Seoul Food

I was in Seoul, Korea, this week, and a group of us went to this traditional Korean restaurant called Hanwoori, in a district in Seoul known for the young, hip, up and coming crowd.   Initially I thought it was going to be all spicy and I was going to end up with a tummy ache, but much to my surprise, the food was really good and yummy and not as spicy as I thought it would be.

We officially had a 14-course meal (which actually turned out to be 16 courses by my count), and I nearly collapsed at the end of the meal, being so stuffed with food.  In traditional Korean dining, the main course comes last - right before dessert- and it is usually a rice dish with another 3-4 side dishes.  On top of the main dish, we were served 4 different kinds of soup, 4 different kinds of cold dishes, 4 kinds of hot dishes, 3 kinds of desserts.  There were no small kimchi dishes that you normally get when you visit "main stream" Korean restaurants, so it was rather unexpected.

The middle top soup is Fresh Water Kimchi (Mul-kimchi), a cold dish that acts similar to the western sorbet.  It is to be taken throughout the course of the meal and serves to cleanse your pallet.  The bottom right soup is Pumpkin Porridge (Hobak-juk).  It is very similar to cream of pumpkin soup but this is lighter and has a slight hint of spice (which I suspect is ginger).

This is Chilli Fried Mushrooms (Maeun Beoseot-bokkeum) mixed with 3 kinds of bell peppers.  The mushrooms look like deep fried fish and when I ate into it, it had this surprisingly soft texture, unlike mushroom nor fish. 

This is the traditional Korean pancake dish (Guejol-pan) which you are to wrap yourself combining all the ingredients presented here plus a tangy-sweet wasabi sauce.  It contains egg and rice noodles, mushrooms, seaweed, carrots, radish, beansprouts, scallions.  Really nice, refreshing dish.



This is a tofu dish (dubu-yori), something like a fried tofu sandwich, served with chili soy-sauce.  The middle of the sandwich looks like an eel, but it actually is some kind of mushroom.  The dish is deep fried, really nice and crispy as you bite into it, but soft when you eat it. 



Korean grilled beef ribs is my all time favorite. Called Sootbul-galbi & yachae, the ribs are grilled on a charcoal with garlic and soy sauce, cut to bite size pieces and eaten with Korean mushrooms.  The beef is very tender and the mushrooms can only be found in Korea.  It has the texture like an eggplant and a potato-like taste.

Main Dish: Jinji & Denjang-guk.  This is part of the main course to be eaten together with a bowl of sticky Korean rice and soy bean paste stew (similar to Japanese miso soup).  The dish contains all vegetables and the intent is to mix each portion with a portion of rice.  Really yummy but since it came last, I was too full to finish it up. 

This tea is the drink for the dessert.  It is a Korean cinnamon tea, drank cold, and it is truly very refreshing after such a heavy meal.