Goongyeon, hanjeongsik / (Korean Table d'hote)

Hanjeongsik (한정식, 韓定食) refers to a full-course Korean meal where various dishes are served in series rather than all at once which is more traditional style. Serving style may seem westernized, but the food is usually still very authentic.
Yesterday, my family and relatives (over 60 people!) gathered at Goongyeon to celebrate the wedding of my cousin who got married in New York in August. Since my cousin and her doting husband are both ABK, a restaurant that serves elegant Korean was chosen. Goongyeon is run by mother and daughters who work very hard to pass on the heritage of authentic Korean food. The mother (Ms Hwang) learned how to cook royal meal from a court cook. They have opened a few restaurants and Goongyeon serves food that was served to the kings of Korea. You may have watched/seen a very popular Korean TV series called Dae-Jang-Geum (대장금, 大長今). Ms Hwang and her daugthers were consulted for all the scenes that involve food and the heroine herself learned how to cook here.
You may think of Korean food as spicy, garlicky, red food, but those dishes are generally considered to be not so elegant. The style of cooking used in royal court or aristocrats houses favour less of chili powder and heavy seasoning, but try to bring out the best of each ingredients.
I don't use much seasoning at home, but Goongyeon uses much less. So some people may find it bland. But once you are used to it, you feel a lot better after a meal.

Individual table setting.
Next to the tea is sweet mustard sauce and sour soy sauce for dipping.



Cute brass spoon (for porridge) and chopsticks.



Tang-pyeong-chae

Jelly made of mungbean starch is sliced thinly to be mized with various toppings, and in this case, beef, yellow bean sprouts (not mungbean sprouts), shitake mushroom, dropwort, bit of egg, seaweed in light soy sauce.

Usually, people put too much sesame oil in it, but this case, it was very light. I am not even sure there is any in it.

This is how it was presented....


and this is what it looks like after mixing.


Milsam (my favourite Korean appetizer) and Eo-seon (hmm...kind of fish pâté)
Milsam is a pancake roll filled with thinly sliced vegetables and meat (or without meat). Filling is cooked but still retains crunchiness which is a nice contrast to soft pancake. You dip it in mustard sauce.
Eo-seon...I had a better one. It smelled of soil. Texture was horrible. I don't want to think about it.


Seafood salad in sweet mustard dressing...sweet I said, but still a sinuses-cleansing mustard. Seashell, squid, prawn were used along with flat matchsticks of perssimon, cucumber, sliced raw chestnut, pomegrante.






Sweet pumpkin porridge to calm your toungue afterwards.



Trio of chili paste pancake, seaweed fulvescens pancake and fish and squid pancake. Fish and squid pancake again smelled of soil. Yuk.


Grilled fish. I forgot what fish it is.



The last course before dessert. Rice, sea mustard soup with green perila seeds (rich but delicious!), kimchi, pickled perssimon, water kimchi, 3 types of namul (nicely done) and some seaseond root.




Bulgogi


Dessert

Rainbow ddeok, ssalganjeong (in pink) and clementine

O-mija tea to finish.

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