korean banchan (side dishes) comprising kimchi, peanuts & another veg kimchi

had lunch with my sister today. I had 2 xS$30=S$60 deal.com Sarang vouchers (which I paid S$30 for) expiring soon so we decided to lunch there.

I don’t frequent korean restaurants much these days. My family are mostly carnivores aka meat-eaters and for barbeque beef we generally prefer the Japanese-style korean barbeque yakiniku restaurants. One of my wife Lisa’s favourite yakiniku place is Aburiya. We used also to go to Chang & Hyangtogol but find them rather expensive. Though we all like banchan, those very nice free & refillabe korean side dishes, but they cannot be our sole motivation for having korean.

Sarang at Orchard Central served a very small banchan, comprising just peanuts (which was very nice & we duly had our free refill of peanuts), and the usual cabbage kimchi & another vegetable kimchi.

kimchi belly pork with tofu stew – S$15.80

We ordered the kimchi belly pork.  Though I would have liked it with a lot more soup (like the kimchi chigae which I always like and order at Aburiya & Watami),  this belly pork was differently done (not just boiled like in kimchi chigae to add base to the soup) & very much better, had very good “mouth-feel”(口感) in texture and taste.

spicy sotong (squid) – S$11.80

We also had the spicy sotong (squid) which was a generous helping. It might be too spicy for some but was perfect for me.

galbi (korean beef ribs) – S$24.80

We also added the usual galbi – korean beef ribs. It did have a bit of fat & tendons but it was a very nice dish which I liked a lot and was as good as that served at Chang (though I would need to confess that was many years ago). I guess the chef was a bit modern in his approach so his banchan was not quite the traditional big spread of side dishes, his sotong (squid) was accompanied by thin white noodles & this galbi dish also came with a cup of smooth potato mash (not in picture).

The meal comprising 3 very good dishes & banchan came to just S$34nett (about S$26++) using the vouchers.  I think the prices were actually quite fair for the quality of food offered even though I am unlikely to frequent soon without the discounts.

c.h.e.f andy