Dak Galbi

The best part about living in Korea continues to be the food.  I feel really lucky to be able to go out at any time of night on any day of the week and eat something pretty delicious.  Sara and I have a couple of regular restaurants that we go to and one of our favorites is a Dak Galbi place in I-Dong. Dak Galbi is a stir-fryed mix of vegetables, diced chicken, gochujang(red pepper paste) and tteok, which are little tubes of rice cake(imagine something that looks like a tube of string cheese but has the consistency of rice.)  The vegetables and the chicken and the tteok all come standard, but you can get some mix in options like rice, udon noodles, or cheese.  We like udon noodles and cheese, which leaves you with this spicy, stringy noodle dish.  When you clear the first course they'll bring rice and mix it with what's left on your burner.  The rice mixes with the gochujang and the leftover chicken and crisps up on the bottom.  An awesome meal and cheap as well.  As always here's 10 pictures and some foolish comments.

Chuncheon Dak Galbi in I-Dong.  Chuncheon is the city where Dak Galbi supposedly originated back in the 1960's.  

Pre-cooked.  They bring out all this stuff and dump it in the middle of your table. We are politely asked not to touch the spatula.

Here we go, almost done.  Sara and I usually wait until we are starving to leave our apartment and go eat, so here she is trying to hold it together as we wait for our food.

Dak galbi's one of those foods that you cook at your table and then wrap in a leaf and eat it. So you've got to have the standard set-up of the leaves and the gochujang and some pickled garlic.

Just a little side of salad.

Now the food is almost gone and they've mixed what's left with the rice. On the bottom it gets crispy and you have to scrape it off with the metal spatula.  It's good like that.

I tried to get a shot of the menu, but it's a little tough to see here. 8500 for an order and we get three orders, I think. Cheese is 1500, Udon 3000, rice 3000.  Something like that.  Dinner for two ends up being about $20.

Picture taking was a little light in here.  There are only so many ways you can photograph lettuce leaves.

One happy customer.

If you find yourself hungry and in I-dong, you'll find this place on the restaurant street. It's on the side closest to E-Mart next to the pig place.  Highly recommended.