Thursday October 15
 
11:28
 
What?! No SPAM?!

I tend to avoid Korean food in Japan for one very good reason: it’s usually crap.

There’s only one good Korean restaurant in Japan – actually, it’s a chain so there’s several, but you know what I mean. It’s called Tonjang and it’s a BBQ place – real sam-gyeop-sal, real Korean spicy kimchi, no charging for side dishes. Ok, so the lettuce for wrapping the pork is often a bit on the limp side, but for authentic Korean flavour, Tonjang can’t be beat.

The only other Korean restaurant I go to is Pung-geum in Shin Okubo. I don’t go there for the food though – it’s crap. Case in point – two days ago I went there and ordered budae-chiggae and it didn’t have a single piece of SPAM in it. SPAM defines that dish! How can there be no SPAM in it?! The menu said it had SPAM. When I asked the waitress why there was no SPAM in it, she said they don’t put any in. They don’t even put in SPAM substitute! “It’s difficult to get SPAM in Japan,” she told me. Bollocks it is. Go to Yamaya. And if you can’t get it, dont sell a blooming dish where it’s the main ingredient.

So why do I go there? It’s the only place I know of that has the exact same atmosphere as a Korean sul-chip (pub). It even has Hite and OB, and soju for 500 yen a bottle.