Good Korea choice

I've written before about how my social media feed is constantly filled with food, which in turn compels the Ewing and I to traverse the country seeking these exciting morsels out. Well, the same thing happens with my Instagram memories. While most people get reminders that it's been four years since their child started school, or four years since they got married, or half a decade since that life-changing backpacking trip across South America, I get a pop up commemorating which restaurant I ate at this time last year.

Which, most recently- in Bournemouth, on the Monday after the annual air show extravaganza, hungover and bickering about where to go for our customary last lunch in town (an annual occurrence) - it turned out to be very welcome aide memoire with the restaurant in question being Kori, a Korean on the Holdenhurst Road pretty much opposite the Asda superstore, where we would stumble to for late night supplies of Jaffa Cakes when my sister lived in the student halls opposite.

While we very much enjoyed last year's lunch it failed to make it onto the blog. Mostly because of my hangover, following several days drinking espresso martinis and Thai Red Bull, and the fact I was distracted writing about our visit to Di Mario, after what felt like years of trying.

So lets's start with the first visit (of course there were photos), which began with a Korean iced coffee for the Ewing, who was off the booze after the aforementioned big weekend, and a Hite beer for me. Some may consider Hite to barely qualify as a beer, but I quite like its malty, buttered corn sweetness against the salty, spicy flavours of Korean food.

And indeed the refreshing fizz made a perfect match to my main, Kimchi jjigae - a kimchi stew with pork, tofu, onion and spring onion. The broth was rich and salty, full of rich chucks of fatty pork belly and tangy pickled cabbage, topped with wobbly, bland tofu slices that soaked up the spicy broth. Alongside was plain rice and banchan - side dishes, here brightly coloured pickled veg - that typically accompany Korean food.

The Ewing was very virtuous and went with the grilled salmon with sesame seeds and radish salad, with more steamed rice and pickled veg. Notable (even when asking her a year later, and considering she normally has no recollection of what she had for dinner) for it's generous portion size, this was just what was needed after a full-on weekend.

On our most recent visit we were both off the pop (thanks to an spontaneous night at Vodka Revs). The Ewing stuck with her Korean iced coffee and I tried a refreshing roasted barley iced tea while looking longingly at the list of shochu.

I ordered the bossam, which is described on the menu as a sharing platter, but I do relish a challenge. Bossam means 'wrapped' and traditionally consists of pork belly, boiled in spices and served sliced thinly, served alongside the wrap element which in this case were beautiful butterhead lettuce leaves. It came with a dish of ssamjang, or wrap sauce, made of soyabean paste, chilli sauce, onion, garlic and spring onion and, along with a bowl of fragrant, sticky rice and some dishes of pickled radish, beansprouts and some kind of spinach-like greens, this was pretty much my perfect lunch.

The Ewing was also very happy her dish of dakgangjeong - small chunks of chicken battered and deep fried before being tossed in a spicy sweet chilli sauce and served with walnuts. Korean fried chicken is some of the very best I have tried and this was no exception. Like the best spicy nuggets you have eaten (ever, in your life, or could dream of eating, they were exceptional - TE). Maccy D's take note. 

This was also a gargantuan portion, although it proved no match for the Ewing, who found her metal chopsticks proved a handy weapon when I attempted to assist her in finishing it.

We also ordered soothing bowls of miso soup and a dish of fiery, bright kimchi. Convincing ourselves that the fermented cabbage would be just what we needed to sooth our stomachs while not properly considering the fact we still had a two and a half hour drive home after lunch to contend with... It tasted delicious, though.

Some people may not like the idea of an omnipotent presence lurking deep within the internet and second guessing their very deepest thoughts (more a puddle in a drought, in my case). But one advantage of AI knowing me better than I know myself means we now already have the destination for our final lunch in B Town following next year's air show sorted. And well before an argument can ensue. As Grace Jones probably wouldn't sing, sometimes I'm happy to be a slave to the algorithm.

