I hear mineo (croaker) is staying in season later than usual this year. I never managed to eat it on my last trip to Korea, so I took this chance and threw a tiny little foodie meetup. ^_^ Organising a meetup in Korea from Japan was a bit tricky.. especially since this wasn’t a regular haunt of mine, just a place I’d heard about.
This is what a mineo looks like. (right)
Looks trustworthy just to see it.. It was on display in front of the restaurant, which we found after winding our way deep into Sinpo Market.
Side dishes..
Nothing special about the side dishes, of course, but seeing a table laid out Korean-style for the first time in a while actually moved me a little.
Sponsored drink
Japanese shochu. It was my meetup, after all, so I brought this along for the people who came all the way out to Incheon. Tomino Hozan is actually the most popular sweet potato shochu in Japan right now. Its soft, deep, flowery aroma goes well with Japanese à la carte dishes. For a shochu to drink with mineo, I figured this level would be just right. Pricier shochu is better saved for pricier food, though honestly that comes down to personal taste and your wallet.
Large mineo sashimi
With three people you need to order at least the large, so you can try the sashimi and still ask for jeon. I think it was 75,000 won. Plenty of people say mineo sashimi doesn’t taste like anything special, but it’s not easy to get fish this plump in summer. For me, this alone was great. It was cut thick, so there was plenty to chew on, and the swim bladder and the other parts were nice and springy too. The roe at the front was far too strong. The lady told us to eat it first, but that felt like a bit much.
Mineo jeon
With mineo, the jeon is a work of art. I’d only ever heard about it until now and finally got to try it this time, and it lives up to its reputation. The generous fat in that thick flesh melts just right as it’s pan-fried, so it simply vanishes the moment it’s in your mouth. It does soak up some oil, though, so I couldn’t eat too much of it.
Mineo soup
We had a second round planned, so we went easy, but I think mineo-tang only really tastes good when you use a big fish. This one was too small, so there weren’t many extra bits and the broth was a little lacking. The foodie club I’m part of holds a big mineo meetup every summer, and they say that when you get a huge one and boil it for soup, you get a broth as rich as beef bone soup. You can do fine with jeon on your own, but soup is really not something you can do as a solo foodie.
After boiling..
Having said all that, even this is good value for the price. If you’re not chasing the pinnacle of fine dining and just want a fun day out at a good restaurant, it’s a relaxed place to go. So we scraped the pot clean before we left..
Mandu
One upside of a meetup at Sinpo Market is that there’s lots of food around. We bought some mandu and gonggalppang (hollow puff bread) as a light snack and set off for the next place. The gonggalppang really suited my taste. I lived in Incheon for a good while and had no idea about it..