Korean BBQ @ Daorae

For this trip to KL, I actually learned to decipher Hangul, thanks to Sil who taught me! Hence, a visit to a Korean restaurant would be appropriate. Lol.

Truthfully, I've never had the Korean barbeque. Not the authentic version anyway. So it was a pleasant experience for me, dining at Daorae. Daorae claims to provide authentic Korean food in Malaysia. Its success is proven by the many outlets that it has. We went to one nearest to us, the restaurant in Sri Petaling.

Daorae 다오래

"안녕하세요!" called out a waiter.Annyeong Haseyo.

We sat down and immediately, a bottle of tea was placed before us.

Tea
It was served at room temperature, neither hot nor chilled. At first I thought it might be brown rice tea, but the smoky taste wasn't there. So I think it's just an ordinary tea, pretty much diluted that there wasn't much taste.

A soup was also served. That evening, we had the seaweed soup.

Korean seaweed soup
Miyeok guk 미역국
It's traditionally served on the occasion of birthdays, and so it is also known as the Birthday Soup. The soup was light, not salty at all. It's known to be healthy and nutritious too. I found gems in my soup. Clams! Yum! 4 pieces altogether.

A clam in my seaweed soup

Then came lots of stuff to the table.

Lettuce
Sangchu 상추

Ssamjang 쌈장

A chilli & soybean paste mixture

Gireumjang 기름장
Salt and sesame oil mixture

The ssamjang is a condiment used for lettuce wraps or sangchu ssam 상추쌈, while the gireumjang is a dipping sauce for the barbecued pork.

Hanging down from the ceiling, strategically all over the restaurant were hoods to suck in the smoke from the grills. It might sound silly, but it fascinated me. ;p

A hood

And in the middle of our square table is a grill.

The grill

A pot of charcoal was placed in the grill with a metal rack above it

A bowl of garlic in oil cooking on the grill.
I loved to see the garlic bubbling away in oil. The garlic was also a condiment for the lettuce wrap. Surprisingly, they were quite yum - browned, crunchy, devoid of the strong pungent garlic taste.

What's unique about Korean dining is the side-dishes or banchan 김치. They filled the whole table. I counted 9 items.

An assortment of banchan 김치 on the table

1. Kimchi 김치
Sour, spicy, pungent and totally delicious!

2. Diced Radish Kimchi / Ggakdugi 깍두기
It's my favourite because of its crunchiness. It's spicy, tangy and sweet too!

3. Sauteed Burdock / U-eong Bokkeum 우엉볶음
Bro's favourite as it's soft yet chewy, moist and sweet.

4. Marinated Spinach or Sigeumchi Namul 시금치나물
I've always liked spinach, so this banchan sat well with me.

5. Baby bok choy kimchi
I quite like this dish. I thought it tasted something like acar. Crunchy, nutty and a little sweet to taste.

6. Seasoned beansprouts or Kongnamul Muchim 콩나물 무침
Traditionally, soybean sprouts are used, but Daorae uses the local variety. It lacked the texture that the soy sprouts had.

8. Sauteed potato & carrots
Not my favourite, but I could taste the natural sweetness of the vegetables

7. Coleslaw
Err ... I thought it rather strange to have coleslaw as banchan

9. Steamed Egg / Gyeran Jjim 계란찜
Soft savoury egg custard, very light in flavour

Apart from the steamed eggs, the rest of the banchan were refilled. We had plenty of servings of the kimchi, ggakdugi, sigeumchi namul, and the u-eong bokkeum.

We ordered a Sundubu Jjigae. It came with a rice.

Sundubu Jjigae 순두부찌개, RM18.00
This is a soft tofu stewed with pork belly and clams in a fiery red broth. The broth is spicy, rich and robust in flavour, though slightly on the sweet side. I would have preferred it to be slightly savoury. The Sundubu Jjigae came with a rice. I liked it when the rice was drenched in the steaming hot stew.

Rice bowl

Korean rice / bap 밥
When ordered ala carte, the rice cost RM5.00 each.

Meanwhile, we waited for our pork to be cooked on the grill. We ordered 2 types of meat. Sil and I would have preferred the layered pork belly meat of ssamgyeopsal, but Bro doesn't eat them. He doesn't know what he'd been missing out all this while!!

Moksal 목살, RM28.00
Neck shoulder meat, grilled alongside a thick slice of onion

Pork Special, RM35.00

Selected soft and tender cuts of pork on the grill

I liked the fact that they bothered to change the grilling rack after grilling a cut of meat. When cooked, the meat was placed in a bowl.

Cooked and ready to eat!

Just dip it into the gireumjang to enhance the flavour of the meat

Or wrap it into a lettuce leaf together with the onions, garlic and ssamjang. There're no rules really. You could have pretty much anything in the lettuce wrap. I liked to put some kimchi in there. ;p

After the meal, we cooled down with a glass of barley.

Barley

Jeju Island Honey Tangerines
The tangerines were very sweet and refreshing

The bill came to RM94.60 inclusive of 5% service tax. Although quite pricey, it was an interesting experience, and I did enjoy the food. Next time, I must eat the fatty pork!!