▲ Sirae Jeonggak / CEO Dongkil Park

Dried radish greens are one of the commonly enjoyed foods by Koreans for a long time thanks to rich vitamin and mineral fiber. Dried radish greens have been used in many foods to enliven the taste and people add the vegetable for slowly boiled mackerel and hairtail when winter comes. Talking of dried radish greens and mackerel, we should better not miss one of the best restaurants that have unique recipes in the making: Sirae Jeonggak.

[Sirae Jeonggak]

Nestled on an alley of Pildong, Jung District, Seoul is Sirae Jeonggak flagship restaurant. On a relatively quiet Saturday morning, <PowerKorea> went to visit the rather difficult to find the restaurant in an alley. To our surprise, most tables were already filled with dinners waiting for their order and food. And no doubt they were there to have a dried radish green mackerel. 

“The regulars say that they feel like they are home easting it. Some say that the taste is like the one made in Jeolla Province and some other say the taste is like the one their mother made for them. In fact, the recipe partly came from the braised fish of Jeju” says Dongkil Park, CEO of Sirae Jeonggak.

Seeing is believing! We ordered one and waited. When it came, the chef seemed to be liberal of the food first of all. Secondly the balance between the vegetable and mackerel seemed perfect and thirdly the mackerel was bigger than we had expected. Above all the taste was thumps up with extremely tender texture and chewy feel. When asked what the secret was, Park tipped off they did not use salted mackerel because it makes the fish stiff. He added one more tip that they did not use artificial flavors either.  

[Menu]

Apart from the flagship dish aforementioned, you can choose from a variety of fish-driven delights: grilled hairtail and mackerel, cod egg stew, dried radish green pancake and to our surprise pork belly for those who love meat more than fish. But the condiments used for the pork belly stew are the same as used for the fish dishes. So it creates yet another unique taste. Surprising still, all dishes sold here costs you no more than 8,000 won ($6.79) per dish. It is incredibly cheap considering the quality and the amount. 

[Joining the Boat]

You are encouraged to join the business as a partner. 10 restaurants are operating in Seoul, Yangpyeong and Incheon at the moment. Opening a restaurant does not require change of the interior but you just need to change the menu and signboard as most ingredients and recipes are directly provided from the head office. But you should take one week training at the head office which will equip you with all necessary things about recipe and management. Catching up with fast changing market trend, Sirae Jeonggak is working on meal kits where we just pour hot water and wait a bit to eat. <PowerKorea>

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