Food - Samgyeopsal

One of my favourite foods here in Korea is Samgyeopsal(). It is pork belly (basically it is uncured bacon) which is cooked at the diner's table. The slices of meat are cooked and then wrapped in a lettuce/sesame leaf. Garlic, onions, gochujang (chili paste), doenjang (soybean paste) and sesame oil can be added according to taste. It is hugely popular here and every restaurant has there own gimmick when selling samkyeopsal.

One of the most interesting places I've been to for samkyeopsal was in Gangnam (forgotten name). Unlike anywhere else, this restaurant is more like a bar with an eclectic choice in music. The strangest part of all this was the pork belly was pre-smoked so it could be eaten without needing to be cooked. However, instead of lettuce/sesame leaves with which to wrap the meat they had thin slices of radish which gave the package an extra tang.

This particular restaurant used a cast iron plate on a slant for cooking. It does not need to be changed during cooking but the meat does not take on the wood flavour of the fire if it is cooked this way.



Of course, no samgyeopsal meal is complete without Soju.