|
Seoul 2023: Lunching fine
posted : Sunday, July 02, 2023
Day 2, which I felt is mostly centered around the fact that I had planned a nice birthday lunch. Lunch, coz I am still a bit stingy to spend on dinner like why do I have to pay extra for a little more food and somewhat better ambience? Then again, the view at the place might have warranted it hahahah. But more on that later.
Didn’t start the day too early. Decided that I won’t pay for breakfast buffet coz I am having a good lunch later. Also didn’t want to stuff myself full at a nice cafe or something because, you guessed it. So I just hung out for a bit with a cuppa at the cafe inside the hotel. There’s a nice doughnut place nearby too, so walked over after coffee and while the dine in space is not opened yet, takeaway kiosk is open so I just got a couple and headed off to the restaurant, which took almost an hour of train ride.  Blue Bottle Cafe at the street level of the hotel  Cafe Knotted for doughnuts! I think I had a Earl grey one and a lemon raspberry one, can’t remember exactly but they were not bad Lunch! I was kinda excited about this (if you get the drift). Recent trips I have started doing this (by recent, I meant the Japan trip and this one) where I did one fancy atas fine dining meal. Kaiseki was obligatory in Japan, in Seoul I was trying to find some elevated Korean meal and the initial place I had in mind (Joo Ok, for future reference) couldn’t accommodate me on the dates I wanted - online reservation was filled almost immediately though solo diners had to write in to reserve anyway, but the reply was pretty curt so oh well. Found another replacement which can accommodate me so immediately went for it. But let the pictures do the talking.  Eatanic Garden  Garden theme, so that explains the plating. And the welcome drink itself, which if I hear correctly, is water collected from birch tree?  Apparently I get champagne on the house, after I declined to order from the wine list. There’s a Singaporean (much to my annoyance, coz I was hoping not to hear any familiar accents) couple diagonally across that ordered the fancier version of meal that comes with wine pairing for each dish, so maybe the staff didn’t want me to feel left out ahaha  Starter featuring Jookhyang strawberries - Rice gruel made with sweet jookhyang strawberry and fresh ginseng with very bright and tangy watercress foam on top.  Another appetizer - fatsia shoots with prawns, water parsley, cuttlefish. It’s finished with a soybean paste sauce which I thought brought the dish together (don’t have a photo of the completed dish though)  POV  Makgeolli! Turns out to be my only cup this trip.  Their take on amuse bouche - the jujeonburi. Inspired by flavors commonly found in banchans - traditional Korean rice cake topped with Comte cheese, white bait with white whelk and mushroom, and seaweed  Can you believe this is a piece of seaweed?! This delicate plating blew my mind.  Next, soybean takes centre stage - in an homage to freshly made dubu' from a temple restaurant called 'Dusugobang. Soy water gets smoked and gently turned into a curd, with egg white to form a veil and served with Korean caviar. To demonstrate how different caviar can taste at different temperatures, they also brought out…  …this. And very generously scoop it up for you to taste it without the dish, then with the dish, then with…  This. Uni! Still not a big fan though.  Moving on to the main dishes, mugwort is the star here. Grouper fish cooked over charcoal for 14 min, served with morning glory and something (I couldn’t catch what) from Jeju island and finished with mugwort sauce. I liked the fish, mugwort not so much.  This was another good dish. Main ingredient is nasturtium flower, so we ended up with a traditional Korean dinner course: sinseollo (royal hotpot). Instead of meat, they use nasturtium flower leaves and scallops, there’s also scallop cheon (pancake), egg slices etc. I loved the broth especially.  And here’s another main - they adjusted for me because I indicated that I didn’t take beef, so they replaced beef elements with duck. Chef came out personally to explain this dish to all diners! Duck aged for two weeks and grilled over charcoal topped with Sancho pepper that has been preserved for one year, abalone steamed then grilled over charcoal, duck meatball, bamboo shoots, preserved bamboo shoot purée, grilled bamboo shoots. And yes, bamboo shoots are the featured ingredient. With the high expectations I thought the dish was a bit flat though, as with dishes that are presented in a few ways on one plate, even if the cookery is good.  