Samgyeopsal

We have to admit it, we are belly pork lovers and like what Roger says, "You guys always eat good stuff". So it's getting pretty hard to lose weight like that.

Our favourite meal in Korea is the Jeju Island's Black Pigs. This seems to reaffirm our belief that black animals have tastier meat (eg. black skinned chickens). Pieces of pork shoulder meat and belly pork from black pigs are grilled on table top and cut into smaller pieces before eating, wrapped up in lettuce and spring onion. Heaven!

Interestingly in Korea, the meat are not paper thin, rather they are about slightly less than 1cm thick. We realised that with side dishes like Kimchi, daikon, spinach and many others, even though the main meal is meat, they are at least another five portions of vegetables, which makes it a pretty balanced meal.

I got my Samgyeopsal hotplate in Namdaemun market. Was debating whether I should get the Bulgogi one too, which was only 20,000 won (RM58) but did not dare to push it. The Samgyeopsal ones (45,000 won, about RM 130 each) were metal pieces of slanting plates that let the oil flow off the side into a smaller bowl while Bulgogi ones are dome shaped, reason being Bulgogi are marinated, so it is wet in the first place while samgyupsal is dry but oil will flow out later.

Why am I feeling a nagging sense of regret for not getting the Bulgogi ones too?

Here is my latest addition to the Nee's Kitchen family of arsenals.

Samgyeopsal are basically pieces of pork (bacon like raw strips but not cured or smoked like bacon) meal grilled on table top stove, dipped in sesame oil salt and pepper dip before wrapping in lettuce with chilli bean paste and spring onion salad (to our liking but optional). I found my pork strips at Butcher's Deli and Greg was smiling from ear to ear. Me too because i can imagine cooking becoming easier because he is going to grill his own meat. All I needed to do is prepare the salad, wash the lettuce and cook the rice.

We tried out my new toy when Roger was back for his holidays. His Royal Highness thinks he liked it, which was like an almighty compliment for his humble sister 'chef' or was that 'slave'?

Greg, well, he thinks it was as good as the ones we had in Korea.

For 3-4 person:

500 gm of sliced skinless pork belly, store bought which can be quite thin or you can slice it if you have good sharp knife when the piece is semi frozen.

Whole pieces of lettuce like romain, butterhead.

Gochujang, korea red chilli bean paste

Raw pieces of garlic sliced thinly lengthwise (optional)

Green chillis peppers (optional)

Sesame dip:

1 tbsp of salt

1 tbsp of cracked black pepper

2 tbsp of sesame oil

Scallion/Spring onion salad:

1 tbsp of soya sauce (korean)

1 1/2 tbsp of white vineger

1 tbsp of sesame oil

2 tbsp of water

1 teasp of korean red chilli flakes

1 tbsp of sugar
6-8 stalks of spring onion, cut thinly lengthwise

1) Toast salt and pepper in a pan over med to low fire. Add to sesame oil. Set aside.
2) Cut spring onion, especially the bottom half, into 2 inch length and slice into thin fine strips. Mix soya, sesame oil, sugar, vineger, water and chilli flakes. Add spring onion strips and mix well. Set aside.
3) Place pork strips on a pan over a table top gas stove. Grill on both sides till slight golden brown. If strips are too long, cut into half.

4) Dip in sesame dip.
5) Place on lettuce. Add garlic, spring onion salad and chilli bean paste. Wrap and eat with or without rice.

Jeju Rocks!

Literally. Black, volcanic rocks to be exact.

Apparently the entire island was formed by volcanic eruptions 2 million years ago which makes it a very natural World Heritage Site.

Except that these rocks were piled up unnaturally by cheeky people, probably Korean honeymooners from the city who had nothing better to do.

Most travel guidebooks will tell you that Jeju is famous for 3 things:
1) The impossibly blue sea
2) The volcanic rocks
3) The volcanic women

We saw one. But it wasn't alive.

Jeju is famous for its tough women divers called haenyo (sea women). They have lungs of steel and are able to dive all year round, even in cold water without professional scuba gear. Not only that, traditionally they are mostly head of the family as they control the income. That suddenly made me feel really small, hanging out on an island like this.

Since we had the whole afternoon to kill, and since we over-ate, we thought we'd just take a nice bicycle ride around Pyoseon beach.

There wasn't really much to see there but it felt nice just to be there. Like the Zodiac statues that you can find in Sibu town, the Jeju council also built similar ones that lined the beach front, which meant only one thing - camwhoring opportunities.

By now, you should be able to guess who bullies who (whimper whimper).

The tide wasn't in, so there was more sand than sea. And those volcanic Jeju women again.


And volcanic Jeju lighthouses.

And volcanic Jeju rocks.

And more volcanic Jeju rocks.

