South Korea Voyage: The FOOD (Part 1)

THE KOREAN BBQ

There are three things that I learnt about South Korea on our first freezing night there:

1)      Koreans do not do buffets. Unlike Singapore, where almost every Korean BBQ restaurant is buffet-style, the Korean BBQ restaurants in South Korea are ala carte. After spending 11 days in Korea, I have not seen a single buffet place, save for the Western restaurant that has a free salad bar in Lotte World. There is not even a single outlet of Seoul Garden in sight. Therefore, I conclude that buffet/Seoul Garden is not the norm (or I am just not fated to chance upon a Korean BBQ buffet).

2)      Everyone has to order at least one set per person (or everyone has to at least order something), or the waitress/waiter will complain that you did not order enough. My guess was that this makes up for the cost of the free side dishes and free water that you get with every meal. You can insist on ordering as little as you want, but note that they will not be happy or they will not take your order (read: kick you out of the restaurant altogether).

3)      Speaking Chinese is better than speaking English. Chances are that most of them understand Chinese better. Thank God we Singaporeans are educated in both.

The first meal we had in Korea was what I termed the ‘pseudo Korean BBQ’. We were fresh out of a six-hour flight, had our systems shocked by the freezing weather, and painfully dragged our luggage through the cold city to our hotel. We were tired, hungry and just numb from the cold (it was my first experience with winter after all).

Before I move on, I have two things to admit. I do not really enjoy eating kimchi (a spicy sour mix of preserved vegetables) and Korean rice cakes (딱 볶 이). Maybe I just have not had the good ones in Singapore.

Moving on.

So we trooped around the area near our hotel (at Chungmuro/忠武路) and found this decent looking restaurant selling what we thought is Korean BBQ. We went in, sat down and a Korean lady served us. It was our first time, we lack experience, and after a full fifteen minutes of hand-signs and a multitude of language mumbo-jumbo, we placed our ordered. Finally. Did I mention we were cold and hungry?

This prolonged and difficult ordering process repeated itself for at least the next few meals until we smartened up and realized that communicating in Chinese and listening to their recommendations made ordering much easier and faster. You should trust that they will not recommend dishes to earn or for their own benefit because I feel that they really do care that you enjoy your meal. It is a win-win situation and everyone is happy.

The first meal is a ‘pseudo Korean BBQ’ because we did not really do any barbequing. Most of the food came cooked. We mistakenly thought that we were eating Korean BBQ. Only one of the pork dishes we had to cook and even then, it was not a full BBQ experience. But the food is decent and did not disappoint. 

Our first meal in South Korea.

The rice is cooked with various beans in a bamboo container and the white mushy thing at the front is mushed beancurd skin.

First were the side dishes; an assortment of little dishes of yummy goodies that everybody gets. I left my plate of kimchi untouched for every meal. The side dishes that I liked best are the marinated seaweed and the long bean sprouts. But do not expect every restaurant to serve similar side dishes. It varies, even though kimchi is a mainstay.

Next was the plate of vegetable leaves. Never in my life have I seen such a varied assortment of vegetable leaves, with a green so luminous you thought they were injected with dye and so fresh they seemed to be plucked out of the farm only a few minutes ago. One of the varieties had leaves with jagged edges that had a subtle basil-like taste, and I liked it. It lent a zest to the barbequed meat.  And I really like the idea of wrapping barbequed meat with veggie leaves. It just made the mouthful of meat a whole lot fresher and easier on the palate; fresh clean taste of vegetables against the heavy smoky tender juicy meat. It really is heavenly.

Though the apple looked vaguely 'expired', it is super sweet and delicious. 

What made the veg-and-meat combo even better is the variety of sauces/pastes, dips, garnishes that you add into it. This is a country that eats sauces/pastes and garnishes like nobody’s business. When I say garnishes I meant marinated onion slices, freshly chopped spring onion and whole slices of raw garlic. I always add the bean paste sauce (my favourite among all the sauces/pastes), the marinated onion and a slice of raw garlic and that my friends, is an explosive combination. It is a big resounding YUM which have you going back for seconds, thirds, fourths, etc.

Even though our first meal felt somewhat a letdown, we still enjoyed the food. I guess my expectations were too skewed towards Korean BBQ.

The burning embers of what is going to be an awesome meal.

However, we did manage to have an authentic Korean BBQ experience at Myeongdong/明洞 (the shop is called洪班长碳烧something something). It was divine. I must recommend this place. It is a mid-sized restaurant with a busy atmosphere. The people there are generally friendly, if a little impatient and hurried. There is a lady who speaks Chinese so you can order with her. Do note that this is one of those places where you have to order enough for your whole entourage. I highly recommend their plain pork belly (五花肉). It is to die for. There is also a marinated version which I did not try (regretfully) but you should order it just as well. They also have marinated and plain beef. We ordered the marinated beef, which is sweet, juicy and tasty.  

Everything comes with the standard side dishes, garnishes, sauces/pastes, rice, lettuce leaves and water.

The array of side dishes.

 We also ordered a bowl of ribs soup (排骨汤) which turns out to be beef, not pork ribs as I initially thought. The soup is nothing to write home about, a hot warming broth for a cold night. 

Rib soup.

Besides the soup, we also ordered a plate of fried buckwheat noodles (guksu/국수) called Japchae (잡 채). This is akin to the local Singaporean version of fried cellophane noodles (炒冬粉) except that buckwheat noodles has a more supple chewy texture and retains its form better, unlike glass noodles which tends to break every single time you pick it up. The Korean version also has different vegetables in the mix. But it is just as delicious and I really liked it, though it makes for a filling meal in itself.  

The lady helped us to cook our meat. How nice. 

All in all this is one of the best Korean BBQ I have ever tasted. I will definitely make a trip back there if I am back at Seoul. 

South Korea Voyage: The FOOD (Part 1) to be continued...