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2014-12-09
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Back in the 1990s, I was a frequent flier between S. Korea and US. Regardless of which airline, business or (more often) cattle class, the cabins all had a familiar, funky aroma; a melange of garlic and kimchi well known to all who took the Seoul subway during morning rush hour.After these fragrant long-haul flights, whoever fetched me at Kennedy invariably asked me to crack the window and smoke - even if it was the dead of winter and smoking in the car was forbidden.I stopped noticing the smell
Back in the 1990s, I was a frequent flier between S. Korea and US. Regardless of which airline, business or (more often) cattle class, the cabins all had a familiar, funky aroma; a melange of garlic and kimchi well known to all who took the Seoul subway during morning rush hour.After these fragrant long-haul flights, whoever fetched me at Kennedy invariably asked me to crack the window and smoke - even if it was the dead of winter and smoking in the car was forbidden.
I stopped noticing the smell after a few years, presumably because I, too, reeked of the fermented cabbage, which I took to in a very big way after an initial squeamishness; the best kimchi, after all, left to mature in clay urns on Kwangju rooftops for months and months, is shot through with fish guts and other closely held elments I'd rather not ponder.
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So, Why do Koreans feel compelled to bring along a stash of their most-favored condiments when they travel abroad?
The question remained unanswered for several years after I left the peninsula and settled north of the Yalu, in China, where one would think good Korean food would be plentiful.
It most certainly is not.
Which brings us closer to solving the riddle of the stench.
Korean food prepared one mile or one thousand miles away from the Korean peninsula tends to, well, um...
It tends to suck.
The fault probably lies with restaurateurs who pander to local non-Korean tastebuds and tone down the robust food of the robust people (Irish of the East, anyone?) to make it more palatable for fans of the bland - those who feel obliged to try on an exotic cuisine every so often to appear worldly and sophisticated.
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I'm invariably disappointed by Korean food served outside of Korea, so I was fully prepared to find fault with U Hang (Trend, in Korean), a new bistro that recently opened in the up-and-coming Sai Ying Pun precinct of Hong Kong near Central. What I found was a game-changing Korean restaurant that brings Korean food up-to-date without sacrificing any of the core attributes of this multidimensional cuisine which for too long play second fiddle to Chinese and Japanese.
No More. Not with places like U Hang popping up in the world's financial capitals.
(U Hang's sister restaurant, Sanche, is also in this new class of Korean eatery, and I'll get around to singing its praises in an OpenRice post soon enough...)
U Hang's contemporary Korean riffs on the mainstays of the traditional fare with a sense of playfulness and style.
The kitchen succeeds in this sythesis of old and new. Like a pop band playing a combination of classical and modern instruments, the head chef composes delectable numbers with disctinctly Korean hooks. Arirang meets deep house, anyone?
The days of smuggling tupperware containers filled with pungent pickled sides on long-haul flights is drawing to a close. U Hang doesn't tone anything down, least of all the very essence of the robust food of the equally robust people.
If you can't take the heat, the chef will certainly turn down the fire. That's a courtesy to one diner, not a policy of appeasement.
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[nb. May have missed it on the menu, or maybe it's seasonal, but I don't recall seeing the cinnamon drink served as a kind of dessert at some restaurants in Seoul. It certainly would have been a nice finisher to an otherwise flawless meal at U Hang.]
- DL
Other Info. :
New dishes introduced regularly
(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)
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