2.328 Seolleong Tang

2.328

29 (Tue) November 2011

Seolleong Tang

3.0

at Deo Keun Jib

-Nonhyeon, Gangnam, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ

Deo Keun Jib (더큰집) is a Korean restaurant. A local landmark of sorts. Open 24 hours. They also offer barbecue dishes. Everything is available to-go in convenient takeaway packaging. The basic seolleong tang is 8,000 won, which isn’t cheap but also isn’t entirely expensive.

Whereas “keun jib = big house,” the name means either (a) “the big house” (the English definitive article “the” is transliterated into Korean as “더” (pronounced “duh”)) or (b) “bigger house” (“더” as a Korean word is a modifier meaning “more”) – probably (a), because the “더” is separated on the sign (to be an adjective, it would need to be attached to the object – i.e., “더큰 = more big”), and because Koreans are increasingly using it to mean “the” as a marketing thing.

Seolleong tang (설렁탕) is a Korean dish. Sliced beef and noodles and rice in a milky white broth made from boiling miscellaneous beef bones for several hours. In fact, the name of the dish derives from the Chinese characters “seol (설)(雪) = snow” + “nong (농)(濃) = intense/deep (applicable to color and flavor);” for reasons that I’m too lazy to determine, the “nong” has since evolved into “leong (렁),” but some older restaurants still use the original term. It’s similar to galbi tang, which comprises a clear stock made of rib bones. Sliced scallion, plus salt and pepper and chili powder, are usually added to the broth in amounts according to personal preference just prior to eating. The dish is one of the most popular and most common soups in Korean cuisine, a classic example of comfort food.

It was just the thing to help me get over what might’ve been food poisoning the day before.