Gustatory Adventure Day 2: Kumsan Seoul 金山・ソウル

So for our second peregrination of gustatory glory Doro and I inflated our ranks and headed over to Kanayama Station, where a member of our group of gustatory adventurers had discovered the existence of a Korean restaurant called Kumsan Seoul. The kanji in its name is the same as that of the station, Kanayama 金山, but the romaji beside it displayed a Korean pronunciation, Kumsan.


A bit about the restaurant before we get to the food... The restaurant itself was very airy and wide; it reminded me of a loft of some kind. The ceiling had pipes etc exposed, all painted white. There were some screened off areas of seating, but it was very open.  There did not appear to be any special non-smoking seating, so you may be subjected to another`s tobacco use as we were. The service was fine, and then at the end there is a basket of Korean candies where you pay your bill. Isn`t that tasty?

We came for the lunch specials, all either 900, 950 or 980￥. The selection wasn`t too wide; definitely less than ten dishes. With each special you receive a salad, a soup and drink (the both of which are self-serve) and either a mini udon or a dessert. In our case the dessert was coffee jelly コーヒーゼリー, so I passed for the udon, while everyone else got the dessert.

                        The salad was tasty, but I`m not sure what the dressing was;         Udon was a good choice. Not too salty, and not so much that it

                                           maybe a thin sesame seed.                                            makes eating the main course of your meal difficult.

                       The soup was a little weak. I think it was chicken broth.               Coffee jelly (post-mixing). I guess you would enjoy it if you
                                                                                                                       like coffee, because that`s exactly what it tasted like.

I ordered the bulgogi (I have no idea how to romanize Korean, so I`ll go with what seems standard)ブルコギ at 950￥, and filled my cup with acerola juice アセロラジュース. There was also corn tea and wine. I regret not having tried the corn tea, but apparently it tasted exactly like corn, so maybe I didn`t miss anything.

Acerola is apparently a fruit resembling a cherry, which is high in

vitamin C and tastes exactly like red jello.

My bulgogi was tasty, but initially I was sad about the size of it. It seemed small, but after having salad, a tiny bit of soup, two glasses of acerola, a dish of rice and my mini udon, it was just the right amount. There was a lot of cabbage in it, and I guess someone who doesn`t like cabbage as much as I do might pound the table and exclaim `where`s the meat?!`, but having more cabbage than meat went over fairly well with me. Apparently sometimes you wrap bulgogi in lettuce, etc, but this was presented with that aforementioned dish of rice. It was not spicy. In the end I used the broth left on the plate to flavour what was left of my rice (covertly - I don`t know if that`s rude or not but I thought to kind of err on the side of caution and do it was no one was looking). I thought my choice was quite flavourful. Perhaps there was nothing special about it, but it was a good meal and the price for all you get is not bad at all.

I give Kumsan Seoul an 8.5/10. 1.5 added for the tasty red jello acerola juice.

Doro's take here!