Restaurant Review: Saeng-ra Myeon OK

I’ve secretly been wanting to write a review of a Kimbap Nara for a while. But writing a review of a particular Kimbap Nara seems a bit ridiculous. The quality of them does vary and I have to say that I don’t think the ones located downtown are the best. Indeed there never seems to be that many people in them. Still, I love Kimbap Naras, so I was pleasantly surprised when I decided to meander through one of those small alleys downtown one evening and came across a restaurant called Saeng-ra-myeon OK. It caught my eye because it had a very “Kimbap Nara-looking” menu to it, and also because there were quite a few people eating inside.

It happened to be around dinner time and I was hungry, so I decided to go in and check it out. As I walked in, a waiter greeted me and showed me to a table.  It had a slightly different feel than a Kimbap Nara, though definitely similar. If anything it felt a little nicer and cleaner. The menu was extensive as it always is at these places and had a multitude of jiggae, ramyeon, and rice dishes among others. I was happy to note that they had a good selection of bibimbap, as it’s my go to option when I eat at these kinds of establishments. They had a variation of bibimbap which I’ve never seen anywhere else called jae-yook (pork) bibimbap. They also had yang-poon, cham-chi, and dol-sot bibimbap. I got the jae-yook bibimbap more out of novelty than anything, for though I expected it would be good, I didn’t think it would match my love for yang-poon bibimbap.

I only had to wait about two minutes before my meal was in front of me. It looked good and my culinary senses began to tingle. I was happy with the amount of pork in the mix, it wasn’t a whole bunch, but about what I expected. It was marinated and chopped into bite size pieces, the way you’d eat it at a bbq restaurant. It also had onions in it, something I’d never come across in bibimbap, The rest of the ingredients were standard: julienned carrot, kosari seaweed, fried egg, courgette (zucchini), bean sprout, and of course steamed rice. I was given a bottle of gochujang (red pepper paste) on the side so I could add my own to taste. I mixed everything together and dug in. It was as good as bibimbap almost always is. The pork definitely gave it a slightly different flavor, which was also helped by the fact that I went easy on the gochujang because the pork was marinated.

If you’re like me and need a fix of Kimbap Nara every now and again, then I recommend Saeng-ra-myeon OK if you find yourself downtown. To find it get onto the street where Megabox is and walk away from the cinema, past the Baskin Robbins and across the intersection. Keep walking until you see Olive Young, it’s a cosmetics store on your left. Directly opposite on the right is an alleyway. You’ll be able to see Saeng-ra-myeon as soon as you start walking down the alleyway, it will be on your right. Most of the food costs 3,000 to 6,000 won, so it’s very affordable.