the meats at san ho won were excellent as expected. but what really blew me away was the chicken and ginseng jook with abalone and abalone sauce. best fucking jook/congee/kayu/cháo I’ve ever had. packed with flavor and succulent moist chicken and tender abalone. would come back just for this. must order.
AB Steak’s probably the closest thing but it’s pretty different. More luxury / status ingredients, less farmers market / butcher"s cuts, less sophisticated beverage program.
best jook I’ve had, silky chicken and tender abalone with an incredibly umami abalone sauce on the side. comforting and delicious. better pics in my op.
…And JFC. When will other restaurants wake up and start putting more of this on their menu (not that any of you with your third eyes already open need to be told)
I had kind of forgot we had ordered this, and at first I wasn’t so impressed, but the vegetables were surprisingly needed after a pretty rich meal. While I would have liked the rice to be crispier, we did actually end up crushing this really easily. It’s by no means essentially (especially if you just get bowls of rice) but I’d get it again. The little side sauces and preserved squid they give you to mix up yourself absolutely push the dish to a more interesting level.
Did not bang Ernest (went there a few nights earlier for the full deal) but did hit Trick Dog around the corner before.
First visit was without a reservation (we showed up at about 4:45 before the doors opened) and waited in line behind about 4 or 5 parties in front of us. Some had reservations, so we were able to be seated around 5:15 at the bar.
they also often have specials, of which the bulgogi also lives in the ‘just fine’ category - not transcendent like the galbi.
the seafood soondubu jjigae with the potato noodles is by far the best of the soup/stews i’ve had so far, a league beyond even the jook. similarly transcendent as the galbi
Since San Ho Won is a Korean restaurant and not a Japanese one, pine mushrooms would be called song-yi, as @PorkyBelly mentioned
and as San Ho Won’s website mentions:
pine mushroom rice is a Korean dish 송이밥. maybe there’s a porridge as well, or maybe this dish at San Ho Won is a take on mushroom rice > mushroom porridge, i don’t know.
songi / song-yi are even foraged in Korea, such as in Yangyang county of Gangwon province. so, i wouldn’t call song-yi matsutake, even if they are the equivalent name. for the same reason, i wouldn’t refer to boricha as mugicha. i doubt these are Tamba, Iwate, or otherwise Japanese origin matsutakes at San Ho Won; they’re probably Korean song-yi or Oregon pine mushrooms if I had to guess.
