Seoul Trip 2012: Jjimdak (찜닭)

Korea is a place of many wonderful kinds of things to eat. Every street corner has a restaurant, a cafe or just a small shop for you to just settle in and have a nice meal. However, for every 10 good restaurants available, there will be that one special restaurant that will forever stay in your mind. This is a restaurant which will pop into your mind on and off.

Well, in this case, I totally forgot about the restaurant. I only remember the one single dish that was served. In many cases, I wouldn't have eaten this dish at all. Marcus, who was the unofficially 'tour guide' on our entire trip conveniently forgot that this dish was spicy.

And when I say spicy, I mean murderously spicy.

Jjimdak (찜닭), or 'OH MAN, SOMEONE KILL ME NOW!' is a kind of broth which includes chicken, various vegetables marinated in a ganjang (Korean soy sauce) based sauce and is almost certainly spicy as the spiciest thing you have eaten.

I kid you not, in a short while, I will show you ECF's picture which is a living testament of how incredibly spicy this dish is.

We had the seafood variety, which meant that there were a whole lot of seafood included besides the chicken and the vegetables. In Korea, a seafood dish means a whole lot of seafood and not just one or two prawns with the rare sotong appearing once in a while. The whole dish was packed with seafood. Crabs, mussels, lala, prawns, sotong...you name it. 

The problem with the jjimdak is that it becomes increasingly spicy as you eat it. The more you eat, the more you feel like it just gave birth to a fire dragon in your throat. And yet, the pull of this dish is that you still want more. It's like a new way of torture. You willingly subject yourself to the pain and the torture of the flames and you cannot stop eating. 

 Look closely and you can see tears in my eyes.

ECF was enjoying himself so much. His punishment would come sooner than he expected.

Okay. Here is ECF's picture I promised earlier. This is him after he continued eating while the rest of the Buggers stopped.

If you can look past his distorted face (it's difficult I know), notice his lips. Swollen. 

And because I want to, here is a gif of ECF's tastebuds absolutely getting destroyed.

Of course, if you would like to try this dish, it's not yet available in Malaysia. I've done a check and so far, the spiciness level seems to have deterred Korean restaurants here from making this fiery dish. If you know a place where this dish is sold, please do leave a comment below. We really want to go try it out.

Cheerios!