Seoul House Yakinuku, Cardiff
As I arrive at Seoul House, I spend some time sat in the car trying to figure out my surroundings. There are barely any signs of life here. A pleasant enough looking guest house has a few windows cracked open but otherwise it’s deathly quiet. The accompanying restaurant next door looks tired, all of the lights are off and had I not emailed ahead to confirm my booking I’d have probably come to the conclusion that it was closed, maybe even permanently so. I persevere, encouraged by some recent-ish posts on tripadvisor of users who have seemingly had a similar experience to mine and are telling me that I should carry on.
I make my way inside, there are wind chimes on the inside of the front door that generate a faint jingle as I tentatively push it open. The floor is mostly made of white gravel, punctuated with paving slabs making for a charming effort at what I assume is an attempt to replicate a Japanese style zen garden. The air is musty, the carpets surrounding the gravel are faded and seemingly at least a couple of decades old. My anxiety, borne entirely out of being a snobby little prince, remains in place right up until I hear some stirring behind the reception desk where a lady by the name of Kang has hurried out from the kitchen to greet us. Kang is the owner, cook and host for our evening and it takes an interaction of a maximum of five seconds long to make me realise I was being a judgmental idiot. I haven’t just come out to a restaurant, I’ve been invited around somebody’s house for my tea, our table has been set well in advance and they’re massively excited to have us.
We tell Kang it’s our first time at Seoul House and so she takes us through every dish on the menu, keen to ensure we order what she considers their very best for our first visit. Gyoza, I suspect are shop bought and cooked from frozen which on this occasion is fine by me especially considering the price and the fact that I could scarf a whole bag of these in one sitting if given half the chance.
Corn cheese is a dish that I’ve seen countless times in various travel and food vlogs from Korea on Youtube. Sweetcorn comes mixed up with mayonnaise, sugar, finely diced onion and pepper and is brought to us in a searingly hot skillet bubbling away with melted butter and a blanket of processed cheese. We leave the corn to cook for a minute or two and for the cheese to melt and the result is a buttery, savoury, sweet interminably comforting mouthful.
There’s Ddukbokki, rice cakes and wavy sponge-like fish cakes to me and you which come swimming in a gloopy sweet, savoury sauce. It is missing some heat which is of detriment to this version of the dish. No such complaints about their kimchi pancake though which brings a creeping heat which is helped along with a side of excellent home made kimchi of which I'm tempted to ask for a bucket full to take home with me.
The yum yum chicken wings are the undoubted star of the show; plump wings tossed in a sweet & tangy yum yum sauce and skillfully retaining that earth shattering crisp that is so synonymous with good Korean fried chicken, you could make a case for building an entire business around them, God knows they’re among the best that I know of in Cardiff. A couple of portions of these, some Kimchi chasers on the side and a few bottles of Cass while watching England get beat in the Euros would make for an all timer evening in.
We decide to take the Yakinuku element through some of its paces and are quickly recommended by Kang to go with the pork belly and beef strips. We order some sides of lettuce, sliced garlic, some gochujang and more of that Kimchi and get to grilling. There’s no doubting the joyful simplicity of freshly barbecued meat and its accoutrement wrapped up in a lettuce leaf, we see the whole lot off in minutes with no regrets. A side of vegetable fried rice has an unmistakable hum of sesame oil coating every grain. It's rice, it's fine and we finish up feeling immensely satisfied with a bill no more than £40 per person including drinks and service.
In case it wasn't clear from the beginning, I can't deny that as I turned up to Seoul House I was tempted to turn on my heels and find somewhere else to eat. Look, there's no denying that the place itself needs some freshening up. The lines between quirky and grubby are blurred in more than a couple of areas but it is what it is and there's a reason why Seoul House has been around for as long as it has and I'd wager a bet that it isn't anything to do with the carpets. So I'll finish this post off by saying is if, like me, you're currently sat in your car and are wondering whether or not you should go in then just do it. Give it a chance and I'm almost certain you won't regret it.
