Conversation with Mike

Saemangeum Sushi: A Different Creature for Each Eater

Our last lunch together was at Saemangeum Sushi Restaurant in Gunsan...and I would say the most ornate of all the meals. It started out downstairs in a fresh, bright/bold blue open room housing tanks of various fish, crabs, and sea squirts. Little red and white plastic flags representing different countries hung from the ceiling. It felt quite surreal, as if we had walked up a staircase that stopped suddenly in the clouds, and here was this room. We turned the corner and found the actual staircase which lead us to the restaurant. A couple banners with the logos and photos of KBS and another tv station decorated the wall, which meant good things.

We sat down on cushions on the floor of one of the few private rooms and marveled at the ocean view and the bright, sunny light coming in from windows. A perfect lunch atmosphere.

We were served first a large square platter of various sushi atop mounds of glass noodles and garnished with bright little yellow flowers with red tips, bunches of parsley and wedges of lemon. The only fish I could identify were sea squirt (which I'd been wanting to try for months!), salmon, and prawn, but there were four other varieties as well.

The sea squirt is that little orange-red, spiky-looking sea-anemone-like creature all over markets. I have seen women slicing them open at markets to reveal an inner orange meat similar to the meat inside a mussel. I was always curious but wasn't sure how to cook them. So at the restaurant they had sliced the 'squirt' open so that its outer skin fell in a blanket underneath the separate-cut pieces of raw flesh. The taste was bitter and I didn't want to take more than one as there were only a few pieces there to go around, so I never ended up finding the appropriate sauce to dip them in, if there was one. I think they could have been good had I matched them with a recommended dip, though. I always want to find a way to make an unappealing taste appealing, because I like the idea that everything can taste good, that there IS a way to make everything taste good. But maybe that is just too lofty a thought.

Next they brought out the platter of fish skin gelatin: grey gelatinous squares of pure fat from the skin of a particular fish. I was intrigued with this idea at first and wanted to try it in its pure form although they recommended it be dipped in sauce. They were right. I tried it again dipped in a soy paste. Better, but still not something I could eat more than two squares of. It literally melted into oil in my mouth and glided down my throat with no effort. I asked the waiter via translation about this dish, and he said 'if you eat this you will never need botox.' Ha.

Fish skin gelatin

Then came the side dishes: kimchi, radish marinated in chili sauce, pickled garlic cloves, cooked zucchini, lightly cooked bean sprouts, and sweetly marinated cold, shredded jellyfish salad ('hepari').

Then the raw oysters in a small black and sea green ceramic bowl nestled in glass noodles on a matching square dish, with a wedge of lemon on the side. Yum!

And finally, a delightful, savory, red-sauced medley of thin tentacle mushrooms, spring onions, garlic, various spices, and the most amazingly tender fish I've ever eaten! As opposed to many other restaurants I've been to in the west, where they skimp on fish, this stew was packed with both short and long fillets of fish. I was already quite full, but I had a difficult time putting my spoon down, as most everyone was finished by this point, and there was still fish left in the pot!

Fantastic Fish Stew!

What I liked most about this restaurant was that we got to try a few different fish both in their raw and cooked forms. It was satisfying to be able to taste them in both styles. Different flavors come out, different nutritional properties are available depending on whether it's cooked or not, just as it is with any food.

The beautiful sushi platter (orange creature above is the sea squirt!)

Flat-fish, simple and delicious in flavor - no need for much flavoring

The lunch spread

Flat-fish cooked in a savory chili-pepper sauce

Oysters! Atop glass noodles that apparently weren't for eating.

Saemangeum Sushi Restaurant

군산시 비응도동 62-12번지

063-464-1000

-Anina

Raw Trout: A Rare Eat

There's a certain silence that comes with exhaustion. In my day-to-day life, I can never quiet my mind enough to meditate unless its after a intense and focused yoga class. Well, it was a different kind of exhaustion at the end of our very long and active second day on the 1st Korean Traditional Food Tour for Foreign Foodies that had me meditating over our last meal of the day.

