Cycle 16 – Item 199
POST 5,678
23 (Wed) July 2025
Bossam
3.0
-Sinheung, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with W and IZ
Jinseon Bossam is a Korean restaurant. Offers one dish: bossam.
In advance of our trip to Taipei tomorrow, we dropped off Louis Le Pieux at the dog hotel.
On the way home, we were looking for places to eat dinner and came across this restaurant.
Everything about the establishment – simple signage, haphazard interior layout, basic menu – screams old school. Most important, it is not part of a franchise.
Total respect for the efficiency of the business. A single menu item, involving an ingredient (pork) that has relatively low and stable prices, doesn’t really require much in the way of preparation, can be cooked in advance in big batches, and sliced and served quickly to order. Serves kimchi but doesn’t bother with mumalaengi. Doesn’t bother with parboiled napa cabbage, just raw lettuce. Last order at 20:00, doors closed at 20:40.
The food was pretty good. Tender, tasty pork. Excellent kimchi, perfectly formulated with just the right amount of sweetness to complement the meat. But the banchan were just so so, and didn’t include certain bossam standards, like mumalaengi or parboiled napa cabbage (see for comparison 7.360 Bossam). And because the menu doesn’t offer anything else except steamed rice (and raw oysters in the winter), I was kinda bored after a few bites.
Fun, but I doubt that we’ll be back.
But I was encouraged to learn that the back alleys of Seongnam in the same neighborhood appear to host many of these old school joints, which I’d like to start exploring.
Next post from Taipei!
(See RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)
(See GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See HANSIK)