MANILA, Philippines - Some foods are good for the body. Some are good for the soul. Yes, like Seoul food. One fine evening, I and some good friends go Seoul-searching and find ourselves in food heaven at the newly opened Seoul Garden at SM City North Edsa, taking in the scintillating aroma of something grilling and something simmering. Here, we welcome the best of two worlds: a two-in-one dining concept where we can barbecue our food and cook up a piping hot pot meal at the same time. We sit around a table with a hot pot and griddle in the middle.
“This is the third generation table using an induction cooker,” says young Canadian-born restaurateur Michael Pua who recently signed the master franchise of Seoul Garden in the Philippines. “The technology itself is from Japan but the induction cooker is made in Vietnam. We have 28 such tables — altogether, they can seat 112 persons. The vent to suck out the smoke is built into the table itself so there’s no smoke. You don’t come out of the resto smelling of the food you just ate.”
We roll up our sleeves and prepare to do some serious cooking (but for those who don’t like to cook, fret not because Seoul Garden’s friendly and efficient staff will gladly do it for you). But first things first, we troop to the buffet setup for some supermarketing to choose the fresh ingredients for our dinner.
Throwing their support behind Michael are his parents William and Anabelle Pua, themselves passionate lovers of good food. “Yes, we plan to expand and put up more stores,” enthuses the workaholic Michael.
Seoul Garden’s eat-all-you-can buffet table blooms with a staggering selection of mouthwatering fresh meat cuts — from back rib to sirloin steak, from thin meat strips to even parts like liver and belly — thoughtfully prepared in many different marinades, like the best-selling bulgogi (both spicy and non-spicy), Szechuan, teriyaki, black pepper, etc. Spoiled for choice, we’re stunned! So we take a little of each kind. But that’s just for the meats (pork, chicken, beef). The seafood lover can wade through a live catch of seafood — fresh fish fillets, fresh prawns, crabs, shellfishes. Fresh from the buffet table, it takes just a few minutes to transform this food from the sea into a glorious meal that’s to dive for.
“On weekends, we add certain items like salmon belly and scallops,” says Michael. “We’re constantly trying to find new items to put out there.”
Okay, okay, so we didn’t want to do our own cooking and labor and hover over the cooker. You can’t blame us. After hurdling an hour-long traffic on EDSA, we were famished and couldn’t wait for dinner. Good thing Seoul Garden whips up daily, on top of its DIY BBQ and hot pot, a selection of cooked food to instantly satiate diners’ hunger pangs while they wait for their food to be cooked. We’re served some filling bowls of hot Korean favorite bibimbap (warm white rice topped with sautéed and seasoned veggies, pepper paste, and raw or fried egg). This Korean mixed rice pot is cooked a la minute by Seoul Garden’s kitchen crew to complement the raw buffet line. There are also Korean pancakes, pastas, and rice galore — kimchi fried rice, garlic rice, Korean rice cake. So rice and shine!
We can’t stop tossing ingredients into our hot pot and hot griddle. We hurriedly pick up the cooked ones with our chopsticks and put them on our never-empty plates. We wrap some of our meats in the sesame leaf, among other greens that the resto sources from a green store supplier.
Of course, the coolest way to cap a meal is with ice cream. Seoul Garden has many cool ice cream variations to delight the sweet tooth. There’s also a DIY halo-halo corner with fresh ingredients delivered to the resto every day. The ice is white and soft as snow. Seoul Garden’s snowfall machine does make very fine ice. I make my own glass (a giant one) of halo-halo with dollops of macapuno (coconut palm), ube (purple yam), and vari-colored kaong (sugar palm). Then I top it off with three ice cream flavors: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. Who can resist this sweet temptation?
Added delicious news is that this all-you-can-eat buffet costs only P557.50 per person for lunch and P616.50 for dinner on weekdays; P585 for lunch and P635 for dinner on weekends. The price includes a refillable soft drink. It’s half the price for kids under four feet. Targeting not just businessmen and families but also young adults, Seoul Garden offers weekday student meals at P355 per head, from Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
But more than the delicious value-for-money buffet, Michael just wants people to come to Seoul Garden because it is a refreshing place to be. “That’s why we call it a destination outlet. We want people to have fun; this is not fine dining so they can just sit back and enjoy their meal. All over the Asian region, Seoul Garden is known for its happy noise. People come to Seoul Garden because they want to experience something refreshingly different.”
Here, you can eat with all your heart and Seoul.
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Longing for Seoul food? Seoul Garden is located at SM City, North Edsa, The Annex 1 with telephone numbers 355-4006 to 07. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Visit www.seoulgarden.com.ph, www.seoulgarden.com.sg.