Unless you’ve been trapped in cave for the last decade you could hardly fail to notice the impact that South Korean food and culture have made here and across the world. Whether it’s restaurants, supermarkets, BTS and Squid Game or glass skin; South Korea is having its moment in the spotlight. Living a couple of miles from New Malden home to the UK’s largest Korean population one has been spoilt for choice for many years. Good stalwarts such as Yami, Jing Go Gae and the excellent Cachi to name but three. For the Korean fried chicken addicts there’s Chick’n’Beers, or for noodle slurpers there’s Zazza hidden in the rear of a Seoul Plaza mini-mart. For food shopping there’s the two cavernous sheds of H-Mart and Korea Foods, so we Southwest Londoners have no excuse not to know Korean food. For everyone else just head to Soho or just about anywhere these days.
Virgin Atlantic Holidays have launched a new daily direct service from Heathrow to Seoul, to promote this they flew in the legendary Park Mak-rye to host a pop up supper club in Shoreditch ‘Heart + Soul’, which provided plenty of both. Park Mak-rye (@korea_grandma) is a star on Korean socials, with over 2m followers across YouTube and Tik Tok which is quite an achievement for someone in their late 70s. Having been a restaurateur for over four decades she was here to share some of her recipes. She also has her own skincare range ‘reii reii’ using traditional Korean ingredients which sadly she didn’t share while here – note to Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays, bring her back for a skincare pop up it’ll be a riot.
Park Mak-rye is in the room!
Heart+Soul was fully booked with a young international crowd and plenty of good vibes. The menu was curated by Park Mak-rye but with local chefs in the open plan kitchen at the Shoreditch event space ‘83 Rivington St’. The servers were knowledgeable and engaging, especially we could compare our recipes for Korean chilli crisp (get in touch and I’ll send you my own fool proof Korean Chilli crisp recipe).
So what did we eat? To start were a selection of small bites; small for Korea which meant anyone on the pen would have felt stuffed on these alone.The Oi kimbap was fine if not a revelation – the Korean equivalent of a nori roll (like maki in Japan) but bigger- South Korean food is farm more generous in spirit than Japanese. Then the bite size yukhoe beef tartare with bulgogi sauce, nice but more would’ve been even better. Lastly some dubu ssam, tofu, spring onion and ssamjang. A little crunchy morsel with a punchy hit of spice to the top of one’s mouth, a delicious alliterative mouthful. With the main course the soup was an excellent doenjang jigae miso veg soup with miso broth, cucumber, mushroom and tofu, which doesn’t sound that special but tasted wonderful.
Nobody went home hungry
The Goeungeo (grilled mackerel) was a nice piece of fish accompanied with fried kimchi, the sweetness complementing the rich oily and smoky flavours of the mackerel. A very good matcha coconut mousse for dessert which I’d’ve been happy to eat seconds if they’d been offered. All washed down with cold beers and sochu. With the main course the soup was an excellent doenjang jigae miso veg soup with miso broth, cucumber, mushroom and tofu, which doesn’t sound that special but tasted wonderful. The Goeungeo (grilled mackerel) was a nice piece of fish accompanied with fried kimchi, the sweetness complementing the rich oily and smoky flavours of the mackerel. A very good matcha coconut mousse for dessert which I’d’ve been happy to eat seconds if they’d been offered. All washed down with cold beers and sochu.
I’ll 1have my kimchi fried from now on
Throughout the lunch service Mak-rye spoke through her interpreter to every diner as she posed for photos and selfies, she was a real trooper. The pop up was where Shoreditch arty vibes met a formidable Korean OAP social media star and made a winning combo, if only there could be more events such as these, low key, well designed, executed and fun – tasty even. This was a highly satisfying experience which got me into the mood to fly to Seoul, a trip which is now at the top of my to do list for the food, K-Pop, culture, history and fashion shopping too.
So if you’re also in the mood to go to South Korea too click here: Virgin Atlantic Holidays.