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Don’t Mean a Thing If It Don’t Have That Zing

After a month of absolutely spiceless food, I went to my first Korean restaurant last night since moving to Spain. It was generally agreed upon by my group (of about eight Koreans and Korean-hyphenates) that it was one of just two decent Korean restaurants in Barcelona. Someone claimed there were only around 12 Korean restaurants in all of Spain… I have no idea, but there are not a lot.

Anyhow, the food. We went to a restaurant called Sangil, in the Gracia part of Barcelona. First of all, the food was basic but quite good. I had the yugaejang, and the ingredients were fresh, the broth reasonably spicy. There was not a lot of banchan, but what they had was pretty good. We even split a little soju (which sported a Jeonju International Film Festival label on the back, giving us some idea how old it was). All in all, a nice refresher in Korean food.

But the prices, yikes. Nearly everything on the menu was 12-15 euros — that is well over 20,000 won, for a basic Korean lunch, the kind of thing that is usually around 5,000 won in Seoul Even the Jajangmyeon was over 12 euros. Jajangmyeon? Bizarre. And the galbi dishes were much more. I knew I was going to have to pay a premium for Korean food over here, but that was a little surprising.

Oh well, at least the won is getting a little stronger against the euro at the moment…

3 Comments

  1. Edward

    You poor thing!… you are addicted to Korean food now! 12 Euros is like 20 U.S. bucks! For jajangmyeon?

    That’s desperation buddy!

    I got some crack cocaine for sale, $80 US an ounce… 😉

  2. Anonymous

    The price in Spain is ridiculous but hey, that’s the same as any other EU countries except London area where probably bit less.

    I’ve seen more than 3 Korean restaurant in Las Palmas. Please count them in. They look like running a business with some sort of Japanese which I don’t really mind.

    Forget about Kimchi and enjoy Paella. That’s much more sensible way of new life at the bigining.

  3. London Korean Links

    I wonder what paella tastes like with gochujang stirred in ^^

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