"army soup"

For people not born and raised on Korean food, evaluating how good a given bowl of jjigae is can be a difficult task. Of course, the Fatman thinks whatever floats your boat is good. Eat to please your own tastebuds. But oh! how embarrassing when you take a Korean friend with you to the same place and find out that what you’ve been enjoying everybody else would call bland. Or worse.

Behold. In one simple rule, the Fatman is going to give you the secret to finding the best Korean restaurants:

Just ask yourself, “How long is the menu?”

This is an easy rule. In general, the shorter the menu the better the food. Got it?

Think about the ubiquitous 김밥나라/Kimbap Nara (Gimbap Country) and 김밥전국/Kimbap Jeonguk (Palace). They have menus as long as your arm. How good is the food, really? Of course it fills your belly, but it’s hardly going to send you into waves of epicurean delight.

By and large, Korean restaurants specialize in a few particular items and learn to do them extraordinarily well. They specialize in seafood, in dumplings, in noodles, in chicken soup, in something very specific. The Fatman’s favorite samgyetang place doesn’t even have a menu. You sit down, they bring you food. There is no ordering, no choosing; just receiving the cumulative skill and love and talent of the years of extraordinary focus and dedication that went into perfecting that particular way of serving that exact soup. That soup is the perfection, the apex of samgyetang.

As a general rule of thumb: More than two genre of food = not so good. Noodles and grilled meat? Common. Meat and 전 (jeon – pan fried foods)? Probably still ok. Meat and seafood and noodles and fried rice and fried cutlet? Probably not so good. Only does herbs? You’re in like Flynn.

More than 10 items of food on the menu (excluding alcohol) = prepare for at least some level of mediocrity. Some things may be good, but most will be just ok.

More than 5 items of food = probably just dandy. Deliciousness in inverse proportion to the number of genre of food.

3 or fewer = prepare to have a happy palate.

No menu = Jackpot!!! 아싸!

Fatman firmly believes this is a good guideline. Fatman also firmly believes that if you don’t find it true, you’ll let us know.