Thursday, August 9, 2012

Ssambap: 36 items plus Scissors for Dinner


Gyeongjou, a town in the south of South Korea is known for its Ssambap. Very easy to navigate the menu because there isn't any. All you need to do is show up.  My son Gordon and I were seated in a ssambap restaurant and then waited a few minutes looking around at other diners' tables filled with lots and lots of little plates, wondering whether we were supposed to choose from a list.  We must have looked puzzled because a busy waitress passing by stated assertively "Ssambap! Ssambap!", which we took to mean, "Be patient. Everything will be brought to you".  In a ssambap restaurant, the servers crowd your table with little dishes, known as banchan, or side dishes.  I counted 34, but there were more. There is also a plate of various types of leafy greens...lettuce, cabbage, and other green leaves.  The way to eat ssambap is to take a dab of the contents of any one or more of these little dishes, and roll it into the green leaf along with a clump of rice. The scissors are to cut the radishes and other unwieldy things. The scallion pancakes were particularly yummy. We ate at Guro Ssambap, which is around Cheommachon. The whole thing cost the equivalent of less than $10 US per person.