Conquered By Korean Barbeque

It was last month. Yes, 7th June. The week when DuanWu Festival took place.

Citygal and I went back to hometown (separately) for some scrumptious rice dumplings that week and the excited J2Kfm “booked” both of us for lunch on Saturday. While I humbly confessed that I’m slowly drifting apart from the new eateries in Ipoh, J2Kfm suggested what we do Korean BBQ. Such a great idea (I was still pretty much a Korean BBQ’s virgin, that’s why).

If not mistaken, this is the ONLY place to have Korean cuisine in Ipoh. Few establishments blossomed before but all closed down. The airy interior of Yea Won soothes our bodies and surprisingly, there’s no evidence of smoky atmosphere eventhough no exhaust fans provided above the dining tables. Choose to sit at either normal dining table or an elevated floor which requires you to take off your shoes.

I was told that barley tea is a common drink in Korea, hence we also had a jug of it for ourselves, RM 3. It tastes pretty much like our local Chinese tea but with a smoother aroma and flavour.

I’m also have no idea whether these side dishes called banchan or panchan are supposed to be served, regardless which main course you ordered or they are served to every tables. There are about 6 types of banchan served, which include kimchi, muchae (white radish with chilli peppers), the highly suspected Gyeran-jjim (steamed eggs in tofu shape) and salad with mayo dressing.

We want something spicy, so we opted for the Spicy Cold Noodles, RM 20, which came in brown-coloured noodle (buckwheat suspected but no further confirmation), topped with kimchi, seasoned cucumber slices, radish, hard-boiled egg and spicy chilli gravy. But maybe partly it’s our mistake – we didn’t inform the lady to serve this at the end of meal, so the noodle came when we were busy with our BBQ and none of us paid attention to it. When we digged into the noodles after that, it stucked together in a big lump. Not a problem, really, as the noodle was still cold (not cold as room temperature but more like chilled). Tastewise, it was a bit too spicy for me.

Dipping sauce and condiments for the BBQ. Upper left is something like salt and pepper, upper right one tastes like taucu (fermented bean sauce). We have no idea what is the one in the biggest bowl. It looks like some radish in soy sauce.

The Mo Dem BBQ set, RM 50 for 2 person, consists of pork cutlets, some enoki mushrooms, and er… onions. The staff there took the initiative to grill the meat for us, so we just continue with our conversations and munching on banchan (we wanted to do it ourselves actually, really). The meat were not marinated but you can eat them with the dipping sauces and leafy greens.

And lastly, some Korean Fried Rice Cakes, RM 13, in red pepper sauce which is quite a letdown. The rice cakes were kinda thick and chewy, while the sauce is bland.

Apart from the above items, we spied that they also serve bibimbap and Korean porridge too. Shall drop by again next time, considering the food were not bad and there’s no service charge/government tax charge.

Restoran Korea Yea Won
6, Jalan Medan Ipoh 1C,
Medan Ipoh Bistari,
31400 Ipoh, Perak.

Tel: 05-546 5779
(Not sure of the operating hours but they closes at 3pm for break and reopen at 6pm for dinner)

Read this, in case you haven’t.

• Motormouth From Ipoh