A quest into the gustatory heart of Seoul

Tag : air dried cabbage

In the last two years, South Korea has spawned one major trendoverseas - Pinkberry, Red Mango and other cheery frozen yogurtparlors - and at least one minor one: the fried chicken joint BonChon Chicken, which arrived in Manhattan last year to much acclaim.Meanwhile, Momofuku's David Chang has rocketed to the top ofbest-chef lists, thanks in part to his clever reinterpretation oftraditional Korean dishes and ingredients.
To understand where these trends were coming from - and, I hoped,to discover the next ones - I spent a week eating the weird and thewild, the tasty and the comforting, and, more than once, thesublime. Oh, I also ate lots and lots of kimchi.
(If you don't like kimchi, you might as well stop here. Everythingcomes with kimchi: spicy or mild, salty or sour, crisp or soft,with mineral notes or the briny aroma of dried shrimp. Thevariations are endless, but all have one thing in common:ubiquity.)
Let's begin with the familiar: barbecue. There is perhaps no foodmore accessible, in any culture, than meat grilled over an openflame, and in Seoul you can't walk down a street, whether in theüber-trendy Apgujeong neighborhood or a grayer district likeDongdaemun, without inhaling the invigorating fumes of charcoalfires.
When four friends and I arrived at Hongik Sootbul Kalbi, a barbecuespot in the frantic dining-and-nightlife zone near HongikUniversity ("Meat Street," one friend called it), the first thingour waitress did was hand over a huge garbage bag - for our coats,to protect them from the smoke.
And boy was there smoke! It wafted up from dozens of small, roundmetal barbecue tables, turning the air so opaque I could barelymake out the enormous wall mural featuring caricatures of Koreancelebrities - and Michael Jackson. We clustered around a table, andsoon the house specialty arrived: chunks of well-marbled pork neck.The meat came pargrilled, to cook faster, and my friends spreadkimchi around the base of the grill, where it slowly fried in therendered pork fat.
Soon we were wrapping pork chunks in red-leaf lettuce leaves -along with spicy bean paste, shaved scallions and kkaennip, ananise-flavored leaf, similar to Japanese shiso, that I foundaddictive.
Sariwon, a calm, family-friendly restaurant, employs specialextractors on its grills to keep the air perfectly clear. And yethigh technology does not trump high taste: Sariwon's kalbi, or beefshort ribs, were the most tender and succulent I ate in Seoul.Better yet, Sariwon offered a lengthy wine list that mixed New andOld World bottles, and at reasonable prices.
The best place for serious pairings of food and wine might be theGaon, the city's most refined Korean restaurant.
The menu consisted of Korean classics, gussied up with premiumingredients and presented on stunning custom ceramics. The Gaon'skimchi jigae put the pojangmacha version to shame. The flavor wasso pure and intense, the crimson broth so creamy, it reminded me oftomato soup (albeit one whose depths hid rich nuggets of pig'sfeet).