In any nation, undergoing rapid modernization cuisine can often be a telling reference point of the cultural transformation that is taking place. For instance, George Ritzer’s sociological theory of McDonaldization is based on the belief that, once a nation allows fast food franchises into its towns and cities, it is surely heading down a path of homogenization towards bland mass produced western culture, movies with roman numerals in the titles and chain store funeral homes.
Korea has indeed grabbed the concept of the fast food franchise and run with it at full speed: McDonalds, Burger King, Subway and home grown concepts such as Lotteria and BHC Chicken. Korea has also picked up the hyper-consumption ethic that is implicit in fast food culture, and that everything must be fast, new, ultra slick, from cell phones to apartment blocks and when the new is used up or superseded, it is readily discarded.
Yet, this is hardly the complete picture of life in Korea today. Truth be told while Koreans rapidly modernize, there is also a conscious effort to hold onto traditional values and, sure enough, this is reflected in choices of cuisine, especially the group of dishes referred to as ‘galbi‘.
‘Galbi’ translates as “rib” and refers to ribs of meat marinated in soy sauce. Though, traditionally, beef was the meat of choice, pork is also a common sight in restaurants specializing in galbi. These ‘galbi houses’ (referred to as “Scissor-cutting-meat-places” by one newcomer) seem to embody some quintessential elements of Korean culture. For example, the more traditional galbi houses will follow the custom of having patrons remove their shoes before entering as one would do upon stepping into somebody’s home, after which customers are shown to a table little more than a foot high with a gaping hole in the centre of it and what appears to be a industrial vacuum dangling overhead.
It is incredibly rare for someone to eat alone in a galbi house, meal time being a communal event in Korea and therefore, once seated on the floor around the table, customers are presented with a myriad of small dishes which are shared around. Kimchi, radishes, bean paste and green chillies are all passed around, as metal chopsticks expertly dive in and out, bringing articles of food to dishes of soy sauce en route to the mouths wet with anticipation. In the same manner, alcohol consumption is not a solo effort, but rather, single bottles of beer or soju are shared between many, the crash of empty shot glasses being slammed down on the table, being a familiar sound.
For the most part, the staff will simply wander over with the prepared materials with which the patrons are left to construct their meal as they please and, soon enough, the main event takes place: a bucket of glowing coals is brought out and neatly placed in the hole in the centre of the table. Over these coals, a grill is laid while the dangling space vacuum is pulled down and begins to suck up the emanating fumes. Then, strips of marinated rib meat are cut with scissors and placed upon the grill. From here, it is once again up to the patrons to tend to the chucks of meat with their chopsticks as they sizzle away, moving the cooked pieces to the edge, so they can be plucked off into dishes of bean paste and be wrapped in leaves before being eaten. Staff will saunter over every now again to ask if more meat or soju is required, but the table’s occupants are usually left to get on with it and require little prompting to do so, something which is also quite indicative of Korean attitudes to most tasks. Finally, little dishes of snow white rice are brought out, accompanied by a pot of boiling tofu, chilli and bean soup.
Families huddle around these low tables, tending to the little chunks of meat that sizzle over the red hot embers. Normally stern-faced business men loosen their ties a little, as Taekwondo students and their masters knock back another round of soju. Downtown, a fluorescent glow floods from the windows of the McDonalds and Burger King, like it does in a thousand cities the world over, but the galbi houses are quite the opposite, almost bastions of Korean traditions, or at least the traditions that predominantly consist of consuming meat and alcohol.
By Dann Gaymer
If you haven’t tried it already, you need to have a big helping of Kimchi-jjim while in Korea. Big hunks of braised pork mixed with kimchi and simmered for hours. The most popular place for this in downtown Daegu is at 한옥집, across from the northeast corner of Gukchaebosang Park. If you know where Galbijjim Alley is, its on the same side of that street, but before you get to the sign pointing to the alley. For everyone else, easiest way to get there is to go the corner with bell to your back, head north across the main road (should be at KT building on the left now) and then turn and go east across the other street. Then turn left once on the other side. Look for the sign on the right leading down a small alley. A perfect place to start your evening and within stumbling distance of your 2nd stop, wherever that may be in downtown. Only 5000 won per person and comes with unlimited ramen!
In the underground mall of Jungangno Station lurks a well-traveled outlet famed for its cheap and delicious toasted sandwiches. 석봉 토스트 actually has a lot of locations around and cheap, toasted sandwiches are certainly not limited to them. In fact, in case you haven’t noticed, but Korea has been bombarded with the cheap toast craze for the past few years, making it a fabulous must-visit for breakfast-seekers at any time of the day. Egg/cheese toasted sandwiches, ham/cheese toasted sandwiches, toasted bagel sandwiches, tuna melts, the list is endless. And for prices hovering around 2000 won each, this is a very welcome westernized addition to the world of cheap street food in Korea.
Arguably, the best thing to munch on while making a mad dash from one air-con environment to the next.
…in film, yet still gives a big blind eye about tying them up and letting them hang upside down, beating the hell out of them until they die, and then skinning and slicing them up for soup. Or in short, how they kill them in order for use as an ingredient in 보신탕 (which tastes like ass, IMO).
