Korean Food of the Day - SangyeopSal

I've delayed and put it off for a while but finally its here! To be honest sangyeopsal is my favourite dish in Korea but its probably also one of the most plain or uninteresting to the outsiders eyes. Looking eerily similar to bacon, whats the big deal you might ask. Let me tell you, the fatty slices are pig belly meat, and the fat just makes it taste so much better, I guess its what we'd call a guilty pleasure. Maybe its the tribal instincts fighting through but theres nothing like grilling a bit of meat over a naked flame and wrapping it up in some random stingy nettle looking leaves and stuffing your face (I'll find a pic of this later, it seems to be the only picture my wife can take of me)

The name can be translated as "three (sam; 삼) layered (gyeop; 겹) meat (sal;살)," of course hinting at the three layers that are visible in the meat, an hence the bacon like appearance.The most common accompaniments for samgyeopsal are lettuce (sangchu; 상추) and sliced raw garlic. But very often the meat is served with other accompaniments such as perilla leaves (kkaennip; 깻잎), sliced green chili peppers or commonly whole ones (gochu, 고추), Korean-style green onion salad, sliced raw onions, and aged kimchi (mugeunji; 묵은지). Garlic, onions, and kimchi can be either grilled with the meat or consumed raw with the cooked meat. Although a prefer the garlic to be roasted Soju, a traditional Korean alcoholic beverage, is also very often consumed with the meat. I prefer beer to be honest or at a push someak- a mix of beer and soju, commonly called a bomb here, although nowadays if you asked a waygook if they wanted a bomb they might take you the wrong way with North Korea up to its tricks again!

I've had many sangyeopsal excursions in my time here, the price ranges from about 3000 a portion to 8000 a portion, I've heard rumours that the cheaper stuff is somehow faked, ie they glue the parts together rather than use genuine pieces, let me see if i can find an article about that oops  nothing, best credit that to a reliable source then :-) I had a favourite place here that gave a lot of 'service' such as cola, free scrambled egg, and other little dishes, unfortunately though the quality of the meat has gone a little down hill so I've often been frequenting a franchise place called 92 instead. Recently a new Korean BBQ Grill place opened up along the main road too which is pretty decent and priced at a reasonable 6000.

Theres plenty of places to choose from so your pretty spoilt for choice, I'm still pondering how to introduce sangyeopsal to the mass in England, time to get googling.