Posted by Krista on August 31, 2007
164 Clerkenwell Road
EC1R 5DU
Tel: 020 7278 8674 
A Note about This Photo: This is purely a photo of association. In August of 2004, I visited Korea with my friends Shin and Ryan. (Shin emigrated to the US when she was 16. She was dating Ryan–a gringo–back in 2004. I was the decoy. Now that was funny.) Anyhow, this photo is from a cool little place on Jeju Island. (At least, that’s where I think I was when I took this. I unfortunately did not keep notes. And although I did have the blog at the time, I didn’t blog the trip! Idiot!)
Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Damage: £12
The Victim: Me
The Background: So I went to bed at midnight last night. But guess what time I woke up? 11:30 a.m. I would feel pretty good about this (jetlag) except that my friend Kellie says that anyone who sleeps more than eight hours a night is depressed. This makes me slightly obsessive…am I depressed? Am I? (No, but I am just the tiniest bit obsessive compulsive. But not about washing my hands or anything. Just about leaving irons and ovens on. I finally have an iron that turns itself off, which is very helpful. Thank you for your concern.)
Then again, the entire time I was in Cabo, I seemed to be sleeping EXACTLY 7.5 hours a night. It was almost spooky.
By the time I got out of the house on Wednesday, it was around 1:30. Man, the best laid plans! I am very angry with myself as I write this. I had all these ideas…I was going to check out the Antony Gormley exhibit, I was going to look at Danish furniture in Camden. I was going to go to the gym.
Instead I had a Korean pancake and some spicy tofu soup. And I got asked out by my waiter. And I eavesdropped on some people who just happened to work for one of my company’s competitors! Too funny.
The Food: I get the spring onion pancake and it is perfect. It is presented on a bamboo mat on a pretty piece of Korean pottery. And it is delicious and satisfying. The people from the competitor at the table next to me were very jealous.
I also order some spicy tofu soup. (Note that if your Korean soup comes with a bowl of white rice, you should put the white rice in the soup.) It’s really nice and light and it’s just the right amount of spiciness. The pancake and the soup go perfectly together…although there is no meat to be had, the pancake has a thickness and doughy-ness to it that meshes well with the spicy soup and the light tofu. All that being said, I don’t think I would have been happy with the tofu soup on it’s own. I would have needed something else.
New Seoul is not the world’s most atmospheric place, but that’s okay. You don’t need atmosphere when you’re a walking jetlag zombie.
The Service: Very sweet. He was impressed with my very basic Korean ("hello how are you" and "can i have a beer please" and "hurry, hurry") and that I like the Yankees better than the Mets. Plus, he asked if he could see me again, which made me feel very alluring–for a walking jetlag zombie.
The Verdict: I’d go again. And I’d have multiple pancakes.
You might also enjoy...
Posted in EC1, Korean, London, United Kingdom | 3 Comments
Posted by Krista on May 31, 2007
9 Golden Square
London
W1F 9HZ
020 7434 2073
Date of Last Visit: Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Victim: Dad
The Damage: About £50 with drinks
The Background: My Korean restaurant experience at Wonjo in NY was so fantastic that I was eager to have more Korean BBQ. My father looked a me like I was crazy. He needs to expand his culinary horizons. I had done my research ahead of time, and I had honed in on Arang, which had outstanding reviews on London-eating.
The Service: We were a tag on the early side, and the staff couldn’t have been sweeter. My father announced loudly, many times, that his next girlfriend would be Korean. I tried not to run away and hide.
The Food:I totally got suckered into the £17-per-person set menu, and that was a big mistake because there was way too much food. We started with the pan chen (kimchee and radishes and other little bits), and then came along a tray of glass noodles and an assortment of Korean pancakes. And then came the BBQ and it was a HUGE plate of meat. My father chooses this point to tell me that he doesn’t really eat red meat anymore.
This didn’t stop him from helping himself to a couple of delicious beef tacos and scraping the bowl of bean paste clean, of course.
The Loos: Gross. I am giving more and more thought to that power-washing business.
The Verdict: Sweet service and good barbecue (although it’s gas-fired, not charcoal). I think the pancake assortment could have been fresher, and I’d warn folks away from the loos. I also thought the interior was a little austere. But all in all, not so bad.
You might also enjoy...
Posted in Korean, London, United Kingdom, W1 | 1 Comment
Posted by Krista on May 8, 2007
23 W. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10001
+1-212-695-5815
Date of Last Visit: Thursday, May 3, 2007
The Victims: Shinny, Monica, Kim
The Damage: $50 USD per person.
