Address: 165 Tanjong Pagar Road, Level 2, Amara Hotel Singapore 088539
Tel: +65 6220 7160

Ah…Korean food. Oft-neglected by me in favour of Chinese and Japanese food, but, nonetheless, always enjoyable.

I’ve always viewed Korean food to be good value for money because of the various side dishes (panchan) that are served with the meal. The Chinese give you peanuts. The Japanese give you pickles. The Koreans typically serve you an eye-popping array of about eight dishes (I think), all of which can be replenished throughout the meal upon request. Yay!

At Hyang-to-gol, the panchan included a few types of kimchi, beansprouts, eggplant, dried baby anchovies (aka ikan bilis) and sea weed. A wonderful assortment of crunchy, chewy, spicy, sweet and savoury dishes - best eaten with plain rice.

Anyway, I knew that Hyang-to-gol wouldn’t disappoint when I saw the long queue, consisting largely of Koreans (Singaporean mentality kicking in). Also, there was a promising aroma of grilled meat in the air. As we didn’t make any reservations, we ended up waiting for over 20 minutes to get a table.

Despite the inviting scent (and sound) of sizzling meat, we didn’t go for the BBQ since I wasn’t feeling particularly carnivorous that evening (a rare occurence, might I add). Instead, we ordered the Haemol paejeon (S$20, seafood pancake), soondooboo-jigae (S$13, bean curd and seefood stew) and bibimbap (S$17, hotstone rice).

While waiting for the food, I cast surreptitious, side-long glances at the couple next to me. Or rather, at the plates of marinated, juicy sliced beef and beef short ribs slowly cooking at their table (mental note to self: must come here again when this odd no red-meat mood passes).

Our bean curd and seafood stew arrived first. The silky smooth and soft bean curd was complemented by the little flowery clumps of egg white and half-boiled yolk. The spicy and robust seafood broth went really well with the white rice.

The bibimbap also did not disappoint. It arrived in a sizzling bowl, filled to the brim with shredded vegetables and topped with a raw egg. Half the fun of this dish is in mixing the ingredients thoroughly with the sweet red chilli suace. The other half is in eating the charred rice bits at the bottom of the bowl (think claypot rice).

The savoury seafood and spring onion pancake was huge. We couldn’t finish it between us. It was crispy on the outside and nice and chewy (with bits of probably squid) on the inside.

In short, this was a most satisfying meal, washed down with many cups of calming rice tea (re-filled diligently by the attentive waitress). I’ll be back the next time i have a craving for Korean food.