“Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be so popular,” says Guk’s Eedaero Gamjatang owner Jongguk Lee.
14/20
Korean$
Stroll through Lidcombe on any given night, and it quickly becomes clear that Sydney has a new holder for the title of Koreatown, taking over from previous champion Strathfield. A young cohort congregates outside CokCo for its late-night fried chicken, and there’s always a queue at Yeodongsik for haejangguk soup and perilla buckwheat noodles. Groups slam down soju with hash browns and truffle mayo at modern Korean diner Tonight Lidcombe. Oyako’s grouper sashimi tastes like a trip to Jeju’s Dongmun Fish Market.
Guk’s Eedaero Gamjatang is in the new-school part of Lidcombe, on the south side of the train station as part of a development of more than 150 apartments. Sitting in a thriving Korean mini-piazza, owner-chef Jongguk Lee arrived in Sydney from Seoul in 2007, before training at Le Cordon Bleu and then cooking Japanese food for more than a decade.
“My brother has been running a gamjatang restaurant in Korea for a long time and the taste is so good, I wanted to open a restaurant in Australia,” he says. You’ll often find gamjatang – a spicy pork bone stew with potatoes and vegetables originally from Jeolla Province – buried on the menus of Korean restaurants in Sydney, but it’s not often you see a restaurant offering it as the sole menu item.
Lee calls gamjatang “the soul food of Koreans”. His restaurant goes through about 60 kilograms of pork bones each day just to make the broth, with a batch made in the morning and then again at lunchtime.
For Lee’s restaurant manager Jiwon Yeo, gamjatang’s rich and spicy broth makes it the perfect hangover cure. “In Korea, you can find gamjatang restaurants open 24 hours a day and the price is cheap, which is why it’s so popular,” she says. Guk’s isn’t open around the clock but pretty close, serving from 7am to midnight daily. Yeo says there are often people already waiting in line when the doors open.
It’s a modestly decorated space geared for speed and efficiency rather than comfort. Gamjatang is the only item on the menu, served in a stone pot that comes in a “small” size serving two to three people for $40, large ($70 for groups of four or more), or a single version for solo diners. Similar to the gamjatang restaurants in Seoul, you choose your own adventure by adding carbs such as rice cakes, instant noodles or udon. Our table opts for the hand-torn sujebi noodles.
Each pot arrives at the table on its own portable gas cooker, piled high with bones and a rich, red broth dusted with perilla seeds. A staff member flicks on the flame and the cauldron begins to bubble as you stir pork bones, wombok, shallots, potatoes, enoki mushrooms and perilla leaves.
The herbs and spices in Lee’s soup are a secret, but most gamjatang follow the same winning formula of gochugaru (chilli flakes), gochujang (chilli paste), garlic and doenjang (soybean paste). The result is a deep umami flavour, with the five-hour simmer of the pork neck and spine bones creating a milky broth to bolster the herbal notes. Korea does great fried chicken and barbecued meats, but it’s truly the master of soup. Meat can be pried from the bone with the softest chopstick touch, and as the broth continues to simmer, starches from the potatoes are slowly released for a thicker broth.
For an extra $7, the bokkeumbap fried rice, prepared tableside by staff, is a riveting way to end the meal. Rice, fish roe, onion, carrot and seaweed flakes are added to the leftover broth (they’ll add some extra soup if you’ve already slurped the entire lot) and left to cook in the same pot to create a crisp, scorched texture – Korea’s version of the socarrat rice layer that forms in a traditional paella.
Arrive early or expect to queue, or maybe consider one of the other stores. Guk’s has expanded to a second location in Lidcombe, and now has stores in Ashfield and Eastwood, too.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be so popular,” says Lee. “I’m surprised that not only Koreans, but also people from other backgrounds, have liked our restaurant.” Lidcombe might be gunning for the title of Sydney’s Koreatown but honestly, it doesn’t matter who takes the crown. We’ve got the most exciting Korean food in Australia, and I’ll say geonbae (cheers) to that.
The low-down
Atmosphere No-nonsense suburban Korean
Go-to dish: Gamjatang spicy pork bone stew ($40)
Drinks: Selection of Korean beers, soju and makgeolli
Cost: About $50 for two, excluding drinks
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