Knife Cut Noodles with Seafood From Neutinamu (Zelkova Tree)

sue — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:03:32 +0000

Gwangyang city (in Jeon Nam Province) where I live is definitely not a popular tourist destination to foreigners, though we do have some festivals in spring when the plum and cherry blossoms start to appear. They look awesome, but if you want to see them you will be surrounded by thousands of other people looking at them too.

The part of Gwangyang I live in now is a very industrialized area. I am only 5 minutes away from POSCO, one of the largest steel works companies in the world, and their subsidiary companies. So if you happen to come to Gwangyang that would be for business trip in most cases, since a 5 day tour package doesn’t include this city anyway.

So just in case you might stop by this small but very industrialized city one day, I am going to introduce one fine restaurant that I like. The restaurant is called Neutinamu (zelkova tree in English) and it is famous for Pyongyang style steamed dumplings (Mandu) and knife cut noodles with seafood (Haemul Kalguksu). They do have other menus of course like Shabu-shabu, and other hot pot dishes, but it seemed to me that 90% of the customers eat knife cut noodles and dumplings.

I ordered knife cut noodles for 4 people and a dish of steamed dumplings.

They served this bowl of barley as an appetizer with some steamed vegetables and sauce. The sauce was soy bean paste, but it was a bit thiner than normal soy bean paste. They probably dilute it with some other ingredients. (Michael really liked the bowl of barley, though it used be the symbol of poverty in Korea, up to 20-30 years ago, now it has become popular again because it is known as good healthy food)

They served noodles and dumplings at the same time. While we were waiting for the noodles to cook, we had dumplings. There were 7 of them for a dish. It was really delicious. The best steamed dumplings I ever ate. It just melts in your mouth and very morish too. I wish I could make dumplings like they do.

Finally the noodles are cooked, we started to dig in. It was really good. The broth was refreshing but hot, I nearly burnt my tongue. Unfortunately it only had 4 medium size prawns, and lots of shell fish instead. I am a prawn killer, so having 1 prawn doesn’t satisfy me.

Oh oo, I forgot to mention this. Apparently Michael thinks that their Kimchi tastes the best in Korea. I am sure there are lots of good restaurants that serve nice Kimchi, but this restaurant’s one is quite nice, I say best in the local area at least. (They serve freshly made Kimchi, so called Gutjeory, in a big jar, I think we ate 1/4 of a cabbage worth of kimchi)

Total cost = 25,000 won for 4 people (US $26.30)

Steamed dumplings: 5,000 won (US $5.30) – Must try item (5 points out of 5)
Knife cut noodles with seafood: 20,000 won for 4 people (4 points out of 5) – they need to learn more about the beauty of giving away more prawns

Location

1647-5, Jungdong, Gwangyang, JeonNam, South Korea (next to Kookmin Bank)

I am sorry about the quality of the pictures. It was too dim inside and the sun was facing the other direction. Though I was pretty embarrassed enough by just taking some pictures with a chunky SLR continually. I got a fair bit of attention there. Yet I am still considering taking my tripod, but then Michael might refuse to eat with me.

My Failed Kimchi Dumplings (Kimchi Mandu in Korean) and What I have learnt

Kimbap Places in Korea

Hand Made Tofu Meals

Instant Dumplings (Mandu in Korean)

sue — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:28:53 +0000

One thing I don’t like about winter is its weather. It is just too cold, so I am not as motivated as other seasons to cook any meals. I just want to stay in my room and snuggle up. However the fact that we have to eat to survive is what makes me still cook something. I have to admit that I am a lazy cook.

So this is what we had for dinner last night. No rice! No Kimchi! Just some instant fried mandu. (We had kind of a big lunch luckily, so we could cope with just some mandu for dinner.)

I bought these packs last week at Homeplus. It was really a good deal, because I got these two packs (total 2.4 kg) for 5,880 won (US $ 6.20). Great Bargain isn’t it? So I still have lots more bunches to go. (I am planning to make some mandu soup this weekend.)

I pan fried them, not deep frying. I think pan frying is a more common way to eat mandu instead of deep frying in Korea, and pan fried mandu is called “Gunmandu” in Korean. To get the best result (crispy texture), defrost them completely before you cook them.

You can also steam them or cook them with a microwave.
If you steam them, you can get a result like this. (Eat them when it is still hot. When it gets cold, it is not yummy.)

Steamed mandu is “Jjinmandu” in Korean and I personally prefer fried mandu.

There are lots of kinds of mandu, such as Kimchi mandu, Meat mandu, Squid mandu, Seafood mandu, even Pizza mandu. The mandu I bought was Japchae mandu.

You can use some soy sauce as a dipping sauce, but I added some extra ingredients for flavour.

Sweet and sour dipping sauce : (Mix these in a bowl)

Soy sauce – 2tsp
Vinegar (I used apple vinegar) – 1/2 tsp
Plum extract – 2 tsp
Garlic – 1/10 tsp
Chili powder – 1 sprinkle
Sesame oil – 1 dash

Dumpling Pastry Pizza (Mandupy Pizza in Korean)

My Korean KitchenMandu | My Korean Kitchen

Knife Cut Noodles with Seafood From Neutinamu (Zelkova Tree)

Instant Dumplings (Mandu in Korean)