Korean food

The Korean culture wave that hit Hong Kong a few years back may have subsided, but the Korean food that gained popularity alongside films Shiri, Joint Security Area (JSA), My Sassy Girl, and the mega-popular Korean TV drama Jewel in the Palace (Dae Jang Gem), is still here and thriving. Korean BBQ is hot in Hong Kong… both literally and figuratively. But take it from a Korean: some of the Korean food popularized here is a far cry from what is actually found in Korea.
If you wanted to eat like a Korean would in Korea, what might you look for in a restaurant and its menu? What might you order? How might you structure a meal for that authentic Korean dining experience?
Eating the Korean way tends to follow an ordered structure that restaurants like Sorabol in Causeway Bay reflect in their set course menus. It’s not that most Korean meals are divided into courses – it’s simply a common practice to eat pan-fried foods at the start of a meal while the following meat and vegetable dishes are being prepared. Bibimbap, steamed pot soup, cold noodle soups like Naengmyeon, or spicy cold noodle Bibim Naengmyeon then follow. Traditional Korean desserts include fried flower cakes made of sticky rice powder and honey, and myriad dessert drinks like sweet Shik Hye made of fermented rice or spicy-sweet Sujeonggwa, a fruit punch with honey, persimmons, ginger, pine nuts, and cinnamon.
Don’t feel compelled to eat a massive meal though – as long as you’re armed with some accurate information about what makes a real Korean meal, you can turn any lunch set special into a true Korean experience. Many households in Korea will, in fact, prepare casual lunches that resemble lunch specials featuring such dishes as Bibimbap, offered at many restaurants.
Bibimbap is rice mixed with a lot of other ingredients (the make up of which varies), but most commonly a Korean diner dumps a bowl of rice into a bowl of soup and eats both at the same time. This kind of mixing dishes is a hallmark of Korean cuisine, and even harks back to the message behind the yin-yang Taegeuk symbol, which represents homogeneity and oneness, on the South Korean flag. For Koreans, this kind of oneness goes beyond linguistic and ethnic homogeneity – it extends into the realm of food. There’s no use eating two dishes separately when it’s faster and makes more sense to eat them both at the same time. So go ahead and pour your vegetables into your rice, it’s more than OK – it’s the authentically Korean thing to do.
Meats like unseasoned pork belly and ox-tongue are staple Korean menu items. Many dishes also involve raw vegetables, and wrapping the meat in raw vegetable leaves creates a traditional and common Korean dish known as Sang Choo Ssam. And don’t forget the tea! Koreans drink barley tea like water, and it’s indispensable at an authentic meal. So if you find chrysanthemum tea at your table, you’ve got a problem.
What makes a Korean dish taste authentic? You should be able to detect hints of soy sauce and sesame oil in most Korean foods, which make use of small doses of these flavourings. The main difference between an authentic and modified Korean taste, though, lies in the degree and character of the food’s spiciness. Korean food is loaded with Gouchujang, a fermented red pepper paste made from glutinous rice powder, powdered fermented soybeans, red chili powder, and salt. Its unique taste is simultaneously sweet, spicy, and sour due to the mix of hydrolyzed starches, hot peppers, and fermented acids. This is a different kind of spicy from that found in Chinese dishes made with chili oil – there the spiciness is more bitter and without the sweet undertones.
Koreans love their Gouchujang, and their food is often spicier than many Hong Kongers can handle. Restaurants respond to this difference in their patrons’ taste buds differently. “We make side dishes a bit more sweet for Hong Kong people and pick less spicy foods to give them,” says the owner of Korean restaurant Changwon in Tsim Sha Tsui. Other restaurants will simply suggest dishes that are less spicy than others – not every Korean dish is tear inducing. Good examples of traditional Korean dishes that aren’t so hot are beef short ribs stew, ginseng chicken soup, and cold noodle soup. Some restaurants will ask when you order how spicy you want your dish, so tell them to bring on the spice if you want to eat the Korean way.
A few restaurants even go so far as to create alternative offerings for their Korean and non-Korean customers. Ms Kim, manager of Jin Lau Bao Korean Restaurant in Causeway Bay, explains: “Local people don’t like very spicy foods and some of the Korean vegetables. Sometimes they ask us to change the dishes or take the dishes back. Therefore we separated our side dishes into Chinese and Korean. For Chinese diners we offer dry fish, potato, two seasoned vegetables, broccoli, cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi. They are all traditional Korean foods, but we just give versions that are not so spicy. To Korean diners we offer seasoned green laver, white kimchi soup, spicy seasoned chicory, spicy seasoned oyster, seasoned brown seaweeds, cucumber kimchi, spicy fish (hard boiled), spicy boiled fish sausage, cabbage kimchi, and radish kimchi.”
