Jin, a Korean we met on Halloween last year, quickly became our culinary guide to Korea and our good friend. Born and raised in Seoul, he was able to help us discover many parts of the city we might never have found on our own and many that became some of our favorites. One of the last times we hung out with him before he headed back to England to continue his studies, he treated us to an upscale twist on a very traditional Korean meal, and one that we'd never had (knowingly).
Directly Translated:
Edible Wild Plant Perfume
Specialization in Codonopsis Lanceolata Cuisine
Jin & Pokyung
This was only the first round of side dishes too...
더덕구이 - Broiled Cordonopsis Lanceolata
The orange dish at the bottom, right-hand corner of the photo is the cordonopsis lanceolata. A troublesome issue with Korean-English dictionaries is the use of scientific names. It most frequently occurs with types of fish and edible plants. And, as strange as it sounds, often times the way it's prepared makes it difficult to discern the difference between the two. In this case, cordon-blah-blah-blah is the root of the mountain bonnet bellflower, a weed native to areas of China, Japan and Korea.
It sounds and looks pretty weird as a meal, but it was actually really good. It was a very different style of Korean food than we've really found previously, which was a refreshing change of pace!
After dinner, we braved the rain and headed to a nearby neighborhood in search of wine and live music.
Fierce
In the end, we ended up in a cool, basement wine and jazz bar that we'd actually discovered while out with Jin another night.
Gettin' artsy...
The cheese plate: saltines, Baby Bell, American cheese singles (white & Yellow) and a processed colby-jack. (The worst part is that pathetic cheese plates like these in Korea usually cost the same as a real cheese plate would at an upscale restaurant elsewhere.)
Calling it a night
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