The Best Mul Naeng Myeon (and it's right in our neighborhood)

Procrastinating grading exams to post about a newish restaurant discovery right in our neighborhood...

Summer in Seoul means naengmyeon 냉면 - cold noodles. My first actual meal after moving here in late August 2009 was mul naengmyeon 물냉면 - buckwheat noodles in an icy broth (usually with big chunks of ice floating in it). It's a bit vinegary, fairly mild, and I love the accompaniments of sliced bae (a.k.a. Asian pear), slivers of cucumber, and egg. The yolk mixes in the broth and creamifies it; on the whole, a refreshing and delicious light summer meal.

A few weeks ago our friend A. took M. to a naengmyeon place very close to our apartment building, around Daeheung station, and he came home raving about it. So last Friday we went for dinner. The restaurant, called 을밀대 (Eul Mil Dae), is located on a quiet street behind the Mapo Art Center, and advertises Pyeongyang style naengmyeon. It's a very popular place with lines out the door on hot afternoons and Japanese reviews posted on the walls, and has spilled into another smaller space next door. As soon as we sat down we were served a silver teapot filled with warm yuksu (meat broth) which we poured into water cups and drank as a kind of savory aperitif, and a dish of thick pink pickled mu (Korean radish) ribbons, which also came with the noodles.

Decadence in a teapot

Bowl of perfection

A good bowl of mul naengmyeon is all about how the elements work together. The yuksu was rich and meaty, reminiscent of pho broth (but not as herby), which provided a great backbone for the dish. The noodles themselves had a sort of subtle bumpy texture and a slight fishy flavor (which I've found with buckwheat before). The suyuk, or brisket, that came atop was a bit dry but very flavorful. Usually when I get mul naengmyeon there are squeeze bottles of white vinegar and yellow mustard on the table for adding to your broth, but here instead we got a dish of coarse ground mustard that reminded me of the heady horseradishy shoots-up-your-nose Chinese mustard that Grandpa used to serve with his eggrolls at the restaurant.

Verdict: It was the most expensive mul naengmyeon I've ever eaten (at 9,000 won a bowl), but also the most delicious - in a class apart from anything I'd tasted before - and more filling than normal (probably because of the substantial noodles). Wish we'd found the place sooner! It made me want to seek out other mul naengmyeon places in the same category.

Okay, and now for those exams...

'Western' food: A one-two punch, take one: Butterfinger Pancakes

 As much as I love Korean food, sometimes I just crave something from back home, like a proper (quote unquote) American breakfast. Before moving here, I wondered what I would miss the most, and actually predicted one thing right: bacon. Real bacon: not the uncured samgyupsal that everyone is crazy about here and that I also enjoy, but salty, cured, crispy bacon. Not only do I miss bacon, but also biscuits and gravy (hard for me to make with only a teeny tiny toaster oven) and good sausages. I can do eggs at home – we have a lot of British-ish breakfasts consisting of fried eggs, toast-and-jam, and baked beans (thanks to HomePlus a.k.a. Tesco's in Korea) and sometimes do pancakes or potato hash, but it's those breakfast meats that I typically crave.

So last Sunday, my friend K. and I decided to go to Butterfingers, a favorite of K.'s. They have two branches, and we went to the one near Gangnam station. K's a bacon fiend, more than me – she tells me that for 6 months while studying and living in the U.S., she ate 10 pieces of bacon at each meal! (sometimes in fried rice, she says, but still) – and Butterfingers is a place she can go to satisfy her cravings. The atmosphere was bright and open, and reminded me a bit of The Diner in D.C., although a little more upscale. The menu was huge and everything looked delicious (chive waffle with sauteed cherry tomatoes and bacon on the side; corned beef hash platter; blueberry pancakes). As expected, it was a bit pricey. We didn't get any coffee because the prices started at 5,000 won for a regular drip coffee. At last, I decided to order my breakfast a la carte (spiced pecan pancakes with apple compote; hashbrowns; bacon), which added up to be around 12,000 won. The two pancakes alone cost 5,500 won. K. ordered a waffle platter with eggs, potatoes, sausage and bacon for about the same price, and we shared our food and gushed over the bacon. My food came out on three separate plates, probably because I ordered a la carte, which made it a bit hard to eat the pancakes; serving it all on one plate would have made more sense to me.

 The food was good, but not awesome. Basically, like something you'd get at a good diner back home. The hashbrowns were pre-frozen and not cooked very well; they could have been crispier. I preferred K.'s potatoes (homefries), although even those could have been better (a bit undercooked but well-seasoned). I could have made those pancakes at home myself, and I agree with this review - the portion should have made it a side order. The bacon and sausage were a highlight: the former crispy-chewy and smoky, the latter plump, juicy, and mildly spiced (kind of like a weiswurst). At those prices, and the fact it's in Gangnam, I wouldn't go regularly, but it'd be a nice place for the occasional treat.

Mama Ayesha's

When school got out back in May, I was optimistic that I would be able to clean our long-neglected apartment in no time. But then internship piled upon job piled upon life and other obligations, and usually by the time I get home I'm so exhausted that I just have enough energy to cook and clean up (the latter if I'm lucky), and then it's bedtime.

This past weekend marked the first in a while that we weren't tied up with something, so I took advantage of the time on Sunday to make a cleaning and organizing afternoon of it. And after that, we decided to take a break and get dinner out (even in the heat, and with M somewhat disabled by his new shoes which gave him a fierce blister). I recommended Mama Ayesha's (Lebanese place in Adams Morgan), since I've been walking past there on my way back from the Metro, and also because I was inspired by my Arabic immersion lessons last week (also part of my duties for my summer job -- paid to learn Arabic? You don't have to twist my arm...) to get some food from the Arab world.

All in all, we probably (and predictably) ordered way too much food. We started with Homous bil Lahmeh with lamb and pinenuts, which I have made before with ground beef. It was very smooth, but I think the combination overall was too mild (not enough dynamic contrast). M ordered a combination plate from the grill that contained very nice chunks of grilled lamb and "springy" (I don't know how else to describe it) nicely spiced kofte, and I ordered the baked garlic chicken. The chicken was some of the best I've had in a long time! I know that restaurant reviewers often say this of chicken done right, but I have to add my voice to the mix: it was so tender *it fell off the bone*. I admit that some of the white meat was a little dry, but the flavor of whatever marinade they put on it (Mama Ayesha's "special garlic sauce") saved it. The skin was also lovely. (my meat eater's self-hatred is kicking in a little at the moment, but what can I say. I'm my mother's daughter. I eat the skin, and I enjoy it!).

I would guess that it was a mixture of yoghurt, garlic, hot peppers, and either sumac or lemon (which would account for the tang). I'm not sure if it was lemon, because my own prior disappointing experience roasting chicken that had been sitting in lemon water told me that a long lemon soak is not always good for the tenderizing department. The pita was chewy and crispy, and great warmed up the next day. We also ordered a salad that turned out to be chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and parsley mixed with tahini (hey, I can do that!). After such a huge meal, our stomachs called for some settling with the help of Arabic coffee -- their version is cardamom heavy, and like we've seen before, comes pre-sweetened (M thinks it may be brewed with the sugar). I was happy with my semi-sweet, and M with his sweet.

We also ordered a bottle of wine (again, in retrospect probably a little much, also considering the heat). Not a place that we would go regularly, since it's a little spendy (the price of M's combo was a little more than we'd like to pay). For kabobs we would probably go to Moby Dick's more often, though admittedly the meat and spicing of Mama Ayesha's kofte is better.

Mama Ayesha's also gets points for atmosphere: I especially liked the star cutouts in the ceiling.