11.213
5 (Wed) August 2020
Seafood Spaghetti
3.0
at Chef Mardin
-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with IZ
Chef Mardin is an Italian restaurant.

A very unlikely restaurant for the neighborhood, in fact the only establishment within a 1.5-km radius that isn’t Korean/Chinese/Japanese. I was overwhelmed with curiosity, if only by the audacity of it. No expectations that the food would be any good.
The food was good, at least the pastas. The seafood spaghetti, for example, came in a nicely seasoned tomato sauce with what seemed to be a touch of char (from the kitchen, I thought that I’d heard the sound of a wok being tossed over high heat, as if the chef was trained in Chinese technique) and loaded with fresh shrimp, squid, octopus, clams, and mussels (like a jjambbong). The spaghetti carbonara was similarly competent, if otherwise unremarkable. I don’t know if we’ll ever return, but I wouldn’t mind if we did.


(For more details about the food, see WHAT)
(For more details about the venue, see WHERE IN KOREA)