Another of chefs creation that he felt compelled to come out to explain, and this was only to us Singaporean tables - because we can relate. Apparently he was inspired by a trip to Sg where he had bak chor mee. So he got this idea of combining BCM with bibimbap, featuring variety of greens and herbs from the mountains.  After tossing. I did think the noodles reminded me of mee kia, both flavor and texture wise, and only after chef came out to explain I was like Ohhhhh. Though flavor is not BCM la (thank god coz I hated BCM), more of the soy paste flavor which I actually quite enjoyed.  Palate cleanser! We were supposed to guess the mystery ingredient, I cheated coz they did this to the other table earlier and I sort of overheard the answer. Wasabi aerated cake is topped with thinly sliced wasabi stems, its shoots and flowers. Then prepared with marmalade made with its leaves. Texture was mind blowing (coz aerated), wasabi wasn’t overpowering, good overall.  Dessert course. A 'Ddeok', traditional rice cake with a macadamia 'Ang-geum' (traditional Korean way to make paste) and macadamia ice cream wrapped with spring flowers. Also, a crisped rice cake after layering flowers on top is filled with fresh blueberries, macadamia cheesecake and spring herbs.  And finally petit fours - served in a mother of pearl box. There’s a house beverage of umija tea, date stuffed with jujube, rhubarb jerky, buckwheat snack with tomato and something (couldn’t catch), fruit jelly, chocolate bonbon with makgeolli, peony leaves strawberry and ginger  Finished off the meal with filtered coffee (other choice was tea). Verdict: I loved this place. Service was spot on. Ambience was great (even if I wasn’t sitting at the balcony seats. Food was great and I was a massive fan of the plating. Also loved the special touch of providing mini postcards for each dish and the illustration. I think the only minor flaw was the fact that I couldn’t really understand their English when they were describing the ingredients so sometimes I don’t know what I am eating, like I only know the main ingredient and focus of the dish but some of the accompanying ingredients I couldn’t quite make out. But I guess that unintentionally adds on to the wow factor? And they didn’t kimchi their way through everything (in fact they didn’t have kimchi in anything) so that’s a big plus in MY books haha. It’s quite pricey but ok la, 久久一次.  I loved these illustrations. At the end of the meal they pack it into an envelope for you to bring home as souvenir, I think it’s maybe a better idea than jams and stuff?  A little story on the inspiration behind each ingredient and dish.  They have an awesome view, if you dine at the balcony area. Maybe daytime is better than night time when I imagine you’d see lights but not much else?  Very satisfied! And apparently I only just missed out on their collaboration with SG’s Odette the night before, where Chef Julien Royer and team were around. Ok la but I guess I was going for their regular menu. Left the restaurant a very satisfied man. And a very full man, so walked two metro stations’ worth of distance (it wasn’t too hot) to my next stop, COEX mall.  Gangnam, I think this is their CBD  Outside COEX mall Weird that I’d want to go to a mall and to be honest I didn’t do too much shopping even, since I was really there just for the gram. This pic, specifically.  I literally spent just 10 minutes here To the next stop, which is a stroll along Hangang. Train ride and a nice stroll along the Garosugil area on my way there, which is quite a nice street to walk on but not exactly my kind of shopping. The Sinsa-dong area is pretty happening too but I didn’t budget time for it, come to think of it maybe I should have, since I ended up being almost a full hour too early for sunset.  I quite like the vibes along this street.  Erm yea a bit too warm, and I was still dressed in smart casual wear so I couldn’t like rent a bike and go cycle. Or picnic and eat cup noodles which apparently is a popular K-drama scene.  Stayed till almost sunset, for this light up but left before it fully became dark. Headed back to Hongdae area with another long train ride! And just hung out a bit with some street food and of course…continuing my practice of trying out foreign KFC hahaha.  A very happy ahjumma selling grilled chicken skewers, she kept coming up to help you trim off the skewers as you ate  Korean sweet and spicy chicken, I thought I’d see how KFCs rendition, but I think I should have gotten the original instead…they do have fried chicken skin though! Which I obviously got a box wheee That’s it for the day!
|