And so we come to what is perhaps the biggest part of the authentic Korean dining experience: the side dishes. Even Korean fast food restaurants will give you a little container of kimchi – but why? The history of Korean side dishes dates back to the ChoSun Dynasty, when it became accepted that the number of a person’s side dishes at public meals indicated their social standing. The King always received 12 side dishes, the lowest classes always received three, and those in the middle classes five, seven, or nine according to their rank. Being served many side dishes became a sign of respect and that a person was getting the best meal possible. And so in today’s restaurants, for the money they pay, Koreans want the respect and quality that come with a lot of side dishes. At no cost – the emperor certainly never paid for his side dishes. A survey of Korean restaurants in and around Kimberly Street, Wanchai, and Causeway Bay reveals that authentic Korean restaurants will generally serve between five and 12 side dishes. No one wants to be a part of that three-side-dish lower class, so now you know to stand up and say something if served fewer than the respectable five.
Common side dishes like seasoned spinach, bean sprouts, chicory, and bracken are all prepared similarly: the vegetables are boiled in saltwater and mixed with combinations of leek, minced garlic, chili powder, sesame oil, sesame and salt. Anchovy stir-fry is another common side dish in which anchovies are fried with soy sauce, sugar, starch syrup, onion, chili and garlic, and then mixed with sesame and sesame oil. Hard-boiled potato with a dressing of soy sauce, starch, syrup and water is also served often, as is acorn jelly which has been cut, parboiled, and mixed with varying combinations of salt, sesame oil, other vegetables, chili powder, and dried seaweeds. Seasoned green laver, a type of seaweed, is prepared by mixing laver with sliced and minced radish, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil.
And then, of course, there’s kimchi, or fermented vegetables. Whereas cabbage and radish kimchi are often prepared in advance and stored for weeks before reaching your table, Koreans know to ask also for fresh kimchi filled with seafood and even more chili paste, made a few days rather than weeks before being served. Other varieties aren’t as popular in Hong Kong but are very common in Korea, like the cucumber and radish variations offered at Jin Luo Bao Korean restaurant; the two types are prepared similarly through fermentation, though taste as different as you would expect a cucumber to taste from a radish.
Korean BBQ is a popular, traditional menu offering – but is not to be confused with the buffet-style Korean BBQ that’s taken Hong Kong by storm. The grilling of raw meats, vegetables, and seafood is not the difference, it’s the walking around to select the uncooked food and then grilling it yourself you won’t find in traditional Korean restaurants. Traditional Korean BBQ can be ordered off a menu; raw food is served on a plate and cooked at your table by a trained professional who knows how to avoid over- or under-cooking the meat. “We can say that Korean foods came to Hong Kong in three different types: the Korean BBQ buffet, Korean traditional restaurant, and Korean fast foods or snack shops,” says Christine Kim, Korean manager in traditional Han Ah Rum Korean Restaurant in Causeway Bay. You might say that to eat at a Korean BBQ buffet is a brand of Hong Kong-Korean cuisine.
Yet while it may not be structurally authentic, don’t dismiss the advantages of a buffet that lets you sample an array of Korean food over the course of one meal; most will offer meats like beef short ribs and pork spare ribs that play prominent roles in traditional Korean menus, alongside kimchi and other staple side dishes. But keep an eye out – many buffet BBQs also serve food that is distinctly not Korean. A good example: New Korean BBQ in Wan Chai serves sausage and bacon alongside salmon sushi and Chinese vegetables in their buffet spread. Lisa Tam of the Han-Yang Won BBQ Buffet in Causeway Bay explains why Han-Yang Won follows a similar practice: “Our main target is local people and there are customers from the Philippines and Taiwan as well. So we offer Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Thailand foods. Hong Kongers like BBQ and the buffet, so we are serving the food in this way.” What does that mean for someone trying to eat like a Korean? Opt for the bean sprouts over the bok choy if you want to complement your BBQ main dishes. Lisa is careful to note that a modified serving style and diversified menu doesn’t necessarily mean the Korean food offered isn’t Korean. “We offer many types of food,” she says, “but I cannot say that we changed the food to suit locals.”
So now you know. Armed with your new-found knowledge of Korean cuisine, walk into your neighborhood Korean restaurant with head held high. Be confident in your ordering. Enjoy your pork belly, kimchi and rice cakes, and remember: whether it’s over a BBQ grill, a pot of stew, or an array of side dishes, bring on the heat.