Hello! from Hannam: Straight From the Source

Vegetarians proceed with caution.

I never seem to write much about our weekly patronage of Korean BBQ restaurants, except for the few times in the beginning when the whole experience was new and novel. BBQ restaurants are a dime a dozen here, and although we have our neighborhood favorite, Pumpkin, the act of seeking out BBQ isn't like it is at home, where there are rubs and sauces in question and name brands at stake. Here you're lucky if you even know the name of the BBQ restaurant you're eating at, let alone remember where it is. Going out for BBQ is still exciting, as there's a lot to be said for grilling up your own meat in the middle of your table, using the grill as your plate. However, in six months we have never traveled far for BBQ or sought out a particular establishment and why would we? We like Pumpkin, it's across the street and they're all, generally speaking, the same. But on Saturday we did as any self-respecting, meat-lovers would do....we traveled for BBQ and got as close as one could get to the source without actually going to a field of cows.

The Majang-dong Meat Market

Korean cuisine is best when you are fully engaged and what better way to be fully engaged in BBQ than to visit and have lunch one stop past the slaughter house! Since 1963, the Majang-dong Meat Market located alongside the eastern Cheonggyecheon Stream has been Korea’s largest meat market, providing about 70 percent of all meat consumed in greater Seoul. Walking down the market’s main street, several hundred feet of wet asphalt between rows of butchers and red-light cold lockers, you can watch as literally every part of cattle and pigs is cut, cleaned and sold. Big plastic tubs are filled to the brim with enormous black cow tongues, brains and innards. Whole pig's heads and more surprisingly whole cow's heads can be found candidly sitting atop the freezers. I have never, in my life, seen a frozen whole cow head. For those of you who find cow skulls hanging on the wall strange, this was much more disturbing. The market was pretty quiet for a Saturday afternoon and we were definitely the only gawking Westerners, acting as if we had never seen a butcher shop before but the Korean's happily engaged us, even opening up the freezers so that the picture of the frozen cow head would be perfect.

BBQ Alley

Just off the main market street is BBQ Alley. Simply a short, narrow alley of huts, the whole place was pretty empty, but we simply picked the place with the most people in it and ventured in. Very traditional in that you take your shoes off, sit on the floor to eat and no one spoke a lick of English, we used the photos of the meat on the wall to order, attempting to compare it to the price list on another part of the wall and after worrying as to whether or not we had ordered the most expensive cuts we gave up and just enjoyed the fresh meat. We figured we ate about half a pound of meat each. Upon receiving the bill, we had in fact ordered the most expensive stuff. We chalked it up to being domestic beef which is usually much more expensive than imported. Rich and Dave will also say the flavor was incredible, but I think that's the justification talking. For the record it was nothing like the flavor or texture of a filet Mignon or a New York Strip. Naturally, they said they didn't take credit cards so as we fumbled around for cash, we were surprisingly given a $60 discount, no one knows why, and a free cup of instant coffee. I'd like to think the generous discount was because they don't see the likes of us in their alley often and gave it to us as a "thanks for coming, come again" gesture. Who knows....but they do in fact take credit cards.