Winner, Winner

Once, long long ago and suffering from a hangover that Pot Noodles and Monster Munch were simply not going to shift, we were blacklisted from Pamir's Chicken in Bournemouth. True, we had commandeered Stealth - with her clipped Home Counties mumble - to order the grub for the ten or so beleaguered souls that were sprawled on my sister's living room floor, but having our order rudely terminated by a disbelieving Pamir dented my faith in fried food somewhat. We phoned out for pizza instead.

However deep the disappointment was, it couldn't dent my deep love of our feathered friends. And, back in my familiar London stomping ground of the Walworth Road, I was excited to see new opening, CheeMc, 'Korean Chicken Dish Specialist' - complete with a neon giant glowing chicken emerging from a beer glass on its sign. 

We kicked off with some gratis cubes of crunchy pickled radish and a plate of, pretty perfect, kimchi from the list of snacks/starters. Sadly the (flavourless but authentic - and cheap) Hite was out of stock, so we made do with a couple of - not quite cold enough - Asahi.

The menu is hugely comprehensive, with a dizzying variety of bimbap and stir fries and other weird and wonderful things, helpfully illustrated by a photo guide. One thing that was missing are any recognizable side dishes to go with the chicken. I quite fancied a few simple carbs to help with all the spice and fat, but the closest I could find were some taro chips with strange vegetable powder coating.

Thankfully the chicken was so good it didn't need anything to distract from it's majesty. We ordered a whole bird, one half sweet chilli and one half soy and something? (after my first two choices were off the menu I allowed the waitress chose, with the proviso it was spicy). When the dishes arrived, my half draped with fiery fresh chillies and glowing a menacing red colour, I knew she hadn't let me down.

This was hawt with a capital H. The kind of chilli heat that, as you gnaw the crisp-crusted chicken from its bone makes your lips start to tingle and puff up rather like Leslie Ash melded with the Bride of Wildenstein.

It's also incredibly messy, sticky fun. The whole bird is cleaved into pieces before being coated in the crackly carapace and freshly fried. If you don't like teasing flesh from the grisly bony bits (as the ungrateful Stealth proclaimed when we took her the leftovers) you probably need to go a few doors up for the KFC boneless box.

As it was, we had no issues divesting all the flesh from bones, and bloody good it was too. Whilst, blowing my own trumpet somewhat, my homemade Korean fried chicken gives it a run for its money, I've sacrificed my deep fat fryer for the Ewing's Nutri Bullet. So it looks like I'll be decamping to Stealth's even more frequently than I do now for a fried food fix. 

Whilst we may have been blackballed by Pamir, new pretenders Chicken Shack (now renamed Chicken and Blues) have opened in Bournemouth and the Ewing and I took a stroll to their Boscombe high street branch for a poultry-based dinner.

It's a tiny little gaff, with bench seating along the right side, a serving/takeaway hatch straight ahead and a menu that's pretty similar to another, rather well known, London chain with chicken in the title, even down to the apple pie for pud (although, sadly served with ice cream and not cream).

The beer was Red Stripe, standard gig lager from my teenage years, where my friends and I would spend the empty hours between the doors opening and the band finally making it on stage smoking ourselves into an early grave and swigging warm cans of Jamaica's finest yellow water. Here - just like at CheeMc - it was served at a little below room temperature, bringing back a few nostalgic memories (sadly I didn't have s packet of B&H in my top pocket to go with it).

The main draw was excellent; barbecued chicken served au naturel or with housemade sauces - including (very) spicy, sweet or smokey  - and served with a pleasingly comforting macaroni cheese and a very good avocado and butterhead lettuce salad with a honey mustard dressing. There was also a decent mixed cabbage coleslaw, with the only criticism being it was too mayo heavy, even for me.

My fried chicken love has been well documented here, I even chose it as this year's Valentine dinner (extra gravy obligatory). But with birds this good in the hood, the Ewing may have a rival for my affections.