Advice for the Korea-focused
Pro A host of authentic flavours to explore.
Con Hard to find one, but it's not the cheapest option.
Pay
€€€
Per Person €30 Two dishes, dessert, two beers. El tenedor discount may be available. Booking at weekends advisable. Gratis: two palatte cleansing salads.
Yummometer
Low High
Find
Website On El Tenedor
Access Step free entry.
In Short
Hopes. Seoul food!
Reality. Success. Feels authentic, plenty of native-speaker customers.
First Impressions. Colourful, if a little chilly with windows open after a wet autumn morning.
USP? The Korean Corner in Noviciado.
The offer in three words. Flavours feel right.
Service! Friendly happy family atmosphere.
Friend friendly? A good range of different tastes catered for.
Rating for dating. Got potential.
Tip? Yes.
Change one thing? Better pork cuts.
Revisitability. High.
Compare & Contrast
Nearby - an authentic-feeling taste of China at The Hero.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
And here we go - Korean lunch. No messing about, we had a good time and are planning to go back before too long.
Once upon a time, many years ago, this spot was a bar of no great repute. Like much of the street, this Noviciado corner's transformed. The decor is on the randomly demented side of eclectic, like a scrap dealer married an art student. There's a monochrome mural of hand gestures on a wall, left from its previous life as the Zombie bar. An old street lamp hangs in front of that and, nearby, there's an ancient metal clock that looks like an iron cuckoo is about to leap out and thwack you on the head. Dining furniture is eclectically old and modern mixed. Boho-posh meets shabby-chic and gives birth to...poshabby? Coming to a style guide near you, tout de suite.
An impressive, glossy menu, looking like a BMW brochure, gave us plenty to think about. Halogen rings embedded in the tables speak of hotpots and griddling. In fact, the menu gave us too much to wrap our heads round, so we gave up on method and plumped, a tad randomly, for four dishes that sounded interesting.
Crispy pork bites came with a spicy chilli sauce. If you're new to it, as a catchup think of it as acidic chilli ketchup. Made even better by a spicy kick in the batter, they make a good sharing plate for meat eaters. The pork itself could do with fewer chewy bits, mind.
A cumin lamb dish came in for split opinions. Sliced as finely as ham, so after cooking the lamb had an unusual texture. One of us liked it and got a punchy hit of the cumin, the other not. In any case, it's not a hot dish, but a spiced one. True, cumin and lamb isn't a combination you might think of instantly. The various vegetables were excellent; perfectly cooked, with a bouncy, healthy crunch and flavour fully intact. They were given extra feistiness by the cumin component.
Lurking behind the lamb in the last photo is delicious, moreish kimchi rice.Its slight creaminess set off the spiced lamb. The cabbage had kept its squeeky crunch. The rice itelf was lightly spiced. We're ordering this one again. An excellent surprise was the delivery of two palette cleansing salads, in one-person portions. Shredded cabbage with chilli flakes turned out to be the spiciest dish of the day.
For the benefit of too many coffee shops in town, we're going to aim for the bleedin' obvious of the week award. A PSA in poetry form, if you will.
On the left, mango cake, matcha melaleuca . A creamy, mascarpone texture studded with chewy mango chunks. Another entirely new but enjoyable match-up. On the right, two very distinctive ice-creams in mochi. The green tea intensified in flavour as we went, and bitter tea will be an acquired taste for some. The acidic fruity but still creamy mango was terrific and got unanimous approval. A few scattered pomegranate seeds and some bitter water melon were welcome additions.
Service was helpful and aimiable, although the entire waiting staff seemed to disappear for about 10 minutes at one point. Still, everything came quickly, fresh off the cooker, with helpful advice about ingredients, too. We'd recommend something dried and crispy or crunchy to go with the menu planning would set things up very nicely with the early beers.
We shall return, to play with those halogen rings.
Pro A host of authentic flavours to explore.
Con Hard to find one, but it's not the cheapest option.
Pay
€€€
Per Person €30 Two dishes, dessert, two beers. El tenedor discount may be available. Booking at weekends advisable. Gratis: two palatte cleansing salads.
