The Born 새마을식당신사역점, Korean BBQ
Right after I landed from Shanghai, Mr. B brought me to The Born. Not sure how they got “the born” from 새마을식당신사역점, which translates to Village Restaurant or something other. On this cold winter night, we found a tightly packed restaurant full of people enjoying BBQ.
With small round tables with a big grill in the middle, everyone was enjoying a typical Korean meal. This interactive dining experience allows you to cook the meats as much or as little as you want. You could get away will rare or slightly raw beef, to gain a tender taste. But I wouldn’t want to go with anything but well done with chicken, pork, or seafood. Tonight, the two of us pork
Beef which is popular with Koreans is more expensive in Seoul than in the US. I would assume with the lack of cows, since most beef is imported from the US and Australia. Pork, on the other hand, is more popular. We had thinly slice pork slices and thick pork slices (which almost looked like beef). The thin pork slices came out first. The servers helped us by placing the meat, grilling the meat, and practically serving the meat (j/k, but that’d be nice, too).
There’s a couple of ways you eat the meat, which can apply to beef and chicken. The first way is with a leaf piece of lettuce, in which you grab a piece of cooked meat and dip into a sauce and place inside the open lettuce. Then you can, optionally, put a grilled garlic clove, some kimchi, kimchi radishes, and some spicy red paste. Then you roll this bad boy like a mini burrito and place in to pie-hole (mouth). Personally this is my favorite way to eat. Sometime they will also provide a thin rice paper skin. And if you are lazy, just grab it and eat it with rice. Towards the end of the meal, you kinda just grab it and eat, since you either are tired, run out of lettuce, lazy, or the meat has been almost overcooked.
When the large thick pork came out, it looked as if it was a big steak. Unfortunately, I did not remember what part of the pig this was from. When it was almost done cooking, the server came over and brought over these large scissors or shears to make bite-sized chunks. Another thing I forgot to mention, was the dipping sauces. You get a small bowl of this red spicy paste, which looks deadly, but really isn’t. Then you also get a small bowl of this oil and salt grainy mixture. I personally like the oil/salt dip.
With the adjustable smoke vent, our clothes didn’t quite reek of bbq smell. I thought it was quite a novelty to play around with this silver column smoke sucking contraption.
The Born is a chain of small DIY BBQ restaurants. Its a great little place that does BBQ with a few different types of meat and also serves alcohol – soju and beer. Its a simple place that does a few things well. Another cool thing they had were these large bags. You put your jackets, scarves, beanies, gloves, and anything else that would prohibit you from enjoying your meal in these large bags. The bags are then placed on the ground near your table. You basically protect your gloves from the smell and have a place to put them. Unfortunately, your clothes might get a bit wrinkled.
This meal, or any Korean meal, isn’t complete without some sort of alcohol component. I know Mr. B wouldn’t allow it. Since it was my first night, we polished off 2 bottles of Soju. Soju is a rice based alcohol that has about 16% alcohol. And this was just dinner, before we would head out for a night of fun and more drinking…
When I imagined how much we consumed, I remember a female friend of Mr. B’s mentioned how much she and her girlfriends would eat. She said when we eat – we get down to business and get serious about food. She also boasted about the quantities they would finish and how scary it was. Its kinda funny how girls hide behind the mass amounts of food consumption when guys aren’t around…And I thought we ate a lot…
What to Order: Actually anything…The pork was quite good. What not to Order:
Rating 2 Pigs Price Range 2 $/¥/NT
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새마을식당신사역점 The Born 서울 강남구 신사동 537-2번지 537-2 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul South Korea 02-512-9253 theborn.co.kr
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