Kamsahamnida (review Miss Korea)

Over five years ago I always looked forward to Saturday mornings. Not because I liked getting up early in the weekends (that was the part I pretty much hated), but because I would have one hour of Korean class. I have always been fascinated by Asian culture, but that of Koreans caught my attention most. I am still of the opinion that the Korean language is pleasant to the ear, and that Koreans are very enthusiastic to share their culture with others (from my experience at least).

I would drool all over my keyboard whenever I watched my favorite K-drama Full House, because of all the dishes the main characters would eat. I was mostly craving for Ji Eun's "dog food", as Young Jae called it, and the kimbap rolls she made pretending to be a good house-wife and all. I had tried kimbap before, even learned how to make it at school, but other than this and random kimchi tasting, I never had Korean food for dinner. The number of Korean restaurants in Amsterdam is limited, and those present are not budget friendly.

Until I stumbled upon a restaurant Miss Korea my friends often discussed, which offers the well known all-you-can-eat concept serving Korean food, instead of the regular Chinese or Japanese. One can order 3 (instead of the usual 5) dishes per round, and rounds are limited. You can find all kinds of dishes on the menu varying from cold to hot, pan to stir-fried, and of course the choice of uncooked meat to BBQ yourself (there is a Korean BBQ in the middle of your table).

The pork gets two thumbs up, the beef half a thumbs up due to the lack of seasoning and chewiness, and the prawns obviously get two thumbs up. Because one can hardly go wrong with prawns! The fish was tasty, the lamb was a huge disappointment. It tasted like shoarma meat! That is not what I expect from an Asian kitchen, and it is also not a good combination with the rest of the food offered. So the lamb actually gets two thumbs down from me.

In general I think (most of) the food was very tasty, but I would rather eat Japanese or Chinese all-you-can-eat than Korean, because of the variety in flavor of dishes. But this could be restaurant depended of course. I will hopefully eat lots of Korean food when I am finally in Toronto (seen as  there is a Korean town there).

All-in-all I would definitely have Korean food again, but maybe not all-you-can-eat style. I really enjoyed the BBQ bulgogi flavored pork, bibimbap, and seafood ricecakes.

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Sefanja Rubina

Note: All pictures were taken with my Casio JE-10. I used the 'food' mode, for most pictures (which came out like I wanted). But, (as you can see above) a minor dislike about this function is the over-exposure.