Japanese Tapas

Last night Yerim and I went for Japanese Tapas. I've been to this restaurant about three times now and it never disappoints. The food takes a while to come out but its worth the wait. Since the long menu is in Korean and Japanese I let Yerim do the choosing.


We started with what I think was grilled Mackerel. It was really meaty and tender and perfectly cooked. (All of the fish I've had in Seoul has been fantastic so far. I know I'm going to miss Korean food in general but the perfectly executed and ridiculously cheap grilled fish will be especially difficult to leave behind.)

Next up was cooked tuna over shredded cabbage with sesame sauce. The tuna pieces were chunky and not as flaky as I was expecting. The sesame dressing was perfect. You could taste the sesame but also some citrus and maybe honey or something a little sweet tasting at the end.

The fried shrimp was great. I don't think it was shrimp tempura because the batter seemed different than what I know tempura to be. Either way, the batter was light and tasty and the shrimp inside was moist and tasted like shrimp - not like oil. The tartar sauce was nothing special and the shrimp was perfect without it.

Soft Tofu topped with chives and tuna skin came out next. I was relieved to see the small wooden spoons that came with it. My chopstick skills are fine but not soft tofu fine. The tofu was okay but I wasn't expecting it to be cold and it was too soft for me. I prefer my tofu firm and I love it fried.

 The edamame was, well, edamame. It tasted no different than any other fresh edamame that I've had, which is good. But it's eaten differently here than at home. At least it's eaten differently here than that way I eat it at home. In true barbarian style I usually take a piece of edamame in my mouth and chew out the two or three beans (although I always try and flush out the pods with four or five beans before anyone else finds them) and then discard the chewed out pod into the provided bowl. Here, people (although I'm not sure if it's just women) gently split apart the pods and the individual beans are dipped into salt that you pour into your plate. It takes forever to eat and it's kind of tedious but it is more civilized and you get to eat with your hands - and I love to eat with my hands.

We washed it all down with some Sapporo drafts and some Soju.