It seems only yesterday I was mourning the end of Naengmyeon season.
Now it’s back. Eun Jeong and I have recently been trying to find a decent Naengmyeon place in our area since our favorite place in Beomgye closed down. A few weeks ago, she suggested a place on Pyeongchon Food Street that was supposedly famous.
This place supported one of my steadfast rules in Korea. If the place is famous, the food sucks. Three times now Eun Jeong has taken me to supposedly famous restaurants. Two of them we had to wait a long time for a table. They’ve all been mediocre at best.
This one Naengmyeon place served one of the worst bowls of Naengmyeon I’ve ever had. There was absolutely no flavor in it. It tasted like water and noodles.
I have eaten my beloved chilled noodles at other places, only to be consistently disappointed. I didn’t know it was so hard to find good Naengmyeon. Eun Jeong and I have finally found another good place. I don’t remember the name, but they specialize in Naengmyeon. They’re on Beomgye’s Rodeo Street (that’s the name of the place next to Beomgye Station), on the second floor in the same building that Dog Table is in, above the Family Mart.
So, yeah, summer is basically here, and I have scored some good Naengmyeon again.
In the past year, some good recipes for chilled Korean noodles have popped up, compared to when I was talking about them last time.
Sue at My Korean Kitchen has two recipes, my favorite Mul Naengmyeon, a playful Bibim Guksu, and Memil Guksu, which is similar to Japanese Soba (my other big favorite).
Evil Jungle Prince has a good recipe for Bibim Naengmyeon, which is the picture at the top.
I still don’t have a decent recipe myself, but I may do more experimentation in the kitchen. The closest thing I’ve made to Naengmyeong is the Western version, Pasta Salad. I’ll have more time for kitchen shenanigans after June, when my weekends shooting shows for EBS are over. I don’t want to post a recipe until I have it just the way I want it.