So I realized that, although I take pictures of a lot of my meals, I haven't really recorded my thoughts about them, other than to simply say, "mm, tasty!" It sure would be a shame to spend 2 years in Korea only to come home with vague, faded memories of the food. So here are three meals from last week:
Gavin and I recently went to Romanée Conti, a restaurant in Samcheong-dong, for lunch. Romanée Conti is housed in a renovated hanok. Part of the reason why we went was our recent growing interest in this kind of traditional Korean house. Although the renovation of the exterior was more or less historically faithful, the interior incorporated some Western architectural elements, including exposed-brick walls and a wood-burning fireplace. The mixing of East and West is also reflected -- somewhat less cohesively -- in the menu, which includes a little bit of French, some Italian, a smidgeon of Korean as well as a wine list from all over. We shared a seafood-stuffed tofu appetizer, a Caesar salad and spaghetti. Of the three dishes, the Asian-inspired tofu dish was the most interesting. Sandwiched between two blocks of silky-soft tofu was a “fishcake” made of shrimp and squid. The tofu island jutted out of a dark pool of soy sauce and was topped with a crunchy garnish of fried anchovies and curly red slices of beet. Taste-wise, I enjoyed the delicate contrast of flavors and textures -- mild plus savory, soft plus crunchy. The one downside was the sauce; there was simply a little too much of it, so that the final bites of tofu had to be fished out of a salty pool. The Caesar salad, although not particularly outstanding, arrived with a healthy quantity of grated Parmesan and an artful topping of the same beet shavings that garnished our tofu. The spaghetti was forgettable, which is probably why I can’t tell you the exact name of the dish. There were some zucchinis in a red marinara sauce and slightly overcooked pasta involved. Overall, I'd say that the relaxed atmosphere, attentive service and a beautiful view make it a good date spot, although not necessarily one for gourmets. There are much better "go-to" spots in Samcheong-dong, though, so I'll probably not be back...
There’s a Chinese restaurant near our house that’s intrigued me since we’ve moved into the cozy little neighborhood of Gye-dong. Like most other Chinese restaurants in Korea, Yongjoung serves Korean-Chinese food, specializing in the black bean noodle dish called jajjangmyun. What Yongjoung does differently, however, is that they also make a version called “gochu jajjangmyun,” in which the sauce is spiced up with red peppers. I had heard that this special chilified rendition was on the menu, but what really piqued my interest was the fact that they only serve it on Tuesdays and Fridays. After weeks during which lunch and jajjangmyun schedules refused to align, my expectations for the sauce built up; I was certain that the unattainability of this chili jajjang sauce must correlate with its tastiness. Finally, last Tuesday, we determined to go for lunch, and we weren’t disappointed. As often happens when Gavin and I go to restaurants in Korea, the waitress warned Gavin, the apparent “weigukyin”, or foreigner, that the food would be very spicy. So, duly warned, we braced ourselves for a taste-bud numbing experience. But it turned out the spiciness in the jajjang was really just the right amount, and certainly nothing to apologize for. Even more special, the slightly sweet heat in the red pepper enhanced the other flavors in the black bean sauce, which included ground pork, shrimp, onions and slivers of cucumber, making for a much more complex tasting experience than I had expected from the ja-jjang. The black bean sauce is served on the side, so that diners can take as much as they can handle, and Gavin and I nearly cleaned out the whole bowl. I have to admit; it has taken me some time to learn to love ja-jjang-myun, which had initially put me off both because it’s lack of resemblance to “real” Chinese food and the tendancy of many cooks to go too heavy on the black bean. But Yongjoung is the restaurant that finally did it for me, and jajjangmyun now makes my list of comfort foods in Korea.
Speaking of comfort foods, maybe it's the arrival of fall, but comfort food is definitely what I've been craving lately. My stomach has moods. Adventurous moods, happy moods, nostalgic moods. Last week, my stomach was feeling rather lonesome for something simple and homey, so Gavin and I went to have some dolsot-pap for lunch. The restaurant was doing brisk business on Thursday afternoon, despite being located in a partially vacated basement of an old office building. After the requisite panchan dishes were served, the rice came out in a hot stone bowl ("dolsot") topped with a raw egg and a smattering of peas, carrots and tobiko. I like the DIY mentality in Korean cuisine, which often involves cooking, mixing or wrapping your own food at the table. In this meal, we cooked the egg by mixing it into the hot rice. The orange tobiko and green peas gave the rice mixture some lively color and flavor. Then, when all that was left of the rice was "nurongji" -- the burnt rice stuck to the sides of the stone bowl -- we filled the bowl with barley tea to loosen the rice and make a kind of weak rice-soup. A pot of barley tea was helpfully left on each table expressly for this purpose. Although the simple rice mixture and soup were just what my stomach had been asking for, my favorite part of the meal was really the quivering bowl of silken, steamed egg that came out last. It had the soothing almost-liquid texture and hearty flavor that comes from steaming your egg with just the right amount of good, rich broth. With the soft eggy flavor in my mouth, I could practically picture the doting Korean grandmother in the kitchen, lavishing utmost care on all her dishes. A perfect meal to make a stomach feel loved...
