Hanwoo on the Darkside

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Having decided to skip the festivities for Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in Seoul this year, I missed out on the big 10th anniversary party put on by Born and Bred. Thankfully, I got an invitation for dinner tonight at Henry in the Rosewood Hong Kong, where 30K brought together chefs from both Born and Bred Seoul and Busan to showcase their dishes based on Hanwoo - in collaboration with the in-house team at Henry.

I had a very quick catch-up with 30K, and remarked to him that I noticed a marked improvement during my recent visit to Moo-lah. It was also good to see Chef Min again.

Chef Min introduced the six different cuts of beef that would be used for our dinner tonight.

Dry aged beef tallow, Kristal caviar, grilled sourdough - tallow on bread seemed like an upgrade from butter on bread... The garnish of Kaviari Kristal caviar with diced chives added salinity, but the shavings of green lime zest added a wonderful fragrance that instantly lightened things up.

Yukhoe: Korean style beef tartare with green chili bugak - this was something that I had in Seoul last year. The yukhoe (육회) was made with chuck tender and mixed with oi gochu (오이고추) peppers, which added flavor without much heat. The touch of soy sauce was nice, too.

Glazed pork belly: Kurobuta pork, trout roe, butter lettuce wrap, mint, coriander - the pork belly was VERY fatty and jiggly, and that melted fat was so nice. There was heat here but on the mild side, and the mint turned out to be a nice touch.

Gamja jeon: potato pancake stuffed oxtail with chamnamul salad - it's a good idea to balance the heavy dish with a topping of chamnamul (참나물) salad.

I don't remember ever having Korean gamja jeon (감자전) before, but it's not dissimilar to the potato rösti I love. Well, what's not to like about shredded potato that's been fried till crispy and golden brown?! This version came stuffed with some shredded oxtail, which were delicious. However, I felt that the flavors of the oxtail weren't strong enough, and it wasn't all that easy for it to stand out against the delicious potatoes.

Mandu guk, mussel mandoo with seaweed 'gamtae' oil, bone marrow and mussel broth - at the bottom of the bowl we find julienned carrots, zucchini, and egg, along with gamtae (감태) oil that reminded me of aonori (青海苔).　The bone marrow broth was nice and definitely added some beefy flavors here, but the flavors from the seaweed oil were just a little more powerful. Pretty interesting combination, though.

The little mussel was stuffed with beef short plate, but retained its natural flavors.

Grilled Norwegian scallop, bacon and smoked cabbage broth, sea asparagus - the scallop tasted very sweet, perhaps more so because it contrasted with the salty, thick broth.

The scallop came on a bed of cabbage and smoky diced bacon, some of which were just cubes of pure fat (YES!). We also had some skinny sticks of salicornia, but as there was already enough salt here, it was difficult to taste the salinity in the plant.

Hanwoo short rib agnolotti, ragout reduction, Parmigiano Reggiano - the ragout reduction was viscous and pretty heavily-seasoned.

I love agnolotti, and the short rib stuffing was very lovely and tender, and also tasted sweet compared to the ragout.

Next came 4 different cuts of beef, which were served on the same plate. While this looked impressive, it also meant that the cuts which were thinner - which turned out to be the ones we tasted last - got cold quickly...

Tenderloin - good charring on the outside. Meant to be paired with some gochujang.

This was very tender, indeed.

Striploin - paired with a sauce made with onions and soy sauce.

The texture was, of course, on the firmer side compared with the tenderloin, but the strip of fat down the side was nice.

[Outside] Skirt steak - paired with ssamjang (쌈장), which was very tasty and made it better.

Nice and bouncy texture with more bite, but the fat congealed as it got cold, so in the end the experience wasn't as good.

Oyster blade / Flat iron steak - this was my favorite cut from Born and Bred in Seoul, and in fact one of the best dishes I had in all of 2024, so I was really happy that I got to have it again tonight.

I really love it with the marinade, and it was pretty tender but also got some crunch. I didn't think we needed the pickled mustard seeds as condiment.

Perfect potato - dunno whether these were "perfect", but they were definitely very tasty.

Crispy baby corn - surprised at the spicy kick, and also surprised at how much sugar was in the sauce. But hey... pretty tasty.

Ssiat hoeddeok, muscovado sugar, cinnamon, toasted seeds and nuts with vanilla ice cream - we have the warm ssiathoeddeok (씨앗호떡) at the bottom made of sticky rice and flavored with cinnamon, topped with lots of seeds like sunflower seeds, pine nuts... etc. There was a ball of vanilla ice cream, then a very fragrant sesame tuile at the top.

B Bestie made sure that our glass was rarely empty tonight...

2022 Felettig Bourgogne Pinot Noir - initially the nose wasn't very open. The palate was still kinda tannic since the wine was young. Later there were notes of leather and blueberries, then a bit of dried herbs and eucalyptus with more aeration.

Very happy to have made it to dinner tonight, and always good to have the chance to enjoy the beautiful Hanwoo from Born and Bred. Hopefully I can make another visit with Foursheets later this year!