Shillawon, a closer look

Hey all!

5/28/08 - Mom felt like either American or Korean tonight. She's not the most adventurous type, you know - the only other foods she ever approves of is local, Chinese, Italian, French, and Japanese. Anything "unfamiliar," and she rejects it outright. Wifey and I, on the other hand, are equal opportunity eaters - anything goes! The wilder and less familiar we are with a dish, the more appealing it is - just like life, I guess!

 

Definitely one of your more elegant Korean restaurants.

Not that Shillawon is boring - it's just that Korean is one of a small handful of food types mom can eat, with all that hot, delicious bbq and myriad of spicy veggies given - this is not a boring restaurant by any right.  I'm talking about the refusal to try something different, and the kinds of parameters or limits we place on what foods we allow to please us - yes, that's right - what foods "we allow" to please us. It's attitude that counts in everything, right? Close off to new cuisine types and you'll never enjoy anything but the familiar; open up and you'll experience sights, sounds, smells, and yes, tastes that you never knew existed!

Take, for example, this soondubu (tofu soup). Most people never heard of it before, but if you have, it usually comes looking very much like a simple bowl of soup you ladled yourself, maybe with a sprinkling of green onion and a half-submerged bundle of enoki mushroom on top. And that can be just be fine and dandy, really.

However, check out this hot-pot of soondubu below! Does that look like a simple ladle-job? Yeah, it's the same ingredients, but how much more excitement does this bowl have, with it's tower of enoki mushrooms and Chinese parsley? And for further appeal and stimulation it came bubbling-hot in a ceramic bowl, its aroma being released, slowly dispersing through rising clouds of steam. Magnificent! If the pic I took from an extreme side-angle came out half-decent, the effect would have been even more dramatic!

That's no ordinary soondubu!

Before I could even finish snapping pics of these tiny plates, our server already had our meats on the grill! I thought we were supposed to cook it?! Actually, they often throw it on the table-top grill for you and check in every so often to turn the meats. I'd rather them not, but oh, well - I'm grateful that they are trying to help!

For all you big eaters, they do have an all-you-can-eat grill for about $25! I wasn't with Big Al or the UH football team, so we went with single orders of kal-bi short rib and flank steak, instead.

The flank was actually thinly-cut slices rolled into little bundles, which means they were pre-frozen. Otherwise, they couldn't hold the shape. No problem. They still tasted great hot off the grill.

 

Yakiniku-style, or cooking right on your table!

 

The kal-bi short-rib was left in its raw form and shoyu-based marinade for us to cook later, but not before it was promptly cut into more maneagable pieces by our speedy server. The large bones were separated, leaving us bit-size morsels of fatty rib meat. After the thin cuts of flank, it was nice to get something thicker and juicier, with a little more chew-factor involved, carnivore that I am. 

You don't need no knife!

Like Japanese yakiniku, there are some sauces used for dipping after the meat comes off the grill. You might have guessed the thick paste was miso, while the almost-clear sauce was a sesame oil/salt mix, and the dark sauce a shoyu/sugar-based dip.

Dipping sauces make any meat happier!

I'm not sure what kind of rice they used, but I was glad to know that it wasn't your normal, cheaper variety. They were fluffy grains with a shiny coat, walking the perfect line between firm and chewy. In a nice restaurant like this, with single yakiniku orders at right around $20, I would be a very un-happy camper if it wasn't so. And have you noticed that the rice at nicer Korean restaurants always come in these cool-looking metal bowls?

 

Often forgotten, rice will always be a star in my book!

The final item on our menu was pa-jeon, a kind of Korean pancake that is actually more similiar to Japanese okonomiyaki. Ours came filled with shrimp and long stalks of green onion, and sitting in a cast-iron plate like a Pizza Hut pan pizza. I love it when they do this - I leave it in the pan for a good while and return later when the bottom is turned into a crispy, browned shell! Fabulous!

 

Korean pancake.

Another thing I love about Korean restaurants, at least the very traditional ones, is that they often serve a sweet cinnamon tea at the end of the meal. Both wifey and mom don't care for it at all, but I love it! I guess after the salty banchan dishes and savory meats, something really sweet just hits the spot, like a good port wine to finish the evening. Those two unidentified floating objects are pine nuts. Not sure what the significance is, but they always come in two's.

 

For a sweet finish!

 
We all left happy and satisfied, except for the smell of the sweet tea that mom and wifey say lingered a little too long - fine by me, though!

The combination of clean, modern dining room, authenticity, and great-tasting food has made Shillawon one of my favorite Korean restaurants. As with other ethnic restaurants, when you see the dining room filled with the host ethnicity, you know you came to the right place! The service is not exactly top-level, but that's to be expected in most Asian restaurants outside of some of the better Japanese restaurants.

I'll leave you all with a parting shot of the entrance. It was too crowded when we came in so I took it at the end.

 

 

As always, bon voyage until the next time! Aloha!

Aku

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