Set B — sweet & sour pork + jjajangmyeon ($47.30)!
Sunday Korean-Chinese dinner — Set B with sweet & sour pork + jjajangmyeon, $47.30. Korean-style Chinese restaurant combo.
Sunday dinner with BB — Korean-Chinese restaurant Set B with sweet & sour pork + jjajangmyeon for $47.30. The Korean-style Chinese restaurant combo that’s the Sunday family-dinner staple in Korea.
We ordered (Set B):
- Sweet & sour pork (tangsuyuk)
- Jjajangmyeon (Korean black bean noodles)
Total: $47.30 for the set.
The Korean-Chinese restaurant cuisine is a distinct category from both Korean and Chinese restaurants. The dishes are Chinese in origin but adapted to Korean tastes over generations of Chinese immigrant families running restaurants in Korea. The flavours sit between the two cuisines — recognisable to both but distinctly different from either.
Sweet & sour pork (tangsuyuk, 탕수육) was the substantial dish. Deep-fried pork pieces in a crispy batter, served with a separate dish of sweet-and-sour sauce on the side. The Korean version differs from the Chinese version in a few ways: the batter is thicker and crispier, the sauce has more fruit (pineapple, kiwi) and less tomato, and the pork pieces are slightly larger.
The eating ritual is the dipping rather than tossing. You take a piece of pork with chopsticks, dip into the sauce, eat. The pork stays crispy throughout the meal because the sauce stays separate. The Korean style here is meaningfully different from the Chinese-restaurant version where the pork is pre-tossed in the sauce.
Jjajangmyeon (자장면) was the noodle dish. Wheat noodles in a thick black bean sauce (chunjang, fermented black bean paste, sweetened and reduced), with diced pork, onion, zucchini, and a few vegetables mixed through. Topped with shredded cucumber for fresh contrast.
The black bean sauce was the headline. Deep mahogany-black colour, thick consistency, sweet-savoury-umami profile with the slight smoky-fermented depth that chunjang brings. Each noodle strand coated thoroughly.
The two dishes pair well because they cover different flavour spectrums — crispy and sweet-sour from the tangsuyuk, savoury and rich from the jjajangmyeon.
At $47.30 for the Set B for two on a Sunday dinner, fair Korean-Chinese restaurant pricing.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Strong Korean-Chinese Set B — would revisit.
