Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2024

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After a few years' absence, I'm back catching up with chef friends at the awards ceremony for Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Aqua Panna. This year Seoul plays host to the awards, bringing in chefs, restauranteurs, KOLs, groupies, and wannabes to the large metropolis. Most of us having been eating our way around town, but we've finally arrived at the main event.

Of course many people take pictures to commemorate the occasion, especially chefs. After a few years of trying, Hong Kong team finally got their act together to take a group picture. This year there are 6 restaurants in the top 50, plus another 6 in the back 50 - which is a slight improvement over last year.

50 Best and then some day 6: piggy feast

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At an event a few days ago, Mikacina introduced me to the owner behind Geumdwaeji Sikdang (금돼지식당), the famous "Gold Pig". The place is apparently very famous, and came highly recommended by my friends including Kutsuyama, who has been there and could vouch for how tasty the food is. Well, OF COURSE Gastronaut and I were dying to go, so strings were pulled and we got ourselves seats for lunch today - without needing to line up outside the no-reservation restaurant. I was really looking forward to lunch today.

I was not too surprised this morning when I got a message from Gastronaut, informing me of a sudden engagement on his side. He won't be joining me for lunch, but others will take his place. I'll be lunching with his chef friends.

I saw a group of people lined up outside the restaurant entrance when I arrived, but the others were already upstairs on the top floor. At my table were Chef Edward Chong of Peach Blossoms (鴻桃軒) in Singapore along with family and team. As I was the last one to arrive and the boss had already set us up with a selection of goodies, Britney arrived shortly and began her introduction to the different pork we would be having.

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50 Best and then some day 5: handsome chef, beautiful cuisine

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This was one of my most-anticipated meals for the trip. I had heard pretty positive feedback about the cuisine at Eatanic Garden, although I hadn't done too much homework to know what to expect. I did hear from Mikacina that Chef Son Jong-won is very handsome, and she had wanted the opportunity to introduce him to Kutsuyama.

Well... I'm here with Kutsuyama tonight but Chef Son is nowhere to be found. Of course, I did make the mistake of booking the restaurant on the same evening as the Chefs' Feast being held for Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, and this is the time when no chef from any decent restaurant in town would be in his or her kitchen. So... Kutsuyama would have to find another opportunity to meet the handsome chef.

As I'm not here with the love of my life, I did not book Kutsuyama and I into one of the window-facing loveseats with spectacular views of the city. As I was being taken to be seated at the large, U-shaped "Chef's Table", I was greeted by that annoying yet familiar voice belong to none other than PR8.

FUCK. I have to sit through an entire dinner in close proximity to HIM?!

So, yeah... half the counter is filled by people from Hong Kong, including Juve Fan and, of course, Giona. In fact, I don't think any of the diners at the Chef's Table was local - other than my date.

As each course is served, a card is placed in front of us, with a drawing on one side, along with a blurb on the ingredient drawn that comes from a staff member.

Our welcome drink was made with birch (presumbly the bark?) as well as some "spring flowers". The flavors were, not surprisingly, very, very, very light.

50 Best and then some day 5: delicious tripe

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I really messed up my itinerary today.

Besides all the eating I had planned for this trip, I really wanted to do some sightseeing around Seoul. Having explored a couple of palaces within city limits on my previous trips, I figured I should look for something outside but not too far away. Namhansanseong (남한산성) Palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that's just outside the city, and it's only a short trip from my hotel in Gangnam. Since I hadn't booked anything for lunch today, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to go for a visit.

Well... while the park is open year-round, the palace within the grounds is closed on Mondays. So... I guess no sightseeing for me.

Instead, I met up with RAW Yeah for coffee this morning. He was incredibly kind to have picked up something from Foursheets in Hong Kong to pass to me, and we ended up hanging out for a little bit at Peer Coffee inside Starfield COEX Mall. As a lover of Ethiopian Yirgecheffe coffee, this pour-over from Haru Suke was right up my alley.

50 Best and then some day 4: I'll Remember You

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After our very big lunch, the Man in White T-shirt decided to accompany me on my hunt for cute clothing for our CCDogcow. I had seen a few recommendations for Café Bite Me, and their online shop had a lot of cool stuff, but unfortunately the physical location was mostly a pet cafe with some pet supplies. Most of the nice clothing had to be purchased online. That was disappointing.

My day got a little worse when I returned to my room at Shilla Stay Samsung to discover that the temperature was 30°C inside. Apparently the hotel does not turn on the cooling function in winter, so instead of lowering the thermostat to a more reasonable temperature, my only choice was to keep the heating on or turn it off... WTF.

Well, this made me somewhat look forward to getting out of my room for dinner, some 3 hours after the end of my big lunch. I thought there was an event I didn't know about at Vinho (빈호), a wine bar which had recently gotten themselves a little macaron. As it turns out, the Man in White T-shirt wanted to check out the place and simply asked me to join him.

With a name like Vinho, I thought there was some Portuguese connection to this wine bar. The reality is that co-proprietors Jeon Seong-bin and Kim Jin-ho wanted to name the place after themselves, so "Bin" and "Ho" together made for vinho. I guess that works, too...

The setup here - with a long, C-shaped counter around the open kitchen - reminded us a little of the old Florilège... which was where Jin-ho spent some time. There's a 2-hour period at the start of the evening where a tasting menu is served, but then it becomes a casual, bar-like service where ordering is à la carte. As the two of us arrived somewhat early, we would be trying out the whole tasting menu.

Clam - the clam came with mini cucumbers, oriental melon (참외), and pickled miyeok (미역) - the latter of which provided both umami and acidity. The creamy sauce was made with peanuts and had a slightly grainy texture, and this was meant to evoke the classic dish of kongguksu (콩국수).