Silly Monilly

This past weekend I had the pleasure of experiencing another new food dish. On Saturday I met up with some friends and went to Bucheon which is about 40-50 min outside of Seoul proper (although it is considered part of the metropolitan area of Seoul) to meet up with our local friend Joon who lives there. He is so much fun and always showing us new places and things.

Once everyone had arrived, we decided to go and get some food. Joon thought about where we could go for a minute and then asked everyone if we were ok with raw beef. The dish is called Yukoe in Korean (육회). Everybody was up for it but wasnt entirely sure what it was going to be like. (I will at the very least try any food put in front of me). While I have had beef tartar before I figured this dish would have its own Korean flair to it.

We sat down in a small restaurant and Joon ordered the food. While waiting for the dish they brought out soup to cook on the portable burners that wee on the table which everyone then will communally eat from (no individual bowls, they love the communal eating). It was a bone soup, which was pretty basic water based broth that had pieces of bone floating in it that had been soaking and cooking to the point that they were soft and edible. It was delicious as everything has been thus far here and a nice way to warm up from the cold weather and snow outside.

The dish came out on a wooden board with the pile of raw meat in the middle mixed with sesame seeds, pine nuts and chives, as well as julienned Korean pear, a saucer containing a raw egg yolk and a sesame leaf with 4 small triangles of cheese (im pretty sure it was Kraft singles slices) on the side. Also, everyone had there own sauce dish containing minced garlic, salt, a grey bean paste, chili paste, and wasabi.



The method of eating the meal was as follows:
Take a piece of cheese and put it in your sauce dish (mix well with chopsticks)
Create an indentation in the pile of meat to make what looks like a volcano.
Dump the raw egg yolk in the indentation (mix the meat and egg until evenly coated)
Take a clump of meat and place it in your sauce dish
Take a piece of pear and place it on top of your meat.
Pick up the sauced meat and pear with your chopsticks and enjoy.

The meal was really tasty and super refreshing as well. They also brought out sesame oil to dip the meat in which was also delicious. I didn't get silly monilly (salmonella) as the title may lead you to believe i just think its fun to say. Actually Joon claimed that the meal is supposed to actually be healthy and good for you.

Also the restaurant had really cool lighting, It was an onion bag filled with light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and on of them in the middle was connected and on which made for a really cool looking light source.