Yummometer
Low High
Find
Website On El Tenedor
Access Step free entry.
In Short
Hopes. Seoul food!
Reality. Success. Feels authentic, plenty of native-speaker customers.
First Impressions. Colourful, if a little chilly with windows open after a wet autumn morning.
USP? The Korean Corner in Noviciado.
The offer in three words. Flavours feel right.
Service! Friendly happy family atmosphere.
Friend friendly? A good range of different tastes catered for.
Rating for dating. Got potential.
Tip? Yes.
Change one thing? Better pork cuts.
Revisitability. High.
Compare & Contrast
Nearby - an authentic-feeling taste of China at The Hero.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
And here we go - Korean lunch. No messing about, we had a good time and are planning to go back before too long.
Once upon a time, many years ago, this spot was a bar of no great repute. Like much of the street, this Noviciado corner's transformed. The decor is on the randomly demented side of eclectic, like a scrap dealer married an art student. There's a monochrome mural of hand gestures on a wall, left from its previous life as the Zombie bar. An old street lamp hangs in front of that and, nearby, there's an ancient metal clock that looks like an iron cuckoo is about to leap out and thwack you on the head. Dining furniture is eclectically old and modern mixed. Boho-posh meets shabby-chic and gives birth to...poshabby? Coming to a style guide near you, tout de suite.
An impressive, glossy menu, looking like a BMW brochure, gave us plenty to think about. Halogen rings embedded in the tables speak of hotpots and griddling. In fact, the menu gave us too much to wrap our heads round, so we gave up on method and plumped, a tad randomly, for four dishes that sounded interesting.
We'd used our noddles and ordered noodles, which came first. Oodles of fine, transparent noodles, in fact. We had a hunch there'd be a bunch of crunch from the vegetables for us to munch at the start of lunch. Lots of soy made them flavoursome. And gave them punch. Good informal appetiser material.
Crispy pork bites came with a spicy chilli sauce. If you're new to it, as a catchup think of it as acidic chilli ketchup. Made even better by a spicy kick in the batter, they make a good sharing plate for meat eaters. The pork itself could do with fewer chewy bits, mind.
A cumin lamb dish came in for split opinions. Sliced as finely as ham, so after cooking the lamb had an unusual texture. One of us liked it and got a punchy hit of the cumin, the other not. In any case, it's not a hot dish, but a spiced one. True, cumin and lamb isn't a combination you might think of instantly. The various vegetables were excellent; perfectly cooked, with a bouncy, healthy crunch and flavour fully intact. They were given extra feistiness by the cumin component.
Lurking behind the lamb in the last photo is delicious, moreish kimchi rice.Its slight creaminess set off the spiced lamb. The cabbage had kept its squeeky crunch. The rice itelf was lightly spiced. We're ordering this one again. An excellent surprise was the delivery of two palette cleansing salads, in one-person portions. Shredded cabbage with chilli flakes turned out to be the spiciest dish of the day.
For the benefit of too many coffee shops in town, we're going to aim for the bleedin' obvious of the week award. A PSA in poetry form, if you will.
Coffee & CucumberKorean desserts are new to us. In the spirit of enquiry, honest journalism and not sheer greed by any stretch of the imagination, we tried two.
by H. Madrid
Cucumber, coriander and chilli.
They're a nice salad.
But they make drinking water taste weird.
Really.
No, really.
That's it.
On the left, mango cake, matcha melaleuca . A creamy, mascarpone texture studded with chewy mango chunks. Another entirely new but enjoyable match-up. On the right, two very distinctive ice-creams in mochi. The green tea intensified in flavour as we went, and bitter tea will be an acquired taste for some. The acidic fruity but still creamy mango was terrific and got unanimous approval. A few scattered pomegranate seeds and some bitter water melon were welcome additions.
Service was helpful and aimiable, although the entire waiting staff seemed to disappear for about 10 minutes at one point. Still, everything came quickly, fresh off the cooker, with helpful advice about ingredients, too. We'd recommend something dried and crispy or crunchy to go with the menu planning would set things up very nicely with the early beers.
We shall return, to play with those halogen rings.