2.265

 27 (Tue) September 2011

Budae Jjigae Jjambbong

2.0

from Hanyan Jjambbong

in LJY’s room

(The Westin Chosun Seoul)

-Sogong, Jung, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ

LJY, GMTD’s Number One Fan, is in Seoul!  Having landed this morning for a 13-day trip, she’ll be occupied with work during the first half but promises to allot me some of her time later on.  Oh what joy.  And finally, she’ll be able to comment on some of these posts from direct experience.  Oh what joy.

After work, I drove to her hotel to pick her up, as well as daughter B and sister D.  When I got there, B was soundly asleep sucking on a pacifier, and LJY was passed out sucking on a bottle of Ciroc. So, D and I left the hotel in gadabout mode to see what we could find for takeout.  When we turned the corner, I suddenly realized that we were in the main back alley of Bukchang-Dong, which is famous in LA for sundubu jjigae but known in Seoul for its bargain quality room salons and the particularly raunchy and hands-on style of entertainment offered therein.

Scattered amongst the blueish venues, we found a small restaurant offering novelty variations on the Chinese/Korean noodle soup jjambbong (짬뽕), which I’ve discussed in many prior posts.  Most orders were between 5,000-7,000 won.  We picked the variation involving budae jjigae (부대찌개. However, due to the heaps of seaweed in the dish, it tasted less like jjambbong or budae jjigae and more like the ramyeon Neoguri (너구리), which happens to be my favorite brand though I haven’t yet covered it in the blog.  I didn’t enjoy the dish as much as I might have under better circumstances, partially because I’m still sick and partially because the noodles had gotten mushy by the time that we returned to the room, but I was intrigued enough to consider going back for another shot (at something else) if ever I’m in the neighborhood (for something else).

(See also FOODS.)

(See also PLACES.)