Galbi in the Hyewa neighborhood, Seoul South Korea

Korean Barbq can be described with two words “simply awesome” or maybe “amazingly delicious” or maybe; well you see where I’m going with this, you could keep on going all day long. I’m still exploring the city and familiarizing myself with the different neighborhoods. I’ve visited at least one that completely turned me off in the sense that it simply wasn’t for me (Hongik).

I’ve discovered others which have an atmosphere I absolutely enjoy and I’ve only officially been here two weeks. Of my favorite neighborhoods so far Hyewa is definitely near the top.

Me and my awesome German friend who will remain nameless for the time being headed off to this neighborhood after having walked through it late the previous night.

Here we have a few pictures of the neighborhood (which probably spans a good 10 blocks or so, possibly more) :

We weren’t sure what to have for supper but knew that we wanted some Korean food. We settled on a busy Galbi place that had a large outdoor patio. Galbi (or Kalbi) is the traditional Korean barbq. You normally sit around a table that has an empty “hole” in the middle with a grill on top of it. So far I’ve seen two variations on the heating method. Either they have a gas powered grill (think western barbq) or they drop down some red hot charcoal and you order a bunch of various meats primarily consisting of pork, beef and some chicken.

Here we have pictures of the grill and hot charcoal, just before the side dishes arrive:

I think it was around 8 pm on a Thursday night and the large patio and interior of this restaurant was simply packed. We started out by ordering two orders of pork; one marinated (spicy of course!) and the other similar to what westerners know as bacon only thicker and with more of the fat attached.

As always after having placed your order the side dishes start appearing fast and furious. Here’s a brief description of the side dishes which were included in this meal (keep in mind that the side dishes usually vary in each galbi place. The first time me and Germany had tried Galbi it included some nice crab legs and some bean curd, none on this night!).

I’ve numbered and done my best to identify the side dishes we received:

• 1 – I’ve encountered this side dish of macaroni and cabbage along with a light creamy salad dressing on a few occasions.  I never used to eat cold pasta salads but I do now :-)
  
• 2 – Some pickled cucumbers.  I usually try to taste every side dish, but on this night I didn’t get around to trying them.  Germany really liked them and I think he finished them off.
  
• 3 – I wasn’t able to find the translation for this dish.  It had some marinated bean sprouts (very salty), fresh bean sprouts, green onions and chopped up leeks.  All of it was mixed into a spicy water like liquid.
  
• 4 – As you can see scissors, pincers (?) along with some lettuce, mint (very light mint taste, wasn’t too strong) and some green peppers.  You use the mint and lettuce as a container for the pieces of meat and then add things from the side dishes and chomp it all down in one bite! 
  
• 5 – Samjang 쌈장, I love this sauce.  It’s just a little hot and sweet at the same time.  You either dip a piece of meat into it and then eat it as is or bundle it up mentioned above with side dishes into a mint or lettuce leaf.  Really delicious.
  
• 6 – Garlic.  Placed on the grill to be roasted beside the meat and finally into the lettuce wrap.  No doubt some people simply place it into the wrap “as is”.

Shortly after the side dishes we’re placed on the table the meat dishes arrived.  Like the unknowing foreigners that we were, we placed the whole pieces of marinated and non marinated pork on the grill.  As mentioned previously Korean use scissors to cut up various things during their meals.  As a foreigner this seemed a little strange at first, but I now think we should adopt this useful tool during our meals.

We realized after having placed the large pieces of meat on the grill that we should have only placed one at a time and then cut it into smaller pieces.  We had a hard time enjoying the meal because we had to keep monitoring the grill.

You’ll notice in the above pictures the small dish near the shooter glass (more on the contents of the shooter glass below).  This small dish is called Sogeumjang 소금장 .  It consisted of a mixture of garlic, rock salt and a little liquid (not sure if it was oil or simply water, but it had a slightly yellow color).

This was for the unseasoned pork, once it was dipped into this sauce the taste suddenly reminded me of the familiar “western bacon”.  I was hesitant to eat the thick slices of pork because of the large pieces of fat they had.   I was scared that it would be too chewy or rubbery for my taste.  I couldn’t have been more wrong; it was nice and tender and after a nice crispy roasting it was absolutely delicious.

You will also notice on the bottom left hand side of the picture a plate with a large piece of cabbage.  This is a large Kimchi piece which was suppose to be grilled.  Again being new to the whole galbi experience we forgot to grill it and they took it away from the table.  The scissors would have been used to chop it up prior to serving/cooking.

The shooter glass contains some Soju.  From wikipedia

“Soju (소주) is a distilled beverage native to Korea.

Most brands of modern soju are made in South Korea. Though traditionally made from rice, most major brands supplement or even replace the rice with other starches such as potato, wheat, barley, sweet potato, or tapioca (called dangmil in Korean). Soju is clear in colour and typically varies in alcohol content from about 20% to about 45% alcohol by volume (ABV), with 20% ABV being most common. Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter because of the sugars added in the manufacturing process. It is widely consumed, in part, because of its relatively low price. A typical 300mL bottle of soju costs the consumer 1,000 to 3,000 South Korean Won (roughly $1 to $3 United States Dollars.)”

We each had two beers and shared a bottle of soju.  Soju is great stuff and as the article says the best way to describe it for those who haven’t had a chance to drink it is to compare it to vodka.  However it’s smoother and a little more sweet than vodka in my opinion.  Needless to say I love the stuff, but it tends to creep up on you. You can easily drink a half bottle and you’ll be under the impression there’s “nothing to it” but a little while later you’ll be grinning madly ;-)

After the first round of marinated and unseasoned pork we ordered one last round of unseasoned beef.  Having learned from our earlier mistake we only placed a few pieces on the grill at one time.  We also ordered ourselves a side dish of rice (pronounced “pap” in Korean).  Again you simply add a little of the side dishes along with the rice and a piece of meat into a cabbage or mint leaf and put the whole thing into your mouth!  Like eating sushi it’s completely acceptable to stuff you mouth with one large bite, something I really appreciate and enjoy!

Finally, we asked a table of Koreans to take a picture of us.  Being foreigners at a traditional Korean restaurant you often have strangers smiling and looking at your direction.   The Korean women took a picture of us but not before they made us take one of them!

Finally I’ll leave you with a few post from the patio of the galbi restaurant.  I Hope you enjoyed the galbi post as much as we enjoyed eating it!  For those of you wondering about the price here’s the breakdown of the meal and cost:  4 beers, 1 bottle of soju, 3 orders of meat (two pork, one beef) and a tonne of side dishes for a grand total of 50 000 won (approximately 50$ Canadian).