Jageumseong

Critic´s Review

• Food: 2 / 5
• Service: 5 / 5
• Decor: 4 / 5

-By Ameeta Agnihotri

Those with delicate sensibilities are advised to be cautious about the contents of this review of the latest Korean restaurant that has sprouted in the middle of the already busy T.T.K. Road.

For instance, what do you feel about snacking on the tender flesh of the Abalone that is served as a soup all by itself at the Jaguemseong diner that is part of the hotel group by that name?

At first glance, Abalone sounds as harmless as asparagus, both ingredients are said to be just the thing that people eat for a Valentine's Day dinner. It's well known that asparagus tips have a reputation for enhancing the senses particularly when served with bowls of melted butter to be held delicately between the fingers and nibbled. The Abalone on the other hand is a marine creature, it comes nestled inside a shell and though some people imagine that they are eating a lady's ear, hence it's popular name 'ear-shell' others just call it a sea slug, or a sea snail. Just as the French insist that eating snails is a delicate art particularly when served with garlic butter, at Jaguemsong the make a production of bringing a bowl of crispy fried rice noodles and pouring the mixed seafood soup onto the plate. So, you don't actually have to contemplate eating the Abalone, or the pink prawns, or the bamboo shoots and Pok Choy, or greens that are also in the dish. Then again, when the tiny baby Octopus float to the surface, it's difficult to ignore that they are not trying to wave goodbye to you as you spear them with a pair of wooden chopsticks.

Eating Korean is only for the brave. It's also a good thing to take a friend along to show you the best way to enjoy a meal. I for one am partial to their starters known collectively as Khimchi. At one level this means shredded cabbage that has been soaked in vinegar for a couple of days to become a type of relish that you nibble on while waiting for the other dishes. It's also a good thing to be able to eat Korean style while sitting on the floor on plastic backed seats and low wooden platforms, since it takes a long while for each freshly made dish to materialize. Some of them are cooked on gas-fired woks on the table and these are superb. The rooftop restaurant at the Adyar flyover roundabout has the most sensational range of khimchis, not just cabbage, but tiny baby potatoes, beans and greens, broccoli and juliennes of carrots and in what I imagined where sprouted Moong beans, a dish of the tiniest fish fingerlings crisply dried and served in wine vinegar. It would be more than enough just to have the Khimchi and a bowl of hot rice with the soothing barley water tea that they give you. But there are also thick omelets and slices of seafood that they insist on serving.

At the TTK restaurant, the charming Korean hostess was perhaps the main attraction. The khimchis were totally a disgrace, raw onion slices for instance, a plain cabbage, cold glass noodles and so on, but if sea-slugs are your thing, do give it a try.