This Korean Restaurant at the Choe House Uses 300-Year-Old Recipes
"Set on the Choe House compound in Gyeongju, this fine-dining hanok presents a curated menu of the Choe family's 12-generation, 300-year-old recipes in a hanjeongsik-style meal where numerous banchan accompany a sizzling pot of soup, vegetables and seafood. Standouts include sainji (a light kimchi seasoned with fresh seafood, shiitake and about 20 ingredients), jipjang (a rich fermented-soybean side with roughly 20 ingredients, including kelp, chive, radish and Korean beef simmered for 10 hours), and bukeo bopuragi (shredded, whipped dried roe). Guests remove their shoes, sit at low wooden tables on an ondol-heated floor, and eat everything placed on the table at once rather than as courses. The dining experience is steeped in the Choe family's long ethic of communal generosity — from opening food stores during famine to feeding anyone within a 40-kilometer radius — and the compound’s history (including family philanthropy after liberation) reinforces the meal as an act of cultural preservation rather than merely a tasting of traditional flavors." - Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu
