Jeju (city) Restaurants

. Cheju is famous for food – seafood, horsemeat and, apparently, pheasant. Our chef took us out to the backyard and let us watch as he expertly caught and beheaded a large bird for our dinner. Our meal came in courses – or stages, as the owner’s son (a Japanese major at university) proudly explained. It started with all the usual side dishes, plus some raw pheasant heart (tough and pretty tasteless), and then strips of meat were brought out for us to cook ourselves on the table grill. We wrapped the meat in lettuce and ate it like samgypsal. Then a pot of salted water with onions and mushrooms was placed on the grill and we were given thin shavings of raw meat to dip into the boiling water to cook. Each piece only took a couple of seconds and then we were to dip it into a mustard sauce and eat it with lettuce. Our third course was probably the best. Suejebee (a kind of thick, glutinous rice noodle) and buckwheat noodles were added to our pot of water, as was any leftover meat from the previous two courses. We let it cook for a while and then ate it like soup. Yummy, yummy, exploding tummy!

Favorite Dish: "Kkwong" = pheasant