A friend I got to know through my old otaku days, a connection I just can’t seem to cut no matter how hard I try, lives in Ilsan, so I went out to Ilsan for the first time in my life. There was a bit of an important deal going down that day ^_^ He said there was a decent Chinese restaurant run by an ethnic Chinese family near his place, so we gave it a try. Usually at places like this you get better value ordering one dish to share plus a rice or noodle dish each rather than a course, but that day we went all out with the course for a change.
The basic table setting
The zha cai was better than the usual.
Seafood soup
Ah.. only now, while writing this, do I realize I can’t remember a single dish name..
Crab soup, maybe..
What was this again -_-;; Looks like stir-fried eggplant.
Kkanpunggi (sweet and spicy fried chicken), I think..
Spicy stir-fried chicken, I believe
Stir-fried abalone with ginkgo nuts, maybe..
And these are flower buns (huajuan)..
Jjamppong broth.
For dessert, persimmon simiro (sago soup)
Tea
Another dessert…
The food comes out properly cooked. It’s not shabby, but being a neighborhood restaurant, it was hard to expect more than that. If you want more than this from a neighborhood restaurant, you’d have to move to a different neighborhood. What I learned that day: two guys ordering a course at a Chinese restaurant is pretty pointless. As long as the food tastes good, who needs formality.. that’s the point. Just ordering jjajangmyeon + tangsuyuk with some kaoliang liquor would probably have given us more satisfaction for the money…