Warm Up this Winter with Barsak's Budae Jjigae

With temperatures this week not expected to get above freezing, it's time to seek out warming dishes like hot pots, soups, and stews. As a country that also experiences some pretty frigid temperatures, spicy and soothing Korean cuisine is well-placed to fulfill this particular craving. The best place to seek out Korean dishes in Beijing is undoubtedly Wangjing. So it was that we found ourselves venturing north on line 14 on a very snowy Sunday afternoon.

Hidden away on the second floor of Wangjing's Korean Food City, Barsak Chicken and World Beer provides a comfortable haven from the cold. The clue to Barsak's flagship offering is in the name, but they also have a wide variety of Korean comfort food dishes such as stir-fried rice cakes, banchan, and kimchi fried rice.

We went for the RMB 128 set menu (pictured above), which includes a serving of boneless fried chicken (five flavors to choose from), a crab stick salad (not highly recommended), and a bubbling pot of budae jjigae, or "army stew". "Why the name army stew?", you might ask. The name came about in times of food scarcity after the Korean war when people made use of surplus ingredients from US army bases, such as hot dogs, spam, and baked beans, and combined them with traditional spicy Korean ingredients such as gochujang (chili paste) and kimchi (insert "Baby, you've got yourself a stew going" reference here). 

While Barsak's fried chicken is just ok – the hot and spicy sauce is tasty, but our portion arrived lukewarm and not as crispy as we'd like – the budae jjigae is top notch, a rich and comforting mix of processed meat, tofu, mushrooms, kimchi, and ramen noodles, which thicken the spicy soup as they cook. Yes, it isn't glamorous, but sometimes that's just what you fancy. Wash it down with a bottle of imported Korean Cass beer (RMB 28) and you'll find that winter isn't so hard to cope with, after all.

More stories by this author here.

Email: robynnetindall@thebeijinger.com
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Photos: Wikimedia, Robynne Tindall