Threats are a regular challenge for local journalists in Serbia, Marinkovic said. But so far, he said, there have been no updates.
That resulted in the police and a local prosecutor’s office investigating. Marinkovic was able to retrieve his phone, and he later wrote an editorial about the encounter. “He came back after several minutes, continued with threats, so we left," Marinkovic said. “I telephoned the local politician to ask why a man was bothering us.”Īt that point, Marinkovic said, the assailant grabbed the journalist’s phone and left the restaurant. He started threatening and mentioning an influential local politician,” Marinkovic said, declining to name the politician. “We tried to talk to person who approached. In Marinkovic’s case from March, the journalist says the man verbally assaulted him and made death threats.Īt first, Marinkovic tried to reason with the stranger. The Council of Europe (COE) platform to promote the protection of journalism has cited Marinkovic’s case and those of two other Serbian journalists threatened in recent months.ĭragojlo Blagojević, the editor of the magazine DrvoTehnika, received death threats in an anonymous call in July after reporting on the logging industry and hooligans threatened Brankica Stankovic, of Insajder TV, during a basketball game in May.įree expression and media rights groups have also separately pointed to a deteriorating climate for journalism in the country. "Anyone can come to you on a street, or wherever, slap you a couple of times, and get away with it while you are accompanied with friends or family,” said Marinkovic. Threats are not uncommon for journalists in Serbia. The reason, Marinkovic told VOA’s Serbian Service: a story Resetka had published about the death of a bodyguard who was assigned to a city official. Then a stranger approached and started to threaten Marinkovic, who is executive editor of the Serbian news website Resetka. “We wanted to show people more variety of Korean cuisine.Seated at a table with his wife and a colleague in the small town of Leskovac, Dragan Marinkovic was looking forward to a meal at his favorite restaurant. “I wanted to introduce Korean food, Korean culture to American people,” Kim says. It’s just as common as kimchi, though certainly not as well-known to non-Koreans. In fact, it all starts with the restaurant’s name: “Oiji” refers to Korean pickled cucumbers, a banchan that’s a mainstay of Korean home cooking. For Kim, this dish is not only a way to introduce diners to Korea’s unique cold noodle culture, but also part of his larger goal of pushing people to think of Korean food as more than just BBQ and bibimbap. Nothing about these cold noodles is a straight interpretation of familiar naengmyeon in its icy broth, or spicy bibimmyeon or bibimguksu loaded with fresh vegetables and heartily mixed with a gochujang sauce. The menu matches this aesthetic the sense is that the beauty of the restaurant's new home can match Kim's vision for his food which, while Korean at its core, is touched by far-reaching influences. The “mi” in Oiji Mi has a double meaning, literally translating to both “beauty” as well as “flavor.” The restaurant, designed by New York studio AvroKO, is a beautiful space featuring lush interiors recalling classic Manhattan social clubs of the Flatiron area, and colorful wooden accents-a modern architectural nod to traditional Korean houses known as hanok. The ramyun noodles retain their chewy, inviting texture, the lobster parts are cooked separately to prevent overcooking and preserve the meat’s sweetness, and the garnish provides welcome freshness to an otherwise rich dish. As with most memorable dishes, this one is greater than the sum of its parts. Oiji Mi’s lobster ramyun comprises four main parts: fresh, springy ramyun creamy sesame sauce carefully poached lobster bright green garniture. You can trace this recipe’s roots to some of the flavors and techniques found in those traditional chilled noodles, but it’s a wholly unique dish, one that encapsulates a chef’s mission to challenge diners’ perceptions of Korean food. The dish, available both on a prix fixe menu and a la carte, is a popular holdover from Oiji, the more casual now-closed restaurant of chef-owner Brian Kim.
As a heatwave rolled through New York City last week, a particular version of these noodles haunted my thoughts: a chili lobster ramyun from Oiji Mi in Manhattan. Classic iterations of these chilled, sometimes brothy, noodles include naengmyeon, a tangle of buckwheat noodles in a slushy beef broth and kongguksu, wheat noodles in cold soy milk soup. Cold noodles are a pillar of Korean cuisine, enjoyed year-round but especially when the mercury rises.