When we first entered the restaurant through the kitchen to wash the hot pepper off our hands from making kimchi, we were offered a hand-fed bite of freshly-made pure white, firm tofu. It tasted fresher and more earthy than any other tofu I'd had before. And it was especially rare to be hand fed a crumbly chunk from the woman who was behind its making. Next, she presented a dish of bracken fern ('gosari' in Korean), also known to us westerners as fiddlehead, which I later learned was powerfully enhanced in taste by perilla powder and perilla oil (more on this later). This was followed by a sampling of a Korean rice dessert drink called 'sikhye' which I'd tasted before in restaurants, but only as a very sweet, almost indiscernible sourced beverage. This sikye, however had a delicate but definite rice quality and was sweetened to a moderate perfection.
By now, I was overcome with curiosity and primed for what our dinner was to be like.
We climbed the wooden stairway to a loft-like area where we sat on colorful silken soft cushions on the heated floor and were quickly served our first course of snow-white tofu sprinkled with black sesame seeds, fresh kimchi and the tenderest, most flavorful, fatty pork I've ever eaten. All beautifully arranged on one platter.
Next came the banchan dishes (Korean 'side dishes') nestled on a woven platter. They consisted of pickled garlic; pickled cabbage; raw white radish and a dark wild mountain green mixed with chili paste; sweetened pickled cucumbers; a dish on its own of kimchi; bracken fern; and one of my personal favorites - slices of chewy but slightly crunchy lotus root ('yeongeun' in Korean) marinated in a sweet sauce of brown rice syrup, sesame oil and soy sauce. One might compare lotus root to what we know as water chestnut in Chinese cooking, but its a bit heavier, chewier and starchier. And when sliced, it has a complex, geometrical design which you can see in the photo below. It's high in iron, vitamins B and C, and fiber. It's a very versatile food - can be eaten as a fruit, sliced and stir-fried, or made into a tea for digestive problems. This dish was quickly devoured.
The next dish was 'dotorimuk' which is acorn jelly. A brownish, slightly bitter flavored jelly, rich in starch, proteins, and fiber, whose flavors really come out in its sauce - drizzled in toasted sesame oil and topped with sesame seeds, its perimeter consisted of crisp green cabbage mixed with cucumber, onions, and chili paste for a fresh-from-the-ground, invigorating burst of spiciness. At this point I wanted to keep eating it, but I knew that more was to come and was starting to feel overwhelmed by the idea that I would have to put an end to my enjoyment of the previous dishes!
Then came individually-served black ceramic bowls containing crab legs in-shell with slices of spring onion, sesame seeds, and a thin shallow layer of fishy broth. Though delicious, I found these hard to eat because of the shell situation and was already getting very full, so I went on to the following dish which was a patty of tender ground beef mixed with onions and garlic and thinly drizzled with two different sauces, one sweet and dark, the other yellow and more tart.
Fearing we'd be served more and that I might not even have the room left to sample it, I stopped after a few bites, though thoroughly relishing it.
Finally came a dish of the classic chewy, warm, slightly toasted white rice cakes with a side bowl of syrup to dip them in. This was the tipping point for me.
And a perfect end to the meal was a cool, light reddish colored digestive tea of schizandra ('omija') also known as the 'five-flavored fruit' for it encompasses the flavors of sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.
The restaurant owners and servers were very hospitable and generous, answering all of our questions, bringing us into their kitchen, explaining how they made everything from scratch and used local, organic ingredients, and even made kimchi with us outside on their picnic table!
Upon leaving, we walked out through a different part of the restaurant which housed private booths of hand-cut looking wooden tables, delicately hung string lights, and a piano! Such a beautiful place. The wife of the farmer who we'd picked cabbage with earlier in the day, was the owner of the restaurant and they came outside to have their pictures taken with us and bid us farewell.
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| Kimchi we made |
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| 'Sikhye' |
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