Bulgogi Brothers is an upscale gogi restaurant in the Seoul and Gyeonggi area that has been gaining positive buzz for its cuisine, wine selection, and traditional interior. A great place to impress a date with your wallet or being dragged along to by the boss and co-workers. The restaurant makes an effort to appeal to not only Koreans, but foreigners around the country, as well, and has recently announced plans to open new locations in Daegu (Dong-A Shopping?) and in the Haeundae area of Busan, this summer.
And judging from the feedback from this Korean blogger and his foreign wife, it looks like it’s worth a go. (Edit:I didn’t add the photo captions. The blogger did that.)
(From 안동얼짱)
Over 50 years ago, an old grandmother on a small street in Dongin-dong, Daegu, started serving galbijjim as anju for patrons drinking alcohol. The establishment was your average hole-in-the-wall, but there was something magical about the old woman’s recipe for the meaty stew. Word spread fast and people from all over the region began to make their way to her little place near Daegu’s city hall. An old rumor has it that the local butchers of that time used axes to cut up the galbi to be used for the stew and in one case, shards of the axe must have made it into someone’s meal, which led them to hastily scurry off to the hospital. Whether it’s true or not, the positive buzz certainly outweighed anything bad, as over time, other entrepreneurs decided to cash in on the craze and began opening up galbijjim restaurants on the same street. The food became less of an anju and started to become the feature entree.
It wasn’t until the early 70′s that the area started becoming renowned as 동인동 찜갈비골목 (Dongin-dong Galbijim Alley) and despite the grandmother’s original location eventually closing, the famous street has now grown to 14 restaurants serving the popular dish, which still regularly attracts young Koreans, chattering ajummas, and local government officials from nearby city hall. With so many establishments jockeying for position on the small stretch of road, you’d expect a heightened atmosphere of competitiveness, with the resident ajummas standing at the door, calling out to passerbys and ensuring everyone knows that their place is the most delicious/the original/the spiciest, etc…But in fact, the proprietors are anything but. In fact, they collectively support each other and their interest to promote their street, so much as they often swap recipe secrets and tips on which local butcher is currently offering the best deals, etc…
Best way to get here is to walk to the northeast corner of Gukchaebosang Park (the corner where the skateboarders tend to congregate) and cross north to the KT Building. Then once across, cross east to the other side of the street. Then go left and walk for a few minutes and look for the small sign on a pole (it’ll be written in English) pointing you the way to the alley.
A ‘must visit’ for any Daegu-ite. Just tell them to go easy with the axe.
Ahhh..spicy Korean food. Every time you eat it, you crave it even more. One should never pass up a chance to have spicy Korean food.
One night earlier this month at a 낙지볶음 restaurant in downtown Daegu, a online group of spicy Korean aficionados met up to do a tour of various dining spots famed for serving intense heat in their fare. The 4 online restaurant reviewers are of the hardcore variety when it comes to their love affair with Korean spiciness. The types who can be seen chowing down on 낙지볶음 cooked with 5-alarm Cheongyang Gochu pepper powder, while gleefully wiping their incessantly sweaty foreheads.
Among the group is a married couple from Bangchon-dong, who share the same craze over this kind of food. When the wife makes banchan , she tends to spike everything with heaps of Cheongyang Gochu. “When I was in high school, I often ate spicy ddeokbokki. And when the heat started coming on, I always told myself to stop, but I would just keep on eating.”, she says. The couple tends to eat far more gochujang than most families, so much that she usually buys the 18 liter jars of gochujang which are usually only bought by restaurants. The husband reminisced about eating spicy food during his military service days. “When I was doing my military training, my mother used to come visit me and bring anchovies and gochujang for me to snack on. My mother always lectured me to make sure that I eat rice with it, to make sure the heat doesn’t give me cramps, but I didn’t bother with the rice.”, he recalls. The husband has a reputation for reading other Korean’s online reviews of spicy restaurants, going to the place and trying it, then coming back online to retort to the review and indicating that the place is not so hot.
Another spice addict at the get-together, from Geomdan-dong in northern Daegu, reveals that when the weather isn’t good or when he is feeling down, he tends to eat spicy food. And when he is hungover from the night before, his favorite remedy to curb his ailing stomach is to guzzle down the spicy broth leftover from eating 짬뽕. But he concedes that he’s not necessarily as hardcore as the others. “Whether the meal is spicy or not, any good food is good enough for me.”, he adds.
The last member of the group is a young woman from the outskirts of west Daegu, who once complained of some ongoing indigestion problems, so she went to a doctor. He gave her a clean bill of health and said that it didn’t appear to be anything serious. But rather than allowing time for her stomach to sort itself out, she went straight back to eating hardcore, spicy Korean food. “To give up eating spicy Korean would be the same as giving up being a Korean.”, she maintains. She’s so caught by its spell, that when she went to Europe to travel, she brought along a tub of gochujang and mixed it with virtually everything that she ate over there.
The group of addicts swap stories on how to maximize the potency of the meal. The husband of the couple suggested that the intensity can be increased, if you were to eat patbingsu, while eating the spicy food. The young woman from the countryside says that she drinks water to help prolong the sensation.
One of the men concludes the night by stating that he hopes to try spicy food everywhere in Korea and to one day cook up some of his hottest recipes for his peers.
Another vegetarian-friendly meal that is worth trying at least once is 버섯전골, which is various mushrooms and veggies boiled at your table in a soupy broth.
