Asian in a Strange Land

Seoul Restaurant

One last post about my trip to the coast.  On my way out I stopped at Seoul Restaurant–unsurprisingly a Korean restaurant.  It’s just one turn off the main drag in Biloxi, but when you drive down the street it’s on you might wonder like me if you’re on the right street at all since you drive through a residential area to get to it.  Just keep driving for a bit, cross the train tracks, and it’s on the other side of the tracks on the left.

I believe this is the first Korean restaurant I’ve ever been to.  To my knowledge there isn’t one in Jackson (please correct me if I’m mistaken–I’d love to go to one here), and I didn’t know much about Seoul Restaurant before I went other than a couple visitor reviews online, so for me this was a bit of a gamble but one I was excited to take.  I’m not one to throw my money away at the casinos, but I’ll bet on good food any day.

Appetizers/sides/condiments

I am not at all knowledgeable about Korean food.  My main exposure to Korean food is bulgogi (Korean barbeque that my mom used to make) and kimchi (most famous Korean dish, fermented cabbage).  So when this awesome spread of appetizers/sides/condiments came out before the main dish I knew I had to consult my sister to identify all of the dishes, since she’s a nut about all things Korean.

Courtesy of Susie, here’s everything starting from the top, left to right: pickled cucumber, cabbage kimchi, fern stems, raddish kimchi, fish cakes, zucchini kimchi, bean sprouts.  Of all of these, I’d only ever had cabbage kimchi and didn’t know there were so many varieties of kimchi, so this was all kinds of new to me.  If I remember correctly, my favorites were the kimchi dishes, and in particular I enjoyed the zucchini variant.  Pickled zucchini was good too, but then again I just like zucchini in general.  The fish cakes were splendidly fishy in that fermented fish kind of way, which admittedly is an acquired taste–Denise still wrinkles her nose at my Squid brand fish sauce.  I think I ended up eating up everything (or packing leftovers in the carry-out box) except for the fern stems, which I wasn’t crazy about.

Jab-Chae

Being the complete Korean food novice that I am, I had to call Susie to figure out what to order.  I thought about bulgogi but decided I wanted to try something new so I ended up with Jab-Chae, which is described on the menu as “Yam noodles mixed with vegetables and meat”.  I was apprehensive about the yam component since I’m not a big fan, but Susie reassured me that it wouldn’t taste like I expect yams to taste.

Glad I got it, because it was terrific.  Noodles, beef, bell peppers, zucchini, green onions, eggs, in a spicy, savory sauce.  Good, good stuff.  The noodles had the same translucent quality of Chinese cellophane noodles but had a bit more chewiness to them, I think owing to their extra thickness compared to typical cellophane noodles.

Jab-Chae on rice

My only regret is that I didn’t order another dish to try because a) I ate lunch at 2 and was at Seoul Restaurant at about 5 so I was still full-ish, and b) I was alone so I didn’t want to be a total pig.  Should’ve ordered another dish anyway.  Who knows when my next visit to a Korean restaurant will be?  Oh well.

So a big thumbs-up to Seoul Restaurant.  If you live in the area or make it down to the Mississippi gulf coast, give them a try.  I’ve heard it said that Korean food is one of the most underrated cuisines in the world, and I’m starting to believe it.

Seoul Restaurant
207 Iberville Dr Ste A,
Biloxi, MS
(228) 432-8801

Hours according to the info on their front door:
Mon-Fri, 10:30 – 9:00p
Sat, 12 – 9:00p