Some of the meat dishes I tried here in South Korea are somewhat similar to the meat dishes in the Philippines.

One Korean beef dish that reminds me so much of our own “nilagang baka” (Filipino beef stew with clear broth) is 갈비탕 (galbitang/kalbitang).

Kalbi, in English, is short ribs. When Filipinos cook beef stew, it’s also the ribs of the cow they choose. But while in the Philippines we add Chinese chard, potato, cabbage and saba (a banana variety used primarily for cooking), with kalbitang, added are radish, enoki mushrooms dangmyeon (starch noodles) and onions. In a restaurant, I was once served kalbitang with egg. I was also told that it can also be cooked with kimchi. That I have not tried yet.

Tang means soup. Synonymous to tang is another Korean word – guk. Thus, if at the end of the name of a certain Korean dish there’s either tang or guk, expect that the meat is cooked with soup.

삼계탕 (samgyetang) for example is soupy chicken dish. It is comparable to the Filipinos’ tinolang manok (chicken stew) which is cooked with either green papaya or chayote and ginger.  Samgyetang  consists primarily of a whole young  chicken stuffed with garlic, rice, jujube, and ginseng. If you add ginger, pepper, and either papaya (not ripe) or chayote,  it will taste like the Filipino chicken dish called chicken tinola (chicken stew in ginger broth and vegetables). But while chicken tinola the chicken is chopped into small pieces, with samgyetang the young chicken is cooked whole.

While samgyetang is a popular summer stamina food, Filipinos love eating this chicken tinola during cold and rainy days. Koreans troop to samgyetang restaurants in summer, particularly  during the so-called three dog days of summer (or three hottest days of summer.)

The Filipino in me make me go for samgyetang  during autumn and winter. They’re perfect  for the cold days and nights during those seasons.

Another Korean meat dish that has striking similarities with another famous Filipino food is 설렁탕 (seolleongtang). For kalbitang, the part of the cow used are the ribs but for this dish called ox-bone soup in English it’s the leg bones. Usually prepared with spring onions only but one time I have tried one with radish and thin wheat flour noodles. It’s similar to Philippines’ bulalo (beef marrow stew.)

What about pork dishes?

I’m familiar with two… one of which is actually my favorite. These two Korean pork dishes is not like any of the pork dishes I got accustomed to in the Philippines. They are uniquely Korean.

The first one is 감자탕 (gamjatang). It’s pork neck bones that are used to make this Korean meat dish and usually cooked with potatoes (primarily) and other vegetables. There seems to be a disagreement among Korean food experts as to what gamja in gamjatang refers to – is it the potato or meat around the pork spines bones? So, it’s not settled yet as to how should it be called in English – spicy pork bone stew or potato stew. For the meantime, forget about the name. Just enjoy the taste.

The next Korean meat dish I wish to feature in this article (and actually my favorite among the meat dishes here in South Korea) … is 뼈해장국  (ppyeo haejangguk).

Others would simply call it haejangguk, which means, according to existing literature, hang-over soup. I’m more used to calling it ppyeo haejangguk for that’s how it’s written in the menus of restaurant where I ate them. One thing that I have noticed is that it is somewhat similar to gamjatang minus the potatoes. Both are spicy but when you order you can request that it be made less spicy or not spicy at all. I was told that there is a variety of haejangguk where instead of pork spine it’s ox-bone that is used.

Of all the meat dishes I tried here in South Korea, ppyeo haejangguk is my favorite. It doesn’t mean though that I need to eat it often because of hang-over. I just love the taste and the spiciness of this meat dish. The price ranges from 5,000 KRW to 7,000 KRW.

Two other meat dishes I came to like here are the following: 제육덮밥- jeyuk deopbap and   족발 (jok-bal).

There are more meat dishes here in South Korea  but the five I presented here are the top 5 in my list. It is very possible that after my 5 years being here I may have not tried some them yet.

I wrote an article in Filipino about Korean meat dishes in order for my friends in the Philippines to know the different ways Koreans cook meat. This is the English version of the said article. The beef, pork and chicken dishes I mentioned in that write-up were limited to the ones that I already tried. I focused mainly on what I literally saw on the bowls and plates when I ate them… like what kind of meat were they, which  parts of the cow, chicken or pig were used, and what vegetables and other ingredients were mixed. I added some personal observations.

https://madligaya.com/my_korean_stuffs/the-korean-dishes-i-tried/

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