Cycle 14 – Item 176

30 (Fri) June 2023

Jjambbongbap

2.5

from Shanghai

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

with IZ

Jjambbongbap is a Korean-Chinese dish.  Actually, not really a dish in its own right – just jjambbong but with a bowl of rice on the side, no noodles in the soup.

Yet another example of how lazy/uncreative/ignorant Korean-Chinese kitchens are – rather than inventing a new dish or, better yet, learning to make an authentic Chinese dish, they merely rearrange elements of existing ones.  In addition to standard jjambbong (see 1.178 Jjambbong), GMTD has already covered gul (oyster) jjambbong (see 13.006 Gul Jjambong), ojingeo (squid) jjambbong (see 13.025 Ojingeo Jjambbong), chadol (beef brisket) jjambbong (see 10.271 Chadol Jjambbong), hayan/baek (white) jjambbong (see 2.243 Hayan Jjambbong), and bokkeum (stir-fried) jjambbong (see 12.365 Bokkeum Jjambbong).

I concede 2 points in favor of jjambbongbap, at least in home delivery situations: 1) whereas the main drawback of standard jjambbong is that the noodles are always soggy by the time of arrival, steamed rice avoids that problem; 2) in the absence of noodles in the bowl, it seems like they add a lot more ingredients, like seafoods, mushrooms, etc.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)