Being in a place with nothing else but the purest of blue skies, blue sea, rocks & air as fresh as the day life began, it's easy to think of nothing but the person next to you.

In a place as basic as this, you are no longer rushing, no traffic jam, no deadlines, no stress, no work. It strips you down to bare necessity. It takes away all extraneous identities that we have built for ourselves in our busy lives & what's left is our true self, a human being. And being humans, being our true selves, we only need the air, the sky, the sea, good food, & of course a good partner & friends to be happy.

And on our very first day in Jeju, we finally understood why this place was the most romantic in all of South Korea.

Day 2: The First Meal in Jeju

Ok. We're getting back to our Jeju postings...

A 5-star hotel like Haevichi has the tendency to make you want to lie in bed all day, watch TV, sleep & do nothing, just like farm animals. The only other time we felt the same was when we were on the Star Cruise. However, this time around we were not on a ship. So there was no excuse to stay in bed. After all, we were pure blooded Malaysian tourists. We squeeze out as much as we can from our trips.

Jeju and to be more precise, Haevichi Hotel and Resort is located near Pyoseong Beach. This is a very extremely nice place. However, public transportation is a pain. Don't bet on getting around on the bus. We hardly saw any. So we rented bicycles at the hotel for 5,000 won (RM15) each & that's good for up to 3 hours. However, the hotel staff was nice enough to let us use them for longer since there were nobody else around.

We cycled to this little pier which was just about 2 minutes from the hotel. We could have walked you know. But we didn't know it at that time. But anyway, we thought it'd be romantic.

This is Jeju sky & Jeju water. They're all blue.

And then we saw this restaurant which was just next to a police station. Now, that felt like a pretty safe place to be, so we parked our bikes outside & went in.

We were taken upstairs where there was a panaromic window that stretched from the left to the right, giving us a wonderful view of the sea & the pier outside. As it was late into the afternoon, the restaurant was empty, except for the both of us. That's a tip. To avoid crowds in restaurants, go at the wierdest hours.

This was to be our first actual meal on Jeju island. We didn't really know what to expect cos the hotel staff couldn't tell us much about where to go. He just said everywhere is OK & that a seafood meal cost around 100,000 won (RM290) on average. We were wincing hard & at that point, we seriously thought we would be bankrupt at the end of the five days. But we had a secret weapon - credit card.

The restaurant waitress didn't speak English. So we used a combination of sign language, charades, theatrical facial expressions & mime. We found a few English words on the menu that we understood like assorted seafood for 81,000 won (RM240). We thought we could order a seafood set platter for two plus another separate soup ala carte but the waiter was pretty insistant that we don't do the soup cos the set was SPECIAL. So after a few pointing actions, we thought we understood what she meant, that the soup was already included in the seafood set cos it was SPECIAL.

Here you go. The meal started with a variety of side dishes:

The set came with side dishes of all things that you can find inside a fish, and everything else outside of the fish.

Then came 2 different kinds of salad (raw fish salad and the plain soya salad) plus carrot & seaweed side dishes.

Then there was surprise - yummy clam porridge & seaweed soup.

At this point, we could have walked out & it would have been pretty ok to last us till dinner. But then the real thing came out. And every time the food came up the elevator shaft from the kitchen downstairs, there was a doorbell-like ring DING DONG. When we saw this, we were like "Oh... so this IS the assorted seafood. Right".

This was like the clam/shells set. We practically didn't know what we were eating but it was quite exciting. And as we were eating, our minds kept racing ahead & wondering if this was the main dish. We wouldn't know cos there was no point asking the waitress.

When the next DING DONG came, both of us stared at each other. You mean there's more? This looked pretty much like the actual main course, a kind of white fish and this was a huge plate of sashimi.

Then the DING DONG went off again and both of us just did not want to make guesses anymore. This super delicious grilled abalone dropped onto the table.

And even more fish, grilled this time.

At that point, Nee & I were both giggling silly. This has got to be the longest meal ever. We were beginning to dread the DING DONG. And it came again, DING DONG and with it came more stuff, which wasn't really necessary, but they looked so good.

Grilled corns

Do you know what it's like to be full? I think you do. It means there's no room for anything else. It means every single gaps that were there in between the food that has already gone down in your stomach has been filled up. It means that there's no room even for air.





And the train of food kept coming. I was beginning to be worried if they actually keep charging us for every dish that comes to the table until we tell them to stop.

Tempura

So I held up my little finger to the waitress & asked her if this is the last. She nodded her head & we thought we were safe.

Some kind of fried rice

But she LIED to us cos the mother of all DING DONGS came after that. It was the super duper fish soup in a bowl that was bigger than the size of both our faces put together (we measured). And there was a whole fish inside.

Images of grandma & all the other grand aunties that kept shoving food onto our plates came flashing by. I think Koreans have stomachs even up their backs. No wonder it costs RM240.