Had an enjoyable dinner last night at Somaek. The place is smaller than I expected, and they all connect to the sister restaurant/lounges that are below and next door. I don’t recall what this space was prior to that, so I wondered if this was the configuration they inherited or if they designed it this way.
My 2 friends and I had 5 banchans, and 6 “entrees”. Since these are family style meals, the ‘entrees’ aren’t big portions of food. Yo do need a good mixture of dishes for everyone to be able to enjoy a full meal. Don’t expect the dish sizes to be what you may have experienced at other Korean restaurants. Overall the dishes were good and on point for what I would want for a homey Korean meal (disclaimer: I’m not Korean, but I’ve had a lot of meals with my Korean friends including a few family home made meals).
The standouts to me were the pork bulgogi, the beef and scallion mandu, the pickled perilla leaves, and the squid stir fried with rice cakes (I won’t butcher the Korean names here). All of the banchan were solid, but perilla leaves are my favorite. I made my 2 DCs try that for the first time and they loved it. My biggest gripe is that for the leaves, the portion had to be about 7-9 leaves at most. Those things are thin, and when you buy them at HMart, you get stack like an 1/2-3/4 inch thick. The few leaves they gave us weren’t enough for 3 people and quite skimpy.
They didn’t have the jigae I really wanted, so I settled for the doenjang jigae (soy paste/miso). It was a tad too salty, and the bowls of rice they offer really isn’t enough rice to offset the saltiness of the stew. They did offer refills of the rice almost towards the end, and I got a half bowl refill No refills on banchan as far as I know, but it looks like rice is re-fillable!
We also tried their galbi, and while tasty, it didn’t have the nice seared taste the pork bulgogi had. A few of the dishes didn’t come out until well into our meal, which they do warn you about on the menu. The also had a lovely drinks menu, and a few non-alcoholic options - if you ask for it.
We were seated near the window where the ‘roomier’ tables are. That seating is tight and wasn’t the most comfortable to get in and out of the space. This was exacerbated by the table behind us squeezing in 5 at a table for 4. So no pictures last night, since I didn’t want to elbow any of the diners. After our dinner, an enthusiastic server took us downstairs to see the sushi restaurant and also the music lounge next door. Definitely cool spaces, the music/record lounge in particular.
