One of the dishes you really ought to eat at least once while living in Korea has to be hanwoo, Korean beef. Cheap, generous places are everywhere, and department stores and supermarkets carry plenty of good meat, so you can have it any time — but places that give you a genuinely delicious gourmet experience are not that numerous. If I had the time I would have liked to make a special trip out to a famous regional place like Uga in Hoengseong or Cheonhyeon Hanwoo in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, but with one thing and another the conditions never quite come together. So when I heard the rumours about Ompangjip, a new place that had opened in Yeouido, I really wanted to go.
The table setting
A spare spread that does not get in the way of the meat.
Kimchi and cabbage
This much banchan is plenty.
Rare cuts
Maybe because things were quiet, the gentleman trimmed the meat for us himself.
Looking at it like this, I cannot really tell whether it is good or not.
Hanwoo is fundamentally not about enjoying the fat, so it does not look all that showy. It is a completely different taste from Japanese wagyu.
Grilled over charcoal..
They say the people who eat meat well are the ones who have eaten it before, and unless you are a pro it is not easy to get the timing of the grill exactly right. That day the gentleman quietly grilled for us, and my friend and I waited reverently for it to be done. Good meat grilled only halfway and eaten juicy has a chew to it that is wonderfully nutty, a top-class pleasure. This must be what hanwoo really tastes like. It is not cheap, but at this level there is no need to go all the way out to a famous place in the provinces, which is the verdict.
Maybe because we went on a weekday, I got talking with the gentleman about all sorts of things to do with meat. He said you are better off dropping the prejudice that the beef from a particular region is the good stuff. There is good meat, he said, but that does not mean every hanwoo from that region is good. He seems to travel around to all sorts of places buying in meat to find the delicious beef.
If this place has a problem, it is that unless you eat with your full attention you will not get to enjoy hanwoo at its best. If you came here for something like a business dinner you would have no time to pay attention to the meat, so it would be very poor value for the price..
Doenjang jjigae
One portion is a bit small, and since we ate 1.5 portions each it feels like hardly any food, yet you end up quite full. Add one rice dish on top of that and it is just right as a day of eating. Given the price it ought to go without saying, but they simmer a good doenjang jjigae too.
One more happy memory in Korea. Where shall I go next..