Cycle 3 – Item 275
6 (Sat) October 2012
Boriso Special
2.5
at Borine
-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-
with the Family, Nanny 2
Borine (보리네) is a Korean restaurant. One of those butcher shop cum restaurant establishments.
Whereas hanwoo is generally described as “Korean beef,” and the term means “Korean (han) beef (woo),” it is technically applicable only to a specific breed aka Korean Native or Korean Brown cattle. The beef is highly prized for its marbling and clean flavor. Other breeds are referred to as “guknaesan (domestic) yuk (meat) woo (cow).” This beef is much cheaper, less popular. For some reason, it’s difficult to find in supermarkets but common in restaurants, perhaps sold only wholesale to commercial businesses.
I don’t know why all ranchers don’t just raise hanwoo.
Nanny 2 had come by for a visit, so we all went out to dinner
As seems to be the modus operandi at these places, the pricing here was something of a scam sustained by the supposed butcher shop setup implying that the meat would be significantly cheaper than at standard restaurants. We ordered the “Boriso Special”: 900 grams of various beef cuts for 90,000 won. At a butcher shop, 10,000 won per 100 grams would be a reasonable price for top grade 1++ hanwoo, perhaps at a high-end department store supermarket. However, 10,000 won per 100 grams for yukwoo, if it could be found in a butcher shop, would be unreasonably high. But it’s a decent price as straight-up restaurant. At a whopping 900 grams, a better bulk discount would seem appropriate (I forgot to check the prices of smaller portions, but they were presumably higher).
Price aside, the food was okay if unremarkable. An additional marketing ploy was the “bori,” both in the name of the restaurant and the combo platter, referring to the barley that the cows are supposedly fed to produce tastier meat. It didn’t work, as far as I could tell.
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)
