Korea wedding trip day 2: not quite heaven

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For those of us who don't frequent Korea, Dan Kim first came on my radar screen when Toc Toc was named "One to Watch" by Asia's 50 Best Restaurants. Mikacina's been singing his praises for a few years, so when it came time to look at places to try out on this trip, I decided 7th Door would be one of them, especially when we thought we would be staying in Gangnam. When we later decided to book our hotel on the north side of the river, I knew I needed to budget enough time to get to the restaurant. Well, we ended up being a few minutes late, which wasn't too bad.

We were the last to be seated, at the far end of the U-shaped counter. Before we had time to settle down, though, waitstaff came over and rushed to start service immediately. We were shown a collection of jars to highlight the chef's work on fermentation.

I was annoyed before we had even taken our first bite. Somehow the lighting of this place didn't work with my Sony MILC and I kept seeing shadows through my electronic viewfinder. It took me a while to switch to a manual shutter and adjusting shutter speed to get rid of those shadows. I guess most people snapping with their cell phones wouldn't have this problem.

My sinus was acting up again so I rushed to the toilet to clear it up. Before leaving my seat, I asked Foursheets to quickly order a bottle of wine that I had hurriedly picked out from the wine list. When the staff brought a bottle of wine to us, I had already forgotten what I had ordered - since it wasn't a familiar label - and asked to see the wine list again to confirm she had brought me to correct bottle. I could see her rolling her eyes and the expression was one of "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Well, it was the right bottle so I apologized, but we never got another smile from her again.

Our "welcome drink" was not cup of liquid but a bowl of Korean porridge.

I know that Korean juk (죽) is more rice than liquid so tends to be a little heavier. I understand it helps to warm the stomach, the way some Chinese meals start with a "stomach-warming soup (暖胃湯)", but putting a chunk of rice in my stomach before feeding me the "real" dishes just helps to reduce my appetite instead...

Welcoming fermentation and ripening small bites - a selection of 7 small bites to start.

Shrimp and seaweed chips - the darker colored shrimp crisp tasted much stronger with a bitter finish, and I made the mistake of eating that first. The seaweed crisp was much lighter, with a simple sweetness from the rice but delivered a dose of umami when the seaweed hits.

Amaebi tartlet - the roasted seaweed (laver, I presume) tartlet came with potato salad and raw Alaskan pink shrimp.

Crab salad - the crab was marinated in fermented crab mayo and served on top of a crunchy hazelnut cracker.

Deep-fried seaweed cracker with baby octopus

Fermented carrot and apple jelly - with dots of yuja gel. This was very fruity and sweet, very refreshing.

At this point someone tried to take my platter away, even though I hadn't finished eating. They must really want to rush through service...

Aranchini - with braised pork and Comté purée. This reminded me of gangjeong (강정), and unfortunately I didn't find the flavors special...

The bread was made with 5-year-old rice and yeast, and the sauce was a combination of sesame oil, perilla oil, and something else but I couldn't understand the explanation...

Pecorino cheese tofu with vegetable consomm soup - sitting in the thick and starchy consommé made with vegetables and kombu was a "Japanese-style" tofu (I'm too dumb to know what this means) made with Pecorino. I did manage to taste the cheese in the tofu, especially on the outside together with puffed rice.

Yellowtail with ssamjang - the fish was more interesting together with the sauces. Garnished with Korean parsley (미나리), Korean pear, pickled peppers, and Sichuan peppercorns.

Next came a presentation that I found purely performative and WTF. The server brings out a giant-ass Fendi totebag that one can see through, and reaches inside to fetch the paper bags containing our "daily snack". I have no idea why the chef felt this step is necessary, other than generating some "ooohs" and "aaahs" from ladies who are impressed by Fendi bags.

So our food is inside these custom paper bags that look like the 7-11 logo... Clever design, or trademark infringement?

Koreans are known for their love of corn dog, which I also happen to love. We've got japchae (잡채) and sweet potato inside, and there's a sauce made with aïoli and sweet chili sauce.

