Seoul Garden

On my last trip to LA my friend introduced me a style of Korean hot pot that I ended up enjoying immensely. This week, I returned for another great meal.

You pick the type of meat you want (we picked beef) and how many orders (2 here). Each table also gets panchan and a mountain of vegetables: green onions, napa, and what I think is shiso. There are also things like tofu, mushrooms, fish cakes, etc. but it's mostly just meat and greens. You cook it yourself in a Mongolian style hot pot and eat it with dipping sauce.

When the table's done with the meat, a server brings udon, cooks it up, and divides it among the diners. There's not much udon, it's just an intermmediate dish to eat after all the meat.

While you eat the udon, a pot of porridge cooks in the pot pot. It's mixed with toasted seaweed and sesame oil, and quite filling. Multi-course Chinese meals usually end with a fried rice or fried noodle. The idea is that you should never let your guests leave hungry, so having some carbs at the end of the meal ensures that everyone is stuffed to the gills. Koreans have the same idea!