15.007 Tori Curry Rice

Cycle 15 – Item 7

12 (Fri) January 2024

Tori Curry Rice

1.0

at Sokoa

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

w IZ

Sokoa is a Japanese restaurant.  Offers curry and tonkatsu.  Part of a franchise chain, currently a zillion locations.

Located in the (as far as I know) nameless shopping center – its street address is Wirye Sunhwan-ro 4-gil – that also includes family favorites Cheongdam Lee Sang (see most recently 14.326 Crabmeat Cheese Egg Rolls), Cheonnyeon Galbi (see most recently 15.001 Dweiji Galbi), and No Gyeong Seong (see most recently 13.325 Tomato Egg Soup).

Our plan was to eat elsewhere (stay tuned), but they’d run out of ingredients, so we gave Sokoa a shot.

This was not designed by someone serious about the food.

Although I’m getting better at spotting franchise chains (#1 gripe these days) – one typical giveaway is the homogenized uniformity of the set-up, including signage font and placement, interior design and hardware, and menu layout and options – this place seemed so amateur on all fronts that I assumed instead that it was run by inexperienced non-restaurateurs (#2 gripe these days).  Now that I think about it, that’s exactly the vibe that they were trying to achieve – a cute hole in the wall, serving humble home-style foods, prepared by untrained but well-meaning/hard-working cooks – so I fell for it.

The wooden spoon was unpleasant.

Either way, the food was crap.  The curry was so sweet, and weirdly spicy, that I ate the bits of chicken while trying to rub off as much of the sauce that I could.  IZ left a piece of tonkatsu on the plate – a move unprecedented in the history of his life.  As we were leaving, he said, “We’re never coming back, right?”

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)

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