Very seldom is it that a restaurant evokes such strong emotions in me, but Koggi here at Suntec City is one of them.
A part of me is thankful for all the times we have eaten there.
Another part of me, however, regrets that I didn't have more chances to eat there.
Someone asked me a while ago whether I would ever get tired of hotpot or charcoal grilled K-BBQ.
I said no, of course not.
Not when I have grown to love (and miss) hotpot. Not when too I have grown to appreciate the gorgeous price that Koggi offers on weekdays after 5, and weekends all day.
We began our grill this afternoon with our usual plethora of cooked food.
My friend usually helps himself to the huge serving bowl of chicken nuggets.
I, on the other hand, like to see what they have there, and help myself to whatever it is that catches my fancy that day.
There are some staples that I love- if they have them there. Like japchae, which I absolutely love and can have up to three bowls if there be a serving. Like the macaroni salad, which up till recently I did not know that it was a popular banchan served at KBBQ. (I always thought this Western banchan thing was optional). And then there is tteokbokki.
Japchae was not on the menu this particular afternoon.
However, tteokbokki was.
So I got myself a bowl of that.
It's kinda interesting how a food so commonplace in one culture can be unavailable in another. Until I got introduced to Korean food I had no idea that tteokbokki existed, which is probably why I always try to have these chewy rice cakes in gochujang sauce now.
Koggi serves theirs with fish cakes, soft, slightly mushy, and in a flavor both sweet and spicy. I love the chew of the rice cake. There's a springiness and sponginess to the texture that makes me slow down from the cooking and the eating of the grilled meat, and that, I genuinely love.
The other banchan I took this afternoon was the macaroni salad.
Little needs to be said about it- this is a dish that speaks for itself.
I love how refreshing the salad is, how easy it is to eat. Coming here I often end up with two bowls of this salad, both of which I make sure I finish.
Then, there is, definitely the fresh kimchi.
For a long time since Koggi had been serving kimchi of the packaged, bottled sort but since the last, there had been an additional dish of fresh kimchi, which I now have to say, I absolutely adore and love.
To be honest I am a little sighy that I don't know where I can go get good fresh kimchi anymore but maybe I could start looking about and around.
It isn't just the kimchi alone that I am missing.
There is, of course, the grilled meat, of which today we took quite a fair bit, and which, like always, goes extremely well with the kimchi after being grilled.
I can't remember exactly which meats it is that we had from the menu but there was, certainly, the Thin Sliced Pork Belly and one of the marinated bulgogis. The picture doesn't show much- sort of a mussed up heap of meat- but really, the grill looks much better with all them pieces nicely laid out over a bed of fresh onions that we take from the vegetable trays.
Up till now I haven't written about the vegetable trays that this place has, but that's because this round I didn't really take much of them veggies at all. At another time I might have considered going for the big lettuce leaves, but I've since discovered that lettuce leaves fill me up very easily and I'm better alternating one piece of grilled meat with one piece of fresh kimchi.
It aids digestion.
Same way too does the dip we have, where even though you're supposed to do it the traditional way with sesame oil and sea salt, we bring our own mix of Greek style yogurt, miso paste and garlic powder. I like the way the sourness of the yogurt mixes with the savory, salty of miso, plus the distinctive taste of garlic.
Only thing is that sometimes my friend brings too much of the garlic powder and we end up overdo.
Or that i mistakenly get vanilla flavored Greek yogurt instead of plain and so the dip becomes more sweet than savory.
Still it is a good dip to have, and often it is we arm ourselves with cups of two.
There really is something special about spending an afternoon casually grilling meat and having our favorite side dishes together at the same time.
I don't know if it is the joy in breathing the delicious scent of fragrant meat, the joy of nibbling on a crispy, crunchy, slightly sweet kimchi cabbage, or chewing down a couple pieces of macaroni in refreshing, cold, creamy salad cream sauce.
But there's never been a time where I don't fancy the meat, whether they be marinated or not.
And, really, I wish we could have it (if best, at gorgeous price) again.