A friend of mine who lives in Japan came to visit after a long while, and since he asked me to show him somewhere properly Korean, the first place we headed for was Manjok Jokbal near City Hall Station. It is a jokbal joint with a solid reputation as one of the best in Seoul. The queue is normally so long that I would never even attempt it, but this time we had the time to spare, so we waited about 30 minutes and got in.
The basic table setting
There is even a special dipping sauce, and the accompaniments alone fill up the whole table.
Mandu-guk (dumpling soup)
Oh, just as I had heard, they bring out a complimentary mandu-guk. It was so good for a freebie that it surprised me all over again. I reckon it would even be worth getting it to go and eating it at home.
Jokbal, large size
There are bones in there too, but this much is three servings, so the portion is staggering. The taste is of course top tier in the country. We ate as hard as we could and still could not finish it, so we had the leftover jokbal wrapped up to take home. Maybe because it is so fatty, you start to tire of it as you keep eating, and that might be the weak point of jokbal.
We ate until we were ready to burst and that was round one done, and it still came to under 10,000 won a head. To think a place where you can eat this cheaply and this well still exists in Korea… Satisfaction levels are through the roof. For round two we moved on to Artisee, behind Ferrum Tower.
Bingsu at Artisee
I have tried all sorts of bingsu, but Artisee is probably the most dependably good one. There are places that are pricier, or harder to get to, or have long queues thanks to their fame, but Artisee may be the only place where you can walk in any time and get bingsu of this level. I definitely want to go and eat it again next summer.