For many years, I actively stayed away from Korean food because I had had a bad experience living there many many moons ago. After graduating from Big School in 2003, I had no money and was unemployed and ended up living in a godforsaken city in South Korea teaching English. I’ll spare you the intimate details, but my life at that time was a car crash and living in what was considered to be the most conservative city in the most conservative part of a conservative country. I still have some very good friends from that time who may well be reading this (you know who and WHERE you are) who can vouch for the fact I had a pretty rough ride for my first year in Asia. I left that town on 31^st August 2004, not having completed a year. I arrived in Taipei on 1^st September 2004 and one of my first memories of being in Taiwan was being in the airport at the same time as the returning Taiwanese Olympics squad, who had just come back from Athens. I swore I would never return, though I did for a long weekend about 10 years ago.

It may seem petty, but I was angry at that country for a long time and I think it took me three years before I would even think about eating Korean food again. Korean culture was on the rise (nearly eclipsing Japanese culture) and I mellowed out and realized one bad experience cannot explain a whole country. It has to be said that I have never really found anything as good as some of the food I had when I was there (I can’t say this is rose tinted glasses, maybe “puce covered” is a better description).

Today’s visit to首爾大叔  coincided with my Taiwanese wedding anniversary, I had been wanting to go somewhere a bit fancier, but Mrs. Bao was feeling a bit under the weather and she didn’t want to go far from the house- we opted for a Shandong restaurant, but as we hadn’t made a reservation and the place was full all night (I’ll return there, not so easy to find that cuisine in Taipei) we opted for the Korean place across the road.

My Chinese is limited however oddly enough; my Korean reading ability is fine after all these years, so I was able to read the menu (No English) and knew what I was ordering. All the favourites were there (I have the ability to read Korean as I just stated but can’t write in Korean in English as opposed to Chinese where I can write pinyin- it’s confusing even for me I had to look these up!), but they had bulgogi(불고기), bibimbap (비빔밥), sundae (순대) (I always hated that stuff) samgyetang (삼계탕)and I believe they had Hite or Cass beer available.

One of the things I’d forgotten from my hiatus from Korean food was the fact that you could probably get away with not bothering with the main course and only eating side dishes, the amount we got on our table was huge. I ordered (this is my attempt at writing Korean in English) selleongtang (설렁탕) which was a beef soup, with added clear noodles, not the best I’ve had but the beef flavor was good. Mrs. Bao had kimchijjigae (김치찌개) or kimchi stew in this case with a massive amount of pork. I was never a fan of kimchi so I didn’t have any. As an aside, when I lived in Korea I would rarely see local people eating it, even though they professed their love for the stuff, and would only eat it if they were called out on it. The missus loved it though, so that was a plus. We also ordered Bibimbap mixed rice (I guess) for Preschooler Bao, which was too much for her but it tasted great- exactly like I had in Pohang. We also ordered a buchimgae (부침개) a kind of seafood pancake, like the shrimp one you get in Thai food. It was pretty bland on its own- but the secret is to add the soy sauce or spicy sauce that comes on your table. Good stuff, and not something I remember from before.

The restaurant itself was a nice place, if a bit clichéd. Old artwork of Yangban, dolls wearing hambok that kind of thing. I automatically fell into Korean when the waitress asked me if it was good, and she was a bit shocked. But nah, it was good. It is also close to me, so will probably become part of our rotation. I didn’t include the barbecue menu- but could smell from elsewhere that it was worth taking a look. They also seem to do big parties. I’ll check that again when I’m out for a wander.

It definitely won’t be another 16 years til I try it again 🙂

Menu

Address

No. 24號, Lane 133, Zhongyang Road, Xindian District, New Taipei City, 231

Getting there: Xiaobitan MRT. Turn right and walk to the 7-11 on the corner and turn right again- walk maybe 3minutes and it is on your right hand side. The Shandong place I’m gonna visit in a future installment is directly opposite.