1.178

2 (Fri) July 2010

Jjambbong (WHAT)

2.5

at Hwanggeum Ryong (WHERE)

-Seongsu, Seongdong, Seoul, Korea-

with the Family

Jjambbong is a Korean-Chinese dish.  Flour noodles in a spicy broth with onions, cabbage, and other chopped vegetables.  The common samseon level-up version – sometimes referred to more generally as “haemul (seafood)” – includes a few pieces of seafood, such as squid, shrimp, and/or mussels. At any given Chinese restaurant in Korea, 45% of diners are bound to be eating jjambbong; another 45% will be eating jjajang myeon; the remaining 10% will be eating fried rice, which comes with a bowl of jjambbong soup and jjajang sauce on the side. Whereas jjajang-myeon has something of a counterpart in China, jjambbong is generally thought to be an invention of the Chinese immigrants to Korea sometime around the turn of the 20th century.  The name of the dish likely derives from the Japanese noodle soup champon, which in turn may relate to the Chinese term “chamhwa (攙和) (to mix);” in fact, “jjambbong” in Korean usage now also refers to any mix/jumble/hodgepodge of things.

Hwanggeum Ryong (황금룡) (“golden dragon”) is Korean-Chinese restaurant.  Lies along the route between home and E-Mart, our family supermarket.

Popular among the locals for haemul jjambbong, though I suspect that the popularity is based largely on the sheer size of the dish, which is served in gigantic bowls so big that the servers bring them to the table on wheeled carts – regrettably, the photo doesn’t provide adequate scale.