Korean abalone with mushroom soy sauce - the abalone came pretty thick cut so it was a little more chewy than expected. The sauce was definitely pretty sweet and had been thickened. Garnished with shredded zucchini and also burdock on top, while dill fronds and dill oil added some nice aromatics.

Our Hanwoo came next, with two different preparations of galbi (갈비).

1++Korean beef and chili paste - the beef came with a sauce made of gochujang and beef jus, and we've also got carrot purée, grilled leeks stuffed with greens, pickled garlic scape, pickled chili,

The marinated galbi was tasted pretty sweet, and came topped with ramps (명이나물) and sesame seeds.

The plain galbi was tasty, too... and more to Foursheets' liking.

Served with pickled perilla leaves.

We were next shown some gejang (게장) that would be used in the next dish. Foursheets and I normally don't touch this stuff, but since we had forgotten about the prevalence of this dish in Korea we neglected to mention it as one of our dietary restrictions. Since that's our oversight, we decided to take the dish as is.

Daechun Kim - the name of the course is a play on words... on one hand it's Dan Kim's name in Korean, but it's also the name of a famous brand of gim (김) known as Daechungim (대천김). The one being used tonight came from Busan (釜山) and was grilled over charcoal.

The server brought out this platter so that our bite is prepared right in front of us.

The first roll was made with Korean oscietra caviar.

The marinated crab roe was extracted...

...and made into the second gimbap (김밥).

Cold noodles with young radish kimchi (열무국수) - after our naengmyeon (냉면) lunch today, we are treated to more of it tonight. This was made with the greens of yeolmu (열무), or young summer radish. Topped with thin slices of beef which, thankfully, weren't as tough and overcooked as one finds in naengmyeon shops... as well as some julienned Korean pear.

I made sure to pick up some of the yeolmu with my noodles. These noodles were very thin and fine, very much like Japanese somen (素麺).

After our initial taste of the chilled broth, we were also encouraged to mix in some gochujang in with the noodles. Well... the broth did taste a little one-dimensional and simply a little acidic. the pear gave it some sweetness. At least it was refreshing.

Watermelon sorbet - served with watermelon cubes, omija (오미자) syrup, and orange zest. Nice and refreshing.

Rice trio dessert - so we have a scoop of rice ice cream on top...

...then some makgeolli (막걸리) cream underneath with perilla leaf chiffonade, as well as some yakgwa (약과).

Petits fours - we have a bite of preserved persimmon and yeot-gangjeong (엿강정).

I was a little surprised that we weren't offered a wine pairing, but I didn't mind picking out a bottle from the wine list. What I did mind, though, was how boring the wine list was. Foursheets does not care for chardonnay, and I knew the menu would match better would whites. Well... out of 24 white wines on the list, 21 were available, but only 5 were not chardonnay... with one of them being viognier - another varietal that my dear wife would not want to drink. So realistically I could only pick one out of four.

And out of 19 red wines from France on the list, 14 of them were Burgs. This capitulation to Burgundy is just so boring...

So in the end, I chose a Pouilly-Fumé since I knew my wife will be fine drinking a sauvignon blanc. Unfortunately, the one I chose wasn't very interesting...

2022 Rabichattes Pouilly-Fumé Les Grands Champs - nose was a little flinty, fruity. This was fairly ripe for its age. Unfortunately this was just so flat and boring on the palate.

Well, the food was fine tonight, although neither of us thought there were any standouts. For the second night in a row, though, we've had abalone, Hanwoo, and then omija as well as yakgwa in the dessert.

But the real problem for us was the hospitality. For a combination of reasons, the service tonight just wasn't very great or warm. When the food isn't all that impressive and the place doesn't feel welcoming, is there any reason to return or to recommend the place? Looking around, the other 7 visitors and the 2 locals seemed to be having a better time - except maybe the lady next to us dining alone whose friend cancelled the trip to Seoul. So maybe the problem was us.