Restaurant Review: Galmaegisal at Seo-rae

I recently met up with some friends in the Chonnam University back gate area to eat galmaegisal for dinner at a place called Seo-rae. Galmaegisal is pork and is a variation of Korean BBQ. The name translates to what would be called skirt meat in English. When we’re talking about skirt meat we are talking about the area between a pig’s liver and midriff.

We got to the restaurant and were pretty promptly seated. It was a Saturday evening, and I took it as a good sign that it was packed with happy patrons when we got there. We were actually lucky to get a table.

There was no messing around with ordering, we knew what we were getting and ordered two plates of galmaegi for the 6 of us, one plate between three people, according to the waitress’s recommendation.

We promptly received our plates of raw, uncooked pork, put them on our grills and got our cook on. As far as I could tell the meat was not marinated in anything, which I liked, as it let the full flavor of the meat come through. The pieces of meat were quite chunky (as opposed to samgyeopsal, which is much thinner), like bite-sized pieces of steak. On each piece, there was a decent amount of meat and not too much fat.

I ate a couple of pieces first because I like to eat my meat quite rare, and I was immediately impressed with the delicious flavor and tenderness of the pork. I ate my first piece simply with a bit of the sauce that accompanied it. The sauce could only be described as a very mild gochujang, and it complimented the pork really well. We thought one plate was more suitable for two people and so ordered another plate when we had finished what we initially ordered. One plate of 500 grams of galmaegisal is 15,000 won, so the price isn’t prohibitive when you consider you will be sharing it between two or three people.

Everybody was thanking the member of our group who’d already been to Seo-rae before, and had thus recommended it when we were discussing places to eat. I was really happy to have eaten there. One complaint I would have is that unlike other varieties of Korean BBQ, galmaegisal is quite light on the side dishes, or at least this restaurant was anyway. There weren’t any lettuce leaves to eat the pork with and so we ate it with steamed rice and the aforementioned sauce.

Regardless, it’s a great place to try at least once. There is an abundance of BBQ places to dine at, near Chonnam’s back gate, so next time you’re there, I can thoroughly recommend Seo-rae as a place to go, especially if you haven’t tried galmaegisal before.

To get to Seo-rae, go the Paris Baguette on the opposite side of the street from Chonnam’s back gate. The Paris Baguette is on the corner of a street, go along that street about 60 meters and take your first left. Then go about 20 meters and take your first right. Go along a few meters and Seo-rae is on your right.