It's neat because this seems about half-way between an East Asian dumpling and an western European savory pie, and it's about half-way geographically too.
Visually, at least on the outside, it looks something like a Stottie, Oggie or Pastie from the farming/mining areas of the UK. I always find it fascinating to see the convergent evolution of this sort of food - edible with one hand, hot and filling, with a crust that can be discarded if hands are filthy, or et if not.
“I’ll take a 3 piece with a side of stock, taters & gravy, a biscuit, & the wife’ll have the salmon, also with a side of stock. Chicken stock for me, she’ll have the seafood stock.
Lets go ahead & get the little ones each a grilled cheese, both with beef stock…
And let’s see here… let’s do an order of churros for dessert… what’s that? Oh yes mam, definitely another side of stock with those.”
Its in the mug, people drink it because the outer crust of the kibin is thick and dry, so it goes well with it. The stock must be very rich in flavor so it would feal like having a soup.
Imagine having a soup for dinner but the main dish is bread.
It's less strange the more I think about it. I guess I've always thought of chicken stock as an ingredient and not a thing you can just have, but I guess it is just sorta soup.