Japanese Food in Korea (Ilbon Umshik or Il-shik)
Japanese food in Korea seems to come in two types: everyday sushi from the corner store and special occasion food. I decided Tod had to experience Japanese special occasion food, Korean style.
We went to a place I had been for lunch with a colleague and his family. We ordered the least expensive dinner item on the menu “Special Side Dishes, $40 per person”. The waitress spoke some English and assured us that the meal would include “sushi, sashimi, and Korean food.” Japanese food seems quite expensive, compared to the huge plate of raw fish one can get at a Korean sea-side restaurant (see my blog entry called “The Western Coast” at http://blogs.saintanselmcollege.net/bethsalerno/2007/12/12/the-western-coast/). However, Japanese meals have amazing variety. Here is what appeared for our $40 per person. I have interspersed cultural commentary with the menu.
Starters:
*A small bowl of juk (rice porridge) *Cabbage salad with sweet, nutty dressing
*Cucumbers, carrots, garlic scapes (stems) and hot peppers with dipping sauce
*Sliced ginger, pickled radish, and pickled pearl onions
*Wasabi, soy sauce, and red hot sauce for fish.
Course 1:
*Mioku (thick, salty sea vegetable), shrimp and raw oysters in light cold broth
*Sliced octopus with cucumber in hot sauce
*Sashimi salad with cabbage, kim (dried, crunchy seaweed) and hot sauce
Course 2:
*Red snapper sushi *Sashimi plate of white and silver fish
*Sealife plate of oysters, scallops, conch or whelk, and two unidentified crunchy things
Both the sashimi and sealife plates were decorated with orchids, a plastic dolphin, small pine trees, marigold blossoms, and shells, and all the food was placed atop large mounds of glistening white noodles which you do not eat. At moments, there was barely enough room on the table for the silverware.
Course 3:
*Doenjang Soup (kind of like Miso soup - a soybean based broth with mushrooms and scallions)
*Cooked white fish steak - buttery and plain.
*Cooked fish filet with slow-roasted carrot, onion, and garlic.
At this point, I recognized the general outlines of the meal from previous outings and warned Tod that there were likely to be at least two more courses. He stared at me. From then on, every time he heard the cart rolling down the hall he looked a bit like a deer in the headlights. But we plunged bravely on.
In Korea, it is tradition that guests should be served more food than it is humanly possible to eat. That way everyone is sure to have enough to eat of whatever they like best, while the host is seen as extremely generous and caring. One simply cannot think about the wasted food if one wants to be properly polite and honored. Eating everything on the table would be both rude and suicidal.
Course 4:
*Haemul nurungi soup (a thick, gelled soup made from seafood and the scorched rice at the bottom of the rice cooking pot)
*Mussels, baby octopi, and other unidentified sea life with noodles in red sauce
*A whole fish covered with tuna slices so thin they looked like slightly burned paper and tasted wonderfully dry and smoky. The fish also had hot sauce and scallions.
Course 5:
*Prawns (still in their shell with heads attached) deep fried in tempura batter with a Chinese sweet and sour sauce with hot peppers
*Tempura Vegetables and shrimp (absolutely no hot sauce in sight!)
Course 6:
*Rice with sesame seeds, two kinds of fish roe, and dried, crispy seeweed in a hot stone pot, so the rice crisped on the bottom and made the dish quite crunchy
*Maemultang - equal parts water, leftover fish parts, and red pepper powder with a few greens thrown in. Unbelieveably hot. Tod had two bowls and said the inside of his ears were sweating.
*Kimchi
Dessert:
Plum Juice
We ordered green tea early on and got a bottle of ice water with a tea bag. It was good and kept us through half the meal when we again ordered green tea and specified “hot please”. Koreans do not drink water with their meals usually, preferring to get their fluids from the foods and soups, perhaps drinking a glass of water at the end of the meal.
At the end of our meal, we could not drink water. We could barely move. We immediately agreed to skip the cab and walk six blocks to catch the bus. Too many special occasion meals like this and we would definitely explode!
I am not wholly sure what is “Japanese” about the meal, other than the sushi and sashimi. Many of the dishes were quite Korean and others may have been Korean-ized. Perhaps it is like Japanese food in the United States, which also likely bears only a passing resemblance to what is eaten in Japan but is immediately recognized by Americans as “Japanese” - sushi, tempura, grilled shrimp filleted by a knife-wielding chef and tossed to you. Koreans recognize the combination of dishes above as part of a “Japanese” menu. We recognized it as good food worth eating, though next time, we’ll skip lunch and possibly breakfast too, in order to prepare enough space.
1 comment January 17, 2008
