Cycle 4 – Item 212
5 (Mon) August 2013
Palbochae
1.0
at Man Vin Won
-Woncheon, Yeongtong, Suwon, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with KHJ, PHY
Man Vin Won is a Korean-Chinese restaurant. Established 1958, supposedly the oldest in Suwon.
Alas, the food wasn’t very good. Each dish seemed either a little too sweet or too spicy or too something. And the preparation was kinda shoddy: in the palbochae, for example, the clams and squid were slightly undercooked, icky as the ingredients weren’t all that fresh. When I ordered naeng myeon without the peanut sauce, the owner/manager refused, claiming that the restaurant would never serve an “incomplete” dish, like “jjajang myeon without the jjajang” – obviously an improper analogy, but I didn’t argue the point; I suspect that they use a bottled broth that includes peanut flavoring. With such lousy food and crappy service, I find it hard to believe that the restaurant’s survived for so long.
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)