Pin It
We're off to Seoul for a few days - the first trip for Foursheets in 8 years - so that we can attend Mikacina's wedding. Naturally, we are taking on a few extra days so that we could sample more Korean food. The two of us have barely scratched the surface in terms of discovering "real" Korean food, so we're pretty excited about this trip.
We budgeted some time to get breakfast at the airport, since we knew we wouldn't be eating on the flight.
Tasty Congee and Noodle Wantun Shop (正斗粥麵專家) has an outlet here, and we figured we should savor a bit more of Hong Kong before diving into our Korean food tour.
Stir-fried rice noodles with beef (干炒牛河) and
rice noodle rolls filled with twisted cruller (香脆油條腸粉) are two of my favorite things to order, and they're famous for these dishes. The
wok hei (鑊氣) on the noodles was pretty good, and the crullers weren't too shabby, either.
After recovering from at least 15 minutes of unbearable pain during descent thanks to my sinusitis, our exit from Incheon Airport was relatively uneventful. We got on the Airport Limousine that would drop us off near our hotel, and we should have enough time to clean up in time for dinner.
A work call came in during the last part of our journey so I wasn't paying attention to the surroundings, and when it looked like we were in the right neighborhood, we grabbed our hand luggage and scrambled to get off the bus. We missed our stop nonetheness, and someone wasn't too pleased about having to wheel our luggage an extra couple of hundred meters.
Hotel Sunbee is in the middle of Insadong, and our room was on the top floor of this low-rise. The hotel has been refurbished, and we took a traditional Korean family room with a king bed and a
yo (요) laid out on the wooden floor that would be heated during winter. We were so happy to have enough room to open up our big suitcases, and quickly showered and changed for dinner.
As we were leaving our room to go to dinner, I realized that my wallet was nowhere to be found. This was not the kind of thing you want to happen on your first day in a foreign country. But we were meeting a friend for dinner and our ride was arriving...
Restaurant Jueun (레스토랑 주은) came highly recommended when I asked around for places serving classic Korean flavors. It was pretty close to our hotel, and Jay Essu was pretty happy to be joining us for dinner here.
But first, though, I needed her help to call the Airport Limousine company. Other than being pick-pocketed as we rolled our luggage through Insadong, the likeliest place where I dropped my wallet would be on the bus as we rushed to get off. Jay Essu did speak to someone at the bus company, but it would take some time for them to check in with the bus driver about my wallet. Best for us to enjoy our dinner first, then...
Our welcome drink was made with apple vinegar and Korean mint. It didn't turn out as acidic as I thought it would be.
Han ip geori (한 입 거리) - the term means "one bite", so we have a few
amuses bouches just big enough for a single bite...
Steamed bun made of buckwheat and makgeolli (메밀과 막걸리로 만든 증편) - the
jeungpyeon (증편) is made with
makgeolli (막걸리), with a hint of sweetness. This was more chewy and dense than I had expected, given the spongy texture with all those holes.
Gompi seaweed roll (곰피말이) - stuffed with diced surf clams and pickled lettuce.
Yukhoe (육회에) - the raw beef inside the sweet pear was kinda chunky and chewy, topped with [quail?] egg yolk .
Yangbyeong (향병) - this was made by deep-frying kohlrabi before coating it with honey and pine nut powder.
Chae (채) - an elegant version of
tangpyeongchae(탕평채) where we have seven kinds of vegetables, a few of which I'm not familiar with, with a little bit of snow crab meat.
This arrangement somehow reminded me of the cosmos flower, and you have the vegetables placed inside the
petals made with jelly called
dongbumuk (동부묵). The stringy stonecrop (돌나물) at 12 o'clock had the strongest sesame oil flavor, while the perilla leaves were fragrant but a little bitter.
Hoe (회) -
mulhoe (물회) is a summer dish featuring raw fish and a chilled soup made with
gochujang. In this case we had slices of horse mackerel with very thinly-sliced cucumber and crunchy oriental melon (참외).
This was really refreshing, with good acidity in the chilled soup as well as pretty reasonably spicy kick. The corn kernels on top were kinda chewy, so texture-wise there was a nice contrast.
Japchae (잡채) - this was a very artistic plating combining abalone and mushrooms. The ablone was very tender and very tasty.
There were three types of mushrooms used, which matched the abalone very well as we were meant to mix it all together to make it into
japchae (잡채).
Myeon (면) - Foursheets' eyes lit up when this came, because she loooooves
naengmyeon (냉면). The broth made with pheasant had very clean flavors, and of course the chilled broth was very nice and refreshing. They compressed the meat into a terrine and presented us with a thin slice on top, just like a regular bowl of
naengmyeon.
The deep-fried pheasant pie on the side was kinda interesting, and definitely tasty.
Jjim (찜) - the steamed butterfish was very tender, as one would expect, but the flavors of the seafood porridge did not really stand out... especially since there was a mild spicy kick from the sauce that accompanied the fish together with coriander and Japanese/Korean angelica (タラの芽/두릅). There was some kimchi made with sweet potato stems on the side, which is kinda familiar to me since these days it's common to eat sweet potato leaves in Taiwan.
We were shown a pot of
red potato rice for our main course. The rice was cooked in a cast iron pot from Anseong Foundry (안성주물) together with some red potatoes (홍감자).
Hansang (한상차림) - the rice is now served with some beef, a spicy stew (감정) that came with mushrooms, zucchini, radish, and pepper. We also had side dishes that included kimchi, red pepper leaves (고춧잎), bell flower root (도라지), salted pollack roe (명란젓), and
jangjorim (장조림).
The
Hanwoo sirloin was, of course, very tender and tasty.
The scorched rice at the bottom of the pot was made into
sungnyung (숭늉), and served with a little bit of
jeotgal (젓갈) - in this case fermented shrimp.
Husik (후식) - our dessert was a punch (화채) made with peach and
omija (오미자), and it was astringent as well as slightly bitter. There were little "petals" cut from peaches as well as tiny balls made with sticky rice.
We had
chrysanthemum tea to finish.
Dagwa (다과) - there were 5 types of sweet snacks to go with our tea.
Injeolmi (인절미) - a sweet
tteok (떡) covered in black sesame seed powder.
This tiny
mujigae-tteok (무지개떡) came with sweet sesame oil inside.
Yeot-gangjeong (엿강정) - with rice and
yuja zest.
Chestnut dasik (다식)
Yakgwa (약과)
This was a really enjoyable meal, especially since it helped to continue my education in Korean cuisine and ingredients. Just about everything was tasty, and many of the dishes were new to me. If only my sinus wasn't acting up and I didn't have to keep running to the toilet to clear my nose...
The best thing, though, was that Jay Essu called the bus company back, and they think they found my wallet! I would have to go to their office tomorrow morning, which is all the way back near Incheon airport. At least I could sleep a little easier tonight... And I'm grateful to have the help of an old friend, because otherwise things would have been a lot more difficult...
No comments:
Post a Comment