Cycle 16 – Item 196

POST 5,675

20 (Sun) July 2025

Jeyuk Deopbap

2.5

at Shanghai

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

solo

Try Every Rice Dish at Shanghai (see TERDS)

Another Not At All Chinese offering, the jeyuk deopbap was okayish.  Unlike traditional Korean jeyuk bokkeum (see for example 16.104 Jeyuk Bokkeum), it tasted vaguely like bokkeum jjambbong (see generally 12.365 Bokkeum Jjambbong).

This is how I described tangsu yuk back in 2014, on opinion/observation that holds up to this day (see 5.025 Tangsu Yuk):

What really sets tangsu yuk apart from sweet & sour anywhere in the world is the vapid yet rabid popularity of the dish in Chinese restaurants throughout Korea.  … Without exaggeration, I’d estimate that tangsu yuk accounts for 90% of all dishes sold here, the remaining 10% only when tangsu yuk is already on the table; in other words, the first dish is always tangsu yuk, then maybe additional items, or maybe some more tangsu yuk.

Tangsu yuk epitomizes what I hate about Korean food culture: prescriptive predictability. Lack of imagination, fear of the unknown, laziness, ignorance, whatever, it’s why Chinese cuisine, the most diverse in the world, has been reduced in Korea to less than 10 dishes in all, led by tangsu yuk.  In protest, it’s the only dish that I refuse to order on principle, disallowing it if I have any say in menu choice.

(See RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)

(See HANSIK)

(See GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)