Cycle 12 – Item 302
3 (Wed) November 2021
Snapper al Cartoccio
3.5
at Festiva
(Hotel in 9)
-Samseong, Gangnam, Seoul, Republic of Korea-
with W, and the owner
Festiva is an Italian restaurant. Specializes in steaks and pastas.
The owner of the restaurant, who also owns the hotel, invited us to lunch.
He also owns a property in Cheongdam-dong, next door to our property. We are co-defendants in a land border lawsuit filed by another neighbor.
The purpose of the lunch was to discuss legal strategy, but I was there for the food.
Him: “Please, eat whatever you want, as much as you want.”
Me: “Yes, thank you.”
I ordered the snapper en papillote lunch course: amuse-bouche + soup + main dish. I also ordered a seafood pasta.
The hanwoo 1+ sirloin steak was mighty tempting – 68,000 won for a 120-gram portion, on the house! – but I resisted in keeping with my red meat moderation. See, I’m taking it seriously.
The fish was excellent. Snapper. Perfectly cooked to a juicy flakiness. The delicate poaching liquid, which came with barley pearls, made for an excellent soup, much better than the actual soup. The subtle sweetness of the sliced aehobak was a nice touch. In every aspect, it was an exquisitely light, nutritious, sophisticated, tasty dish.
On the menu, the dish was written in Korean as “saengseon (fish) jjim (braise/steam),” but I took the liberty here of using the Italian term for the paper technique (see also 9.336 Sea Bass en Papillote).
The pasta dish was also excellent, but I’ll cover that in a future post.
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)