TGIF Korean lunch — Set B ($55)!
Korean-Chinese restaurant Set B for two: jjajangmyeon black bean noodles with cucumber julienne, tangsuyuk sweet and sour pork, danmuji and kimchi banchan, barley tea. $55.
TGIF lunch with BB. Korean Set B: jjajangmyeon + tangsuyuk, $55. 😋👍🏼
What was on the table:
- Two bowls of jjajangmyeon (짜장면): thick wheat noodles buried under the glossy black bean sauce, cucumber julienne crowning each bowl
- Plate of tangsuyuk (탕수육): the crispy fried pork strips tossed with the sweet-sour glaze, wood ear mushroom, onion petals, carrot and red-cabbage accents
- Banchan: danmuji (the yellow pickled radish coins), kimchi, raw onion with a dab of black bean paste for dipping
- Barley tea in the ceramic cups
Jjajangmyeon is Korean-Chinese, not Korean: invented by Shandong immigrants in Incheon’s Chinatown around 1905, built on chunjang (caramelised black bean paste) stir-fried with pork and onion, thickened, and poured over hand-pulled-style noodles. In Korea it’s the moving-day meal, the delivery-food archetype, and the dish you eat on Black Day (April 14) if you’re single. The cucumber julienne on top is mandatory protocol.
Tangsuyuk is its eternal set-meal partner: pork strips in a potato-starch batter fried to a glassy crunch, sauced sweet-and-sour. The Korean-Chinese version differs from Cantonese sweet and sour pork in the batter (chewier, crunchier from the potato starch) and the lighter, less ketchup-red sauce. The great Korean debate is bu-eo-meok vs jjik-meok: sauce poured over versus dipped. This plate arrived poured, the restaurant taking a side.
The raw onion + chunjang dip is the authenticity tell: every real Korean-Chinese joint serves it, and the sharp raw bite against the salty paste is the traditional palate reset between noodle slurps.
At $55 for two with the full banchan spread, this is Singapore Korean-restaurant pricing; in Seoul the same set is half that, but the homesickness cure rate is identical.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Proper Friday treat. The tangsuyuk’s glassy crunch was the standout, the jjajangmyeon exactly the comfort it promises. Would re-order Set B.
