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.

I got (south coast) Seoul

The Ewing has to endure a lot when we go out to eat. Sure, she gets taken to some fancy restaurants and some trendy bars, but she also gets taken across trading estates in Rotherhithe and down dodgy alleyways in Birmingham. Yes, I know, some people may also consider this a positive. Despite the downsides, she also gets the enlightening pleasure of my company during dinner. Again, some people may also consider this a positive….

So, while 2018 may be the year of finally giving my wife an easy life (just kidding, that would be boring) for our final meal out of 2017 we headed to the inauspicious Bournemouth suburb of Charminster, for Korean food, where I promised to be on my very best behaviour.

To drink it had to be the classic rice lager, Hite, which is sweet and fizzy and pretty devoid of merit as a beer, but makes a great accompaniment to bold and spicy Korean flavours. I wanted the Ewing to chose the cinnamon punch, so I could drink it, but she went with the coconut water, complete with chunks of young flesh that get stuck in the straw.

Things started promisingly with some fried dumplings stuffed with kimchi (of which I could have easily eaten several dozen more) and, even better, dduk bok gi, a dish of fish balls, mixed veg and rice cakes stir-fried in a chilli sauce. 

Mercifully, Korean rice cakes aren’t the cylindrical blocks of dust that people nibble earnestly on before destroying a multipack of Quavers, but are cylindrical and chewy - which may not seem like much of an improvement, but are strangely moreish and a great vehicle for the fermented gochujang chilli paste, of which I can’t get enough.

It also made an appearance in my main, a dish of oh sam bulgogi, marinaded pork and squid, stir fried with spring onion and  served on a sizzling platter with a side of sticky rice. Currently pork and cephalopod is my favourite surf and turf combo (although, ask me tomorrow, and I’d tell you scallops and bacon) here both types of protein were expertly cooked as so to remain sweet and bouncy; the squid, particularly, like perfectly coiled springs of joy.

Possibly the zenith/nadir of the Ewing’s experiences as a lapsed blogger’s wife came when the waitress bough her main course, the salmon bibimpab.

Bibimbap, if you weren’t aware, as my wife wasn’t despite my wordy explanation - I should have clocked she wasn’t listening when I saw the glazed look, but I get that a lot, so it’s hard to tell - is a mix of rice, vegetable and protein (usually strips of beef), topped with a raw egg and a squirt of chilli sauce and served in a furiously hot stone bowl. The contents are then quickly mixed with chop sticks to cook to egg/meat and mix in all the crispy bits at the bottom of the dish.

It was a beautiful vision when first bought to the table; a cornucopia of bright julienned veg and perfect cubes of marinated salmon, crowned with a glowing egg yolk; sadly there’s no evidence of this, as our helpful waitress was very keen to jump in and assist the Ewing. This look of abject fear on my wife's face in the above photo, was upon her realising that I had missed the money shot. By all accounts it was very tasty to eat, but you’re going to just have to imagine what it looked like. Here's a picture of the, slightly less photogenic, miso soup instead.

NB – while my wife looks semi-petrified in the picture above, I can assure you was happy to capture an action shot; after I’d stopped laughing.

We also enjoyed some complimentary banchan - pickled or fermented vegetable dishes served with rice - that included broccoli alongside the more familiar beansprouts and kimchi. A surfeit of deliciousness (or as delicious as cold, slightly vinegary broccoli can be) that meant desert defeated us, even after trying to persuade the Ewing for a full five minutes that she really wanted the black sesame ice cream. With two spoons. Somehow, she resisted my charms. 

That aside, I must still have some appeal, as she’s already agreed to our next round of eating adventures. As Thackeray so astutely said; Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.