Le Grand Cuisine at Star Chef

Each Meal at Star Chef starts out with a bowl of broccoli with bits of caramelly garlic. The radiant green will prepare your eyes and stomach for the feast ahead. Star Chef is a place I go to to indulge in gastronomic wonders. I mean the menu hasn't changed in a long time, but it's nice to know that you can get great food in the city.
The wine menu is something that needs some work. There aren't many exceptional bottles on the menu. Since we were going to have the whole trout tonight, we first went with a reisling. It really couldn't hold up to the spice. I recommend a cocktail or a beer instead.
The wine is what it is.
Here is the mushroom and beef salad. It is a humongous salad- easily enough to feed two people till they are full. The slightly citrus and creamy notes of the dressing paired well with the savory, grilled morsels of beef. The mushrooms added a earthy note too the dish. The whole cloves of roasted garlic really stand out here. There was one slight problem, the zing of the chili peppers on the dish killed the subtle notes of all the other elements here. Next time I will ask for them on the side.
Yummy and large...29,000won.
The shrimp were in a hot and sour sauce. Meh, not my favorite- but because shrimp isn't my favorite thing to eat. The batter is light and the sauce is velvety and that's all I'm going to say about that. 28,000 won.
Erdinger Beer on Draft
Here's the tour de force dish at Star Chef. It's a whole fried fish topped with cilantro, paper thin onions, and greens in a lemon ponzo sauce. It's overwhelmingly beautiful and the taste is worth going back for over and over again. Chef Kim only uses the freshest fish and he skillfully fries it so it tastes greaseless. (Market Price ours was 46,000)
The cheeks are the best part.


지도 크게 보기
2010.3.19 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NHN Corp.
Josh Hall from www.winekorea.asia and I went to Star Chef near Maebang Station with another mystery guest. We had the full spread of awesomeness: the beef and mushroom salad, fried shrimp, and whole fried trout. It's on the Orange Line, Maebang Station Exit 4.

Star Chef: 서울시 강남구 도곡동 417-2/ Seoul, Gangnam-gu, Dogok-dong 417-2 (click here for the map – Korean only)

02-529-8248 RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED

Popular posts from this blog

5 of the Best Jajangmyeon 짜장면 in the City of Seoul, Korea

Image
The Best Jajamyeon in Seoul by Daniel Gray Jajangmyeon 짜장면: Korea's favorite hand pulled noodles in an black sauce is also a favorite dish of mine. It's so famous they even have a holiday for it. It's filling and hearty like a bowl of spaghetti but with Asian flair. It's one of those dishes that you can get whenever you need a quick meal and it doesn't break the wallet. It's a pretty ubiquitous dish and every Chinese restaurant must have it. If it does it well, the place becomes famous. If it is just alright, it is just a meal and gets classed in with all of the other places in the city. I can't say I have had any seriously terrible jajangmyeons except maybe some delivery places (where the noodles are overcooked and terribly clumped together so it takes like 10 minutes to get the sauce mixed into it) but even then it is still edible. With the noodles, I love to get fried dumplings and a place is good fried dumplings or some other sides like tangsuyok
Read More, See More >>

Calories in Soju and other things I Know about Korea's Famous Swill

Image
Just in case you were wondering, one bottle of Soju contains 540 calories. That's like 4 beers. So to put it in perspective, you would need to walk about two hours to exercise it off. (Walking two hours with a soju hangover is not an easy task.) Soju originally was made from rice but whenever there were rice shortages, people were forbidden to make Soju. Alcohol producers the started to use sweet potatoes and tapioca to make an ethanol based alcohol. Overtime they doctored up the taste so it has a smooth, crisp taste that goes great with raw seafood and grilled meats. The world drinks a lot of Soju. 61.38 Million cases of soju were produced in 2012 with Korea consuming about 2.75 billion bottles of Soju a year. You would think that everyone would be falling over drunk in Korea, but this is not the case. The alcohol is only about 17-19% so a bottle won't wreck you (but two or more might.) Koreans judge how good of a drinker you are by the number of bottles o
Read More, See More >>

How many Calories are in Soju, Rice Cakes, Kimbap, and other Korean Foods

Image
I was searching for calories in Korean foods and drink and I came across this great link. Kitty is a recent returnee to Korea and she has compiled an excellent list of Korean foods and their calorie, carbohydrate, and protein content. Here are some of the more interesting finds: Snacks 김밥 Kimbap: Rice rolls with vegetables and ham. 300 g =484 kcal 73.81 g carbs 12.1 g protein 15.6 g fat 무지개떡 Mujigae Ddeok: Rainbow colored glutinous rice cake. 100 g=234 kcal 53.24 g carbs0.78 g fat Kimchi 김치볶음 Kimchi Bokkeum: Stir-fried kimchi. 94.5 g=110 kcal 2.2 g carbs 5.23 g protein 8.92 g fat 깍두기 Ggakdugi: Cubed radish kimchi. 50 g=16 kcal 3.08 g carbs 0.6 g protein 0.14 g fat 동치미 Dongchimi: Chopped radish kimchi in served in water. 100 g=11 kcal 2.26 g carbs 0.5 g protein 0 g fat 배추김치 Baechu Kimchi:Common (napa cabbage) kimchi. 60 g=11 kcal 1.51 g carbs 0.99 g protein 0 g fat 백김치 Baek Kimchi: Cabbage kimchi without hot pepper. 50 g=10 kcal 1.25 g carbs 0.88
Read More, See More >>