V-Day outing at Kimchee restaurant

The usual three of us went out on Valentine's Day to Kimchee restaurant near our hostel for a deliberately unromantic evening. This Korean restaurant is very new (opened late last year) and has already gained huge popularity in the past few months, presumably for the quality of its food as well as the very reasonable prices (which is surprising because it looks so spacious and classy!). They don't take reservations for small groups, so we had to wait for about 45 minutes for a table.

So many couples that evening! Great food, perhaps,
but surely not the best place for a date!

Open kitchen - always fascinating for a foodie.

Elegant ceramic lamps on the long tables.

Unlike most Korean restaurants, this place doesn't serve the usual complimentary range of side dishes - everything has to be paid for. But as we would find out, they were worth every penny charged. Here is the first of three starters we ordered, kimchee (sometimes also spelt kimchi). This dish of pickled cabbage is a staple in Korean cuisine, and I do know for a fact that a special fridge is often set aside in Korean households for homemade kimchee.

Beautiful presentation on a turquoise celadon plate.

Very neatly arranged layers.

I haven't been to Korea, but as far as my experiences go, this was the best kimchee I'd ever tried. Fresh, crunchy, sweet, sour, spicy - truly astonishing quality in this humble starter which really whets the appetite.

This was our second starter of pa jeon, a traditional Korean pancake with spring onions and mixed seafood, served with a chive and soy sauce:

This was also delightful - aromatic and crisp on the outside, packed in with generous bites of seafood including clams and squid. The soy sauce (somewhat different from the Chinese and Japanese varieties) enhanced the savoury depths of this dish and also cut through its richness with a sharp flavour.

The final starter, dduk bok gi, rice cakes with fish cakes and vegetables, served in a hot and spicy sauce:

Another excellent dish. Successful juxtaposition of textures - the thick rice cakes were delightfully smooth and chewy, while the thinly-sliced fish cakes were fresh and with a gelatinous bite. The sauce packed a real punch - really spicy, fragrant (due to the onions), and just slightly sweet, as most authentic Korean chilli sauces are - truly satisfying.

Now for the mains! First one up, chicken dolsot bibimbap. This quintessentially Korean rice dish is served sizzling hot (what could be better for winter?) in an earthenware pot, with rice, sliced/shredded vegetables, a raw egg, and red chilli paste. Diners have to mix the ingredients in the pot themselves before eating. The bottom of the pot is lined with sesame oil to prevent the rice from sticking, and also to intensify the aromas of the dish.

Before - all the ingredients arranged nicely around the mound of rice. 

After mixing them ourselves - looked hearty and smelled amazing!

Perfect comfort food for cold climates - a wonderful smorgasbord of textures and flavours, with warm & fluffy rice, sweet & crunchy vegetables, tender and well-seasoned slices of chicken, rich & creamy raw egg (when broken and mixed), all lifted by a refreshing & spicy chilli sauce and aromatic sesame oil. What more could one ask for?

 We also had a jigae (hotpot) to share. This is a soft tofu and seafood hotpot:

More spicy comfort food. This was an aromatic and flavourful stew. Good portion with substantial bits of seafood, well complemented by the silky smooth tofu.

No Korean meal is complete without a barbecued dish - this is spicy chicken bulgogi, chicken pieces marinated in a hot and spicy chilli pepper sauce:

This didn't disappoint either - the chicken pieces were extremely tender, well-seasoned, and really fragrant (it's that aroma you get from using a real charcoal grill). Not as spicy as we'd expected, but nonetheless delicious, almost like a very good satay (see the C & R review) without the wooden skewers. I thought the presentation with alfafa sprouts, lotus root and garlic cloves was pretty classy.

We finished with two desserts, one scoop of ice cream each, and chap ssal ddeok (traditional soft chocolate rice cake with a light dusting of cocoa powder) to share:

Anticlockwise from top: roasted green tea, green tea and black sesame.

Nice ending to the meal. I'm not sure if the ice creams were made in-house, but they were pretty rich and creamy. The sprinkling of pine nuts, green tea powder and black sesame seeds added a touch of luxury and authenticity. The individual flavours, admittedly, were not that pronounced - they seemed somewhat uniformly milky, though the roasted green tea ice cream was slightly more intense, with hints of toasted brown rice/barley (like Japanese genmaicha). Good portion though!

The chocolate rice cakes were nice while they lasted (very small portion!) - the texture was exactly like Japanese mochi, with a rich chocolate filling, and cocoa dusting on the surface. Not sure it was entirely authentic (chocolate in Korean food?) but I wasn't going to complain.

In summary, great food with good portions and presentation, in a nice and well-ventilated environment - despite sitting next to the open kitchen, our clothes didn't smell after the dinner. I learnt that you get 50% off all day, every Sunday, on everything in the menu, which is even greater value-for-money! It was a very good first experience for me, and I know that I will be back very soon.

More pictures of the restaurant as we left near to closing time:

I love those ceramics!

Long tables throughout the restaurant -
supposedly a traditional setting.

Beautiful rock garden feature at the waiting area.

Main entrance along Holborn High St.