small Korean and Japanese (and other Asian) cookbooks near the cash register so I tried to find a picture of agar-agar in one of them. No luck. The young woman brought an older male co-worker over, and I tried to describe agar-agar, no luck. Finally I wrote the word on paper and he said, “Yes!” He brought me to the refrigerator case with kimchee, prepared Korean pickles, vegetables, mushrooms, etc. There were several packages of the salad that we get in American sushi restaurants. He had remembered reading the ingredients, including the agar-agar. They make some of the kimchees and pickles, but buy that salad.

I buy it there or at the other Japanese store in town. But not often. I consider it a sort of “deli” food and have never tried to make it at home. Sorry to disappoint…