The Background: Oh my God but did I get up at 4 a.m. on Thursday or what? I did. And it sucked, big big time. But see, I am always convinced that I am not fully packed, so extra time in the a.m. is key. And I was on the 9 a.m. flight out of Heathrow to NYC. Well, Newark actually. Same difference.
More Background: I was flying to NY specifically for Feathers’ bachelorette (aka hen) party. (More on that to come!!!) But like I said to the guy at Immigration in Newark when he asked me, an American citizen, for the purpose of my visit to the U.S. of A., "Dude, I’m from here." (In NY-ese, I believe a more proper phrasing would be something like "Because I was born here, Jackass. Now let me in.)
I forget about New York sometimes. I forget about the peculiar way we have of talking to (at?) each other. I forget about the bizarre combination of friendliness-nosiness-rudeness. I forget about Yonkers and the Van Wyck and the Belt Parkway and Starrett City and the F train and the Babylon Branch of the LIRR. I don’t recognize the area codes anymore. I have trouble remembering what comes before Wantagh-Seaford-Massapequa-Massapequa Park-Amityville-Copaigue-Lindenhurst-and-Babylon. And I don’t know how to to describe where Breezy Point is anymore.
But it’ll come back to me. I have hope.
The Restaurant: I make plans to meet up with Shinny and Monica at a Korean BBQ place in mid-town. Shin and I went to Korea together in 2004, and speaking very honestly, we ate very well. Very very well. She was a fantastic host. As Shin knows, I’ve been talking about the tofu soup I had somewhere in Korea for the last three years. So I was excited to relive the Korean experience with her at Wonjo, one of the few places left in the city where they still do charcoal-fired BBQ (as opposed to gas-fired).
The Food: Shinny is in charge and she loads us up with bolgogi–raw marinated beef that you barbecue at the table–Korean pancakes (rice flour and scallions and all sorts of good things made into an omelette), little dishes of kimchee and radishes (I will butcher the spelling but I think the collective little dish experience is known as pan chan) and lots and lots of bean paste. Love bean paste. We make Korean lettuce "tacos" and we are very happy. But we have terrible garlic breath.
The Drink: We wash this all down with OB beer (how unforunate for their Western marketing) and Kim goes for the Soju.
The Verdict: Really enjoyable, although eating so much raw and cooked garlic was a bad idea…on the treadmill the next day, I could totally smell my own garlic sweat and so could the dude next to me. Yuk!
You might also enjoy...
Posted in Korean, New York, United States | No Comments
Posted by Krista on August 28, 2005
58-59 Great Marlborough Street
W1F 7JY
020 7434 1650
Date of Last Visit: Saturday, August 20th
The Victim: Connie
The Damage: 25 quid each
Connie was cooking dinner for Al, Louise and me, but Al and Louise couldn’t make it. So rather than force Connie to slave away just for me, we met up at Ran. I was excited because it was the one-year anniversary of my trip to Korea, and I hadn’t had any Korean food since.
I love Korean food. Although admittedly, my last night in Seoul, I wandered the streets, looking for a hamburger and fries. (Which I found! And it was delicious.) In particular, I love how you get the little side dishes for free before your meal.
Not so at Ran. They must have realized that most westerners would take advantage of this custom. So we had to fork over 4 quid for our kimchee and mysterious other pickled foods…although our little dishes were super tasty and I don’t regret it.
Now, I definitely heard some people there speaking Korean, but I also could swear I heard some of the staff "xie-xie-ing" (Chinese for "Thank You") each other. I wanted to ask where everyone was all from, but didn’t.
I enjoyed an OB beer. I’m curious if this beer would be mocked considerably in my country. Regardless, it was delicious. I later switched to Hite.
We ordered bolgogi, which is marinated beef that you cook up at the hot plate at the table. Then, you make little beef tacos by wrapping the beef in very nice lettuce leaves, adding a couple of drops of mysterious sauce. Delicious. Connie got the tofu soup–it has a particular name, which escapes me. Suffice it to say, it’s served in a red sauce. Connie said it was good, but she’d had better.
To end our meal, we were served two very nice slices of watermelon, which was a cute touch.
The Verdict: I like a place where I’m one of the few westerners. The lighting is a bit bright and harsh, and 20 million different people waited on our table. But it was delicious and different and I’d go back, for sure.
You might also enjoy...
Posted in Korean, London, United Kingdom, W1 | 1 Comment
Recent Comments