Cycle 14 – Item 95
10 (Mon) April 2023
Vongole Ul Myeon
1.5
at Jungang Gamsokgi (Central Reducer)
-Seongsu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-
with HK, ES
Jungang Gamsokgi (Central Reducer) is a Chinese-Italian fusion restaurant. Dishes feature Italianish ingredients prepared in Korean-Chineseish applications, or vice-versa.
In light of (a) my general aversion for “fusion” cuisine, (b) the restaurant’s mandatory reservation requirement (even if the place has available seating), and (c) the name of the restaurant, which sounds as ludicrous in Korean as it does in English, I had no intention to visit the place of my own accord.
However, tomorrow is H’s birthday, so I offered to buy her lunch today, and this is where she wanted to go.
As expected, the food was not to my liking. The “Vongole Ul Myeon” comprised Chinese wheat noodles with clams – impressively large, quite sweet – in a thick corn-starchy soup, like ul myeon (see generally 12.359 Ul Myeon), but heavy on the extra virgin olive oil, making it taste vaguely Italian; the toasted bread was pretty good, dipped in the broth. Overall, meh.
I just don’t get it. The original versions of these dishes (pasta alle vongole / ul myeon / pasta Bolognese / mapa doufu) are perfect as is – why combine them to make them weird/worse?
Incidentally, my recent experiments with Korean/Italian noodle substitutions were intended to highlight the folly of swapping out authentic starches with foreign imposters (see most recently 13.351 Ramyeon in Tomato Sauce).
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)