I was out in Apgujeong for the first time in a while and, after dithering over where to get lunch, headed to Bongjuru, a Chinese restaurant that’s supposedly doing pretty well in this neighborhood. The name is a bit of a groaner (it sounds like “bonjour”), so people get the wrong idea about it all the time, but the food isn’t bad.
The entrance
It’s so stylish it doesn’t look like your usual Korean-Chinese joint, but make no mistake, it’s not a “Chinese restaurant” in the fancy sense, it’s a regular Korean-Chinese place.
What the name means
Well… who cares what it’s called, really..
Inside.
Nice, isn’t it? And it’s just a Korean-Chinese place.
The ceiling
Looks like a club. And yet it’s still just a Korean-Chinese place.
The basic table setting
Proper stuff
The basic side dishes
Not bad
Tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork)
The frying is well done, but the sauce is on the sweet side. Most people would probably like it.
Today’s special: japchae-bap
If you order the daily special it’s a little cheaper. ^_^ But that’s not why I ordered it; I ordered it because I’d heard it was good. It’s a bit spicy, but tasty. It feels like the usual Chinese-restaurant japchae-bap bumped up a notch. Mind you, it’s not the ultimate flavor you’d need to travel a long way for.
Complimentary soup
This one’s ordinary.
Dessert
It tastes ordinary, but you do get dessert. However small it is, whether a place serves dessert or not makes a big difference. After something spicy, even a plain sherbet tastes great. The menu is pricey overall, but not as much as Kanji Gogo, so it’s worth coming for now and then.
Sigh.. eating this well makes me a little heartbroken that Mokran, the authentic Chinese restaurant that used to be in this neighborhood, is gone. It was a really good place. Whether I’ll ever have a reason to go all the way to Seodaemun… sob..