Asadal Korean Restaurant

Overall 4/5

 Great atmosphere, great for sharing and taking part in a new dining experience. 

Asadal Menu

Now, I live and have lived in Holborn previously for over a year but managed to brush past this gem of a restaurant. Located right next the to the tube, it is easily missed until you smell the aroma of intensely appetising food, tempting you inside. It is also a great sign when the customers are coming out telling you, you need to go in and I assure you they are not wrong. Expect to queue to get a table unless you have booked in advance, but again this is just another sign of the restaurants popularity and the restaurant is worth the wait.

This place is great for an entertaining and interactive meal, the tables have there own gas heated cookers in the middle, which are used for their popular BQQ meat meals.

Appetisers sampled included the  "Man Du soup" handmade dumpling soup- which had three handmade dumplings and pieces of egg in a steamy broth. The star however was "Pa Jeon", pancake made of egg, wheat and rice flour, pan fried with spring onions, oysters, muscles, prawn and squid. I find the English often overlook the different uses of pancakes and its ability to create a variety of dishes and be mixed with a large array of ingredients. These we both soft and crispy with different textures from the seafood.

The main dishes were the shows stoppers, although I feel the "Sam Gae Tang", Whole baby chicken stuffed with sticky rice, dates, ginseng, chestnuts, garlic slowed cooked and served in a broth, was a little disappointing in flavour, as it lacked much oomph and can only be described as boiled chicken.

However, I throughly reccommend the "Yu Khei Bibimbab" one of Koreas most popular dishes, consisting of rice topped with fresh and cooked vegetables, red chilli paste and raw beef. This is then mixed together by a very attentive server, which allows the meat and vegetables to cook together in the hot stone bowl and create a "harmony" of flavours.

The idea of Korean food is to bring diners together, to use food to socialise, as they believe sharing food with others is a way to experience love and togetherness. I throughly agree with this and believe the restaurant and atmosphere helps accentuate this message. The BQQ section is focused on sharing an inmate meal using your fingers and getting stuck in with the atmosphere of the place. The "Joo Moo Luk Kui"slices of sirloin seasoned with sesame oil and garlic, was full of flavour.

The waiter prepared the meat to medium rare as requested and then demonstrated how to eat the meal. You begin with a lettuce leaf and using the back of a spoon, dip it in bean paste then spread on the lettuce. Then dip the meat in sesame oil and wrap together. Now the waiter told me I had to shallow it in one go as that is how it is eaten in Korea. Though I had my doubts and decided to chew my food. It was very good all the same.

This restaurant ticks the right boxes for me and my first real experience of Korean food, was definitely a successful and enjoyable one. 

Chinese Pork Dumplings

Finally, I have made chinese dumplings, successfully! 

These were really great, I impressed myself! Now I won't lie, I had a little help with a sous-chef (thank you) but the actual idea of these parcels is very simple.

Firstly, all you need for the dumpling dough is plain-flour and hot water... what could be easier? 

Secondly, you don't even need to cook the filling separately, just put all the ingredients in a bowl, then add 2tsp's to make each dumpling and cook together. 

The only thing to bare in mind with these dumplings is that they are time consuming, especially if its your first time making them. As rolling out each dumpling and forming them takes some time. With practice though, i'm sure it would become a lot quicker. They are also 100% worth the effort! 

I learnt from a little cafe near Fudan University in Shanghai, to serve dumplings simply, with a mixture of soy sauce and dried chilli flakes. 

The recipe I have taken from Ken Hom because he is awesome. While we are on that topic, I would like to recommend a program to watch: "Eat, Drink, Cook China", with Ken and my favourite Ching-He Huang. It allows you to experience the real China, exploring the different areas with their own specific tastes, flavours and cooking styles. It helped me to remember my journey through China and thats when you know its a good program. 

Anyway, moving on to the job at hand, here is the recipe:

Dough:

- 140g/5oz Plain flour

- 125ml/4fl oz Very hot water

Stuffing:

- 110g/4oz Minced Pork 

- 75g/3oz Spinach (or chinese leaves) finely chopped

- 1 tsp Ginger, grated

- 1/2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (not essential, I couldn't find it in the supermarket)

- 1/2 tbsp Dark Soy sauce

- 1/2 tsp Light Soy sauce

- 1/2 tsp Salt

- 1/4 tsp Black pepper

- 1 1/2 Spring onions, finely chopped

- 1 tsp sesame oil

- 1/2 tsp sugar

- 1tbsp cold chicken stock 

Method for the Dough:

1) Mix flour and water 

2) Knead until smooth - about 8 minutes

3) Return to the bowl and cover with a clean damp towel to rest for 20 minutes

Method for Filling:

4) While the dough is resting, combine all the stuffing ingredients and mix together

Forming the dumplings:

5) After resting, knead again for a couple minutes

6) Then shape into a long sausage about 23cm long and 2.5cm diameter

7) Cut into 18 equal sized pieces 

8) Roll each into a ball and roll out to a 9cm diameter circle/pancake

9) Put the circles onto a flour surface, ready to fill.

10) Place two teaspoons of filling in the centre of each pancake and moisten one edge with water.

11) For an easy pinching method, just pinch each edge together (will resemble a small cornish pasty)

12) Another method is pleating one side (as used in the pictures) 

Cooking the dumplings:

I used two methods:

1) Ken Homs method:

Heat a large lidded frying pan with groundnut oil and add the dumplings.

Cook for two minutes

Add water and cover to simmer gently for 12 minutes.

2) Steam the dumplings using a vegetable steamer (or preferably a chinese bamboo steamer) for about 15minutes. 

Both myself and my sous chef, preferred the dumplings that were steamed (sorry Ken) as they were a bit tougher and held together well.