We just got back from a 3 month trip to Korea. We did a lot of “research” by eating a wide variety of foods and have lots of exciting dishes to share with you online.
We flew into Incheon airport a little earlier than we expected. It took a while for us to realize that there were two wings to the airport, but once we figured that out we caught a subway from Incheon to our apartment in Mapo-Dong, Mapo-Gu Seoul.
Mapo-Dong is part of Mapo-Gu, which houses 400,000 residents. This is an older area of Seoul and it really showed our kids what Seoul used to look like 30 years ago (and still does!)
Our first meal was at a restaurant that specializes in pork belly (samgyeopsal).
We ordered a more traditional pork belly meal. The pork was absolutely exquisite. This restaurant only uses female pigs raised in Korea and it had a clean flavor. Normally pork has a sort of gamy flavor but not this. The meal came with all sorts of sides, including doenjang-chiggae, fermented bean paste stew. Seoul style is to make it a little spicy but hold back on the fermented bean paste.
Normally the pork belly is fried like thick pieces of bacon, but as you can see in the picture the pork belly has been cut very thick. After frying it on each side, you cut it into little pieces and finish cooking it that way.
They included a seafood flavored sauce that they recommended we keep heated up on the side of the grill. Dipping the meat into it made a unique flavor that I haven’t ever seen anywhere else.