Our day had started early. Before noon we had already participated in kettle-cooked tofu making, perilla seed harvesting, chicken slaughtering and butchering, an expansive lunch, and had begun our transit to the market. After the joy and excitement of the market, more long (nauseating) transit, makkeoli-making, banchan-making, even more long (and still nauseating) transit, I felt our tour van finally pull into a parking lot. I looked out the windows: pitch black. We got out of the van: still nearly pitch black. And quiet! Haunted by the faint rush of river water nearby and the dark night sky, it felt almost eerily desolate. I had no idea where we were, but it truly felt like the middle of nowhere to me. An occasional rustle of invisible autumn leaves, cold outdoor toilets, not a single other patron except for our group... we lumbered into a cold, long room whose sleepy under-floor heating system was slowly, slowly waking from its slumber.

I sat the end of our long, low table, still very much in my quiet, meditative state as my body worked overtime to digest the feast we had had at lunch. A long day of action and excitement will do this to you. A long day of travel will do this to you. A long day of intelligent and enthused discussion in great company will do this to you. But it was in this very quiet state that I saw the brilliant food brought to our table with utter clarity.

Most restaurants in Korea specialize in just one thing. This restaurant did raw trout. As the plates arrived, the warm coral orange flesh glimmered with silver remnants of skin. Flanked by raw garlic, hot pepper and a plate full of raw cut vegetables for making "ssam" wraps, I unexpectedly found my appetite again. Sure, we eat with our eyes first and these platters we gorgeous, but this was actually the food my body had been craving. Totally whole, fresh food.

Wasabi and other assertive ingredients compliment slices of raw trout


Its a shame that there's a major grocery chain that shares the same name because real whole foods are far more significant that that and deserve more understanding and appreciation in the mainstream public. Some people extol vegetarianism as a virtual solution to so many important issues today. Some firmly believe that organics are the way to planetary and bodily health. I don't discount either of those but I do believe that switching to whole foods is the single, most powerful dietary choice any person eating a conventional, SAD (Standard American Diet) or otherwise highly-processed diet can make. Whole, unprocessed food makes the body think, makes it work the way it was designed to. Contrasted with processed foods that consist mainly of just corn, wheat, soy and a complementary mix of synthetic preservatives and processing agents, whole food forces seasonal eating, varied eating, enzymatic and nutritionally rich eating that wakens the taste buds, the spirit, and the body. Its easy and it feels good great.
This revival is what happened to me that night and it is one of the most exciting things about Korean traditional food. It may be safe to say that nearly all traditional foods around the world are, by default, usually whole or only marginally processed. And in Korean many of them are often naturally preserved or even raw, which offer additional benefits. The particularly impressive thing about Korean traditional, whole foods, however, is that even though Korea is a rather developed country, they are still TOTALLY a part of every day life. Korean traditional foods are are still what is served at the majority of restaurants in any city, at family dinners at home, even in the lunch trays at school. To be clear, processed junk food has made its place in the contemporary Korean lifestyle as well, but in 12 trips abroad, of all the developed countries I have visited, Korea has certainly made the biggest impression when it comes to the perseverance of whole, traditional cuisine in the face of globalization, marketing, monocrop subsidies and artificial food technology.

Lettuce, carrot, cucumber, cabbage and bean powder await a spot in my trout lettuce wrap.

This brings me back to our meal. And the restaurant. Our dinner was like a mini-retreat for my entire self. Subdued and simple, but delicious and unexpectedly/exactly what I needed. And possibly just what the rest of the team and our crew needed as well. Our meal together in the deep, dark countryside fostered candid discussions, quiet reflection and authentic exchanges with every new plate that graced our table. In addition to the glimmering raw trout, our table also experienced the house's selection of side dishes, their hearty trout-head jjigae, juicy and crisp cut Asian pears, and gorgeous glowing trout roe. Wrapped with rice, wasabi and soy sauce in a fresh lettuce leaf, the little tender, translucent beads burst silky omega-rich fish oil between my teeth in one nourishing, flavorful mouthful. It gave me energy for a night that was not yet finished and it carried me contently past midnight at our pension as we prepared for the events to come.

Who ate all the fish head and all the robust broth from our jjigae stew? ;-)

Trout, roe, kimchi, pepper and a one messy mixing dish make for a bright-colored array.

Our rare adventure into the depths of Jeolla province resulted in a rare treat that turned out to be exactly, precisely what my weary self needed. I am grateful every little treasure Korea shares with me.

~Tanya