Dining: Jajangmeun — black bean noodles, a Korean delight

If you are a Kpop fan, then you are familiar with the jajangmeun noodles, a pretty inexpensive wheat noodles with black bean sauce, and an assortment of vegetables. This has Chinese origins.  This is often a delivery item in Korean movies and dramas, my mom and brother are not specially fond of these noodles. I first had jajangmyn noodles in Oakland, called Jajang Koryo, tthe dish in itself is not extraordinary, but it has a homey taste. comfort food, really.

I just love this type of noodles, it is hearty, inexpensive and yet very filling.  Because this is a favorite, I have taken a lot of friends to try after mass, early dinner, late meet ups, i think they grew tired of it as they started choosing the venue.

So when i returned to the Philippines, I had a craving, we don’t have yelp here, googling for a specific food or restaurant in the area is a futile activity, unless it is a 5-star category. But why google it, right. So we tried to make it ourselves, noone in the family was impressed.  Granted that we have different taste buds it really was not received well.

The comment even by cousins, “wha, OMG is this what the food in the states is?”

Then, we discovered that there is a host of Korean restaurants along Aguirre St. in BF Homes, so proud was I, with mom and brother in tow, we sat down I ordered the famous jajangmyun noodles, mom had chapche (a little gross) as it is spicy and had no flavor at all. I had my first chapchae in Malate, i think it is near Adriatico, the only Korean resto at the time ear;y 80’s that was. My brother, Ali, had a sort of stew with glass noodles, he resignedly indicated that he is not really impressed with Korean cuisine. It will never take the place of Japanese cuisine as his number 1.

Anyway, i do encourage you to try it, it is good paired with gyoza and sweet and sour pork. maybe white wine if you are going to have it for dinner, Chablis? I must warn you though the black bean sauce is rather dark which can be daunting for some who has color issues on their food.

Let me know what you thunk.

Update: Found another source of Jajangmeyun noodles in BF along Aguirre St., the restaurant’s nme is Shanghai. They’re pretty good and closer.

Cheers —