Asadal

Went to Asadal Korean restaurant in Holborn last night. I'm a big fan of crazy asian food and it doesn't come more crazy or more asian than Korean. Its hard not to be blase about Chinese food, both because it is so ubiquitous and generally of such poor quality. The weirdness and foibles of Japanese and Chinese cooking are pretty widely known now and so hold little excitement. Having said that, last year I went to Bar Shu in Soho and had this cauldron of incredibly spicy Szechuan ducks blood stew with liver, tripe, brain, kitchen sink etc that was pretty stupefying. I was hoping to give the Korean names for what I ate last night but I'm a victim of the worlds most poitnlessly aggressive web filtering system and a Korean Menu is apparently a 'Dangerous File' and my IT department have been alerted (pity for a moment the poor IT department gremlins who have to register my daily incursions into outlawed territory, bearing in mind I'm the sort of person who thinks 'hmmmm 'horse shags baby', I wonder what that looks like' and our system classes Craig's List as pornography).

Anywho we started off with a Kimchi selection which was great - tasty and spicy, probably the best I've ever had (which isn't saying much as most Kimchi I eat comes out of jars/bottles/packets/bins). We then all shared a 'large' seafood barbeque which was cooked at the table. I guess if you ate the whole thing yourself you'd be reasonably full but it wasn't exactly a groaning tray of libidinous temptation. I followed it up with some cold noodles in spicy sauce, which were £8 ... a bit steep for unidentified vegetable, noodles, half a boiled egg and some 'spicy' sauce. It was spicy in the same way that crisps are 'spicy' - there's some bizarre flavour going on but no actual evidence of chilli. All in all it was pretty good although a little over priced. I definitely could have ordered better (Brittany had this amazing looking bowl of salad, rice and raw salmon) and if I wasn't a stupid vegetarian there were some very exciting raw beef options.

I probably wouldn't go back, there are casseroles as mains that cost £30! Thats the cost of a three course set lunch at one of Gordon Ramsey's places. With most food I want to eat like a local peasant - tasty, fresh and cheap. So easy to achieve with Korean where ingrediants such as cabbage and chilli cost virtually nothing (especially if weighed up against how delicious they are) and I don't really see where the massive cost comes in. I might be getting a job in Kazakhstan and have read that there is a large Korean population there and many restaurants. VERY exciting.