Taking a pre-first child fine dining trip to Seoul. We booked 3 different * restaurants, the first of which was Soseoul Hannam. The other two were GiwaKang and Eatanic Garden.
From the Michelin Guide:
Inspired by local culinary traditions but dedicated to expressing the modern-day sensibilities of Seoul cuisine, Soseoul Hannam serves up contemporary Korean food using ingredients that are most familiar to the local palate. The chef's creations are an homage to some of the more typical dishes and preparation techniques, including seasoned salads, pan-fried and braised dishes. Kelp chips, rich soybean paste stew, sliced raw fish with gomchwi (Fischer's ragwort) and aged kimchi, and chargrilled webfoot octopus are some of its signature offerings. Embark on a flavorful and refined journey through Korea with this diverse collection of traditional liquors.
As my wife is pregnant, we opted for the sparkling grape juice instead of any alcohol pairing.
Now, onto the course itself. The purpose of this trip to Korea was to experience elevated Korean cuisine.
Overall, I have to say that while the food was tasty except for one dish, the meal did not meet its concept of “expressing the modern-day sensibilities of Seoul cuisine”. Instead, it felt like French cuisine dressed up with Korean ingredients. The second and third appetisers (photos 2-4) were the most Korean dishes of the meal. That second appetiser, in particular, was very delicious: pickled radish and onion wrapped in squid topped with caviar sitting on a crispy nori disk. I was told that the third appetiser: white gujeoulpan, is supposedly the signature dish of the restaurant, was particularly disappointing. We were told to wrap all the condiments together and eat it at once, split into three wraps, but that made it taste like eating three of the same dish in a row. Moreover, the flavour was very subtle, and I was getting bored of the dish by the end of the third wrap.
The dish in picture 10 was terrible. The tilefish was seared to perfection, the seaweed broth excellent, and the scallops were wonderful. However, they decided to add uni to this dish. Uni is one of those ingredients that can either make or break a dish because of its strong flavouring. This ranks as one of the worst unis I’ve ever eaten in my life at any fine dining establishment. The uni was over processed with chemicals, which helps the longevity of the ingredient, but gives the uni a nasty pungent fishy smell. It tasted like the uni that I could get at my local supermarket in Tokyo, maybe even worse. I would say that while the rest of the dish was fine, the uni was borderline inedible.
The rest of the meal felt like eating French food with Korean flavours. While tasty, it was disappointing for us as we wanted to have elevated Korean cuisine.
Now for the plating and service, we found Soseoul Hannam extremely lacking. There were mosquitoes and/or other bugs flying around in the restaurant the entire evening. I understand that the restaurant is on the B1F and therefore some bugs may get in, but it was multiple bugs encircling us the entire night and it was a distraction. The cutlery provided were not appropriate for the dishes that were served for multiple dishes. For example, you can see in the first picture: a soup, we were given spoon and chopsticks, but the chopsticks were not necessary for this dish at all. Meanwhile, in picture 11, they gave us spoon and chopsticks, but no knife, for the beef dish, even though the slices of beef were too large to consume in a single bite, while the spoon is entirely unnecessary to eat this dish. I usually don’t think too much about the type of cutlery provided, but this was very confusing to me and I had difficulty eating multiple dishes with the cutlery provided.
The waiter was also not great at explaining the dishes. He was able to tell us “what” the dish was, but not “why” the dish was. The gojoeulpan, with its eight condiments, is a traditional Korean dish, but he was struggling to explain the significance of why there were eight condiments, which was disappointing from a storytelling perspective. I asked where they got the uni from in the tilefish meal, and what kind of uni it was, but he wasn’t able to respond and had to check with the chef. Even after that, he was only able to tell me that it was Hokkaido uni, but did not know the type of uni. Really disappointing that at a fine dining restaurant, where the ingredients matter, this basic question wasn’t able to be answered. On my reservation, I ordered a strawberry tart (W25,000), but was given rice cake (W15,000) instead. The rice cake was tasty, so I wasn’t mad about it, but it was not what we had ordered and no explanation was given for the swap.
The most atrocious part of the service, however, came at the end, when the waiter handed me the bill as I was still working through the dessert. I was stunned, really terrible service.
On the service, there was one lady, not our main waiter, who was very nice. We liked her a lot.
We paid a total of W625,000, including the rice cake and the sparkling grape juice.
Verdict: The restaurant has an interesting concept, but was executed in a confused manner and ultimately it was a concept that was not met, which resulted in a mostly French cuisine experience. The food was fine for the most part except one dish that was ruined by a single ingredient. The service was stunningly unacceptable, though there was one lady waiter who was exceptional. Would not repeat.
Food: 7.5/10
Service: 5/10
by nazomawarisan