The menu calls the dish “Song-Yi Jook | 제철 송이죽” ($52).
In California we usually call them matsutake (which I figure means more to some readers here than song-yi or pine mushroom) even though strictly speaking they’re Tricholoma magnivelare rather than Tricholoma matsutake. To my knowledge the ones available here are all domestic. San Ho Won might have a connection with a local forager, they’re found in the Bay Area. I found one in the Presidio once.
I love Japanese food, but when there’s a domestic ingredient listed in Korean at a Korean restaurant, I wouldn’t resort to calling it by its Japanese name (even moreso as you point out, these may not be matsutakes technically).
Same reason that if the menu listed gingko as eunhaeng-al, I wouldn’t call it ginnan; if it listed gwangeo hwe, I wouldn’t say karei sashimi; if it listed sweet potato as goguma, I wouldn’t call it satsumaimo; and, I wouldn’t or call boricha as mugicha.
I do like that Corey Lee is putting out a glossary to help spread knowledge about Korean ingredients and preparations.
Using a lot of foreign words that are unfamiliar to your audience isn’t great communication unless you define them with their familiar counterparts.
My point was just to alert anyone who didn’t make the connection that San Ho Won currently has matsutake juk, which to me is worth a special trip.
gee i believe it’s a seaweed sauce. worth the journey.
my favorite of the meats. worthy of repetition.
it was actually pretty difficult to eat given how thick it was and only having metal chopsticks and a spoon for utensils. i asked for scissors, which surprisingly they didn’t have, and got a knife instead. after cutting it into manageable pieces to eat with the ssam it was very rich and delicious. the ssamjang and scallion-cilantro sauce are perfect complements for the fattiness.
hi @TheCookie, i didn’t get the individual taste of pine needle, but taking a bite with everything together, the piping hot jook was extremely aromatic, savory and comforting with tender, silky morsels of chicken, earthiness from the pine mushrooms and bites of crunchy water chestnuts. thanks.
so much of Korean food is about stacking and building flavor with taking huge bites of many ingredients together.
the whole menu sounds great, from the banchan (i love white kimchi) to egg souffle and song-yi jook, but at the end of the day when it comes to this KBBQ, i’d probably be a just a predictable beef guy. now if they only offered some dessert of overripe hachiya persimmons and then some sikhye, then it would really be worth the journey.
it’s very refined. service was good and very attentive. not your typical kbbq joint - i’m guessing that some of the bbq is first slow cooked or aged / long marinated then blasted with heat at the end. everything is made in the kitchen, no tabletop grills. reserve on tock about 1 month out (w/ deposit applied to check); would gladly return.
all the bbq was great - favorites were the beef neck and the pork bulgolgi. bbq meats had nice char and no gristle. the bbq accompanying sauces were delicious even if 2 of the 3 felt slightly unusual for kbbq (chili oil tasted Chinese, charred scallion and cilantro cream was like something from early Californios, tasted very refined Mexican).
galbi mandu. great. lots of filling, like a taquito more than the mandu shape i’m used to. favorite of the appetizers.
tartare. a delicate version of yukhoe, more soy sauce base, less sesame oil or pear flavor. actually ate well on the seaweed crackers with puffed rice.
savory egg souffle. very savory with a touch of heat. egg a little bit firmer than some you get in ktown la, but flavors were refined.
kimchi pancake with bacon. impressively thin, but i prefer a little bit of rustic chew and char on the batter.
center-cut beef tongue. nice tender snap, medium. very good, though most beef tongue i’ve had this year was in Japan and most of that had a slightly different texture. good.
house double-cut galbi marinated short rib. very good. fat ate easily, too, no gristle.
jebi churi: beef neck. highlight. tender but nice char, too.
beef rib cap. really good. of the beef, just behind the beef neck for me.
spicy pork bulgolgi: marinated pork cheek and belly. highlight. not that spicy, but delicious. loved the charred bits and the fatty parts.
they still had the song-yi (pine mushroom) jook, but we didn’t get it.
The galbi I had was sous-vided before finishing on the grill.
that makes a lot of sense. even the connective tissue around the bone was tender.
had some makgeoli and soju that i actually liked for once. i’d still like to do corkage next time.
