nanoomi

Sometimes I need to pinch myself at the type of life I have these days. But since I abhor pain, I never do it. One afternoon Chef Hickey at the W Seoul texted me and asked if I wanted to come over for some wine and tapas. It was part of their Tastemakers series. I had that evening free, so I scooted on over to Walkerhill to hang at my favorite hotel.

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The world leaders visiting Seoul likely will be tied up by state dinners. But what about everyone else that is coming? Government personnel. Journalists. Protesters*.

Y’all gotta eat. From my experience, foreign VIPs tend to get swept into meal after meal of hanjeongsik–extensive elaborate dinners that Koreans believe display Korean cuisine’s sophistication. And also from my experience, the VIPs get very bored with these meals. That’s because Korea has preceded itself with a reputation for fiery foods and barbecues. So if you’re a VIP looking for a place to escape another hanjeongsik table, here are a few suggestions–not just from me but from chefs and food experts.

First off, I highly recommend checking out our restaurant site, ZenKimchi Dining. It lists the restaurants conveniently according to cuisine and location. Each entry has a map with phone number. The ratings are crowd sourced. And it’s optimized for use on smartphones. For restaurants I have here that aren’t in ZK Dining, I have listed the address and phone number. The taxi driver should know what to do with it.

Barbecue

The Mapo neighborhood is my favorite stop for barbecue. The street behind the Best Western has winding alleys of grill joints. Most of the ones in this area specialize in Sogeum Gui and Galmaeggisal. Sogeum Gui means “Salt Grill,” and it’s fresh pork belly slathered in salt. I like to balance that with some Galmaeggisal, which is some mystery cut near the diaphragm. It’s lean and tender. Most all these places serve galbi, too.

Mapo Jeong Depo (Mapo Station)

A lively barbecue house that pours an egg mixture in the ring that usually collects the pork fat renderings. Yes, eggs cooked in rendered pork fat!

Really, you can find good barbecue most anywhere. A good sign is a lively atmosphere, and a bonus is a butcher cutting the meat fresh inside the restaurant. But I’ve learned to avoid restaurants that try to make this fancy. They kind of miss the point about what’s appealing about Korean barbecue, and they just jack up the price while reducing the side dishes and the quality, all in the name of pretension.

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Chef Gordon Xiao of Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda making pulled noodles. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)

Among the more than 80 caterers, mobile and brick-and-mortar restaurants and food-related vendors at the second annual Eat Real Festival in the San Francisco Bay area were two Korean “taco trucks,” a nouveau hanshik restaurant, a ramen restaurant serving kimchi and a food-preservation specialist teaching how to pickle the popular version of it.

Did I mention the live demonstration of making Chinese pulled noodles (lai min)?

Intensely craving some Korean yumminess, I attended the festival, held Aug. 27 to 29 at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., to snack on selections from Santa Clara-based MoGo BBQ and Seoul on Wheels of Emeryville. Reviews of those rolling restaurants will be posted in coming days.

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I’m not too subtle about my love for the W Hotel at Walker Hill. … But before we go into the love for their sushi, let’s give a brief summary of the state of sushi in Seoul.

It sucks.

Expats are consistently disappointed that they’re moving across the world, this close to Japan, and the sushi doesn’t fare better than in their home countries. Korean sushi is limp, watery fish on flavorless gummy rice and usually consists of two flavors, halibut and shrimp.

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Namu is a Korean and Japanese fusion restaurant owned and operated by three Korean American brothers — chef Dennis Lee and his brothers, Daniel and David — who have established a presence at the Thursday and Saturday farmer’s markets at the San Francisco Ferry Building. They serve what they call “cutting-edge new California” cuisine.

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