Samgyeopsal

[pronounced ssahm-gyeop-ssahl] Pork belly cooked at your table. Every time I have had this, it has been a little different. Variations include types of lettuce leaves, ban-chan (side dish) accompaniment, and dipping sauce options. Goes well with soju and domestic draft beer.

Koreans love to eat this. It is cheap -- much cheaper than beef. There is also something very socializing about eating this food and Korean food in general. Someone always takes charge of manning the meat -- flipping the fatty slices to achieve a balance of crispiness and juiciness, cutting up the long slices into bite-sized portions, and pushing the ready pieces over to your friend's side of the grill so they can easily eat up. If you really love them, you could even put some on their plate. Koreans also never pour their own drinks. Dining companions always watch each other's cups to make sure they are not empty.

Oh yeah, here's the usual order of events:
1. Meat is grilled and ban-chan is nibbled upon.
2. Meat and leaves are eaten together.
3. Rice and some kind of thick soup is served (btw, there are 3 words for soup which describe varying levels of liquid thickness -- tang, jjigae, and gook).

Kimchi placed on slight decline to catch dripping fat juice.


Mid-cooking. My hands were shaking, was so excited.


Basic leaves with which one wraps the cooked meat and desired sauce/kimchi/garlic combinations. Sesame leaves are particularly nice with samgyeopsal.

At this place, the restaurant proprieter cut up any leftover meat and fat-covered kimchi to make a most delicious fried rice on the grill, topped with cheese (!!) and roe. Nom nom.

Btw, three people ate and drank to their hearts content for about 20 USD.