oakland korean

Since hedge is Korean, and her friend H is also, we allowed them to take us to H’s favorite Korean place in Oakland: Sahn Maru, 4315 Telegraph Ave. (‘Cause you know how we hate the Korean cooking – NOT.) Wow. Yum. We got a dish of cold pork and oysters with kimchi pickled vegetables, which was much tastier than the version of that dish I’d had at WuChon in Somerville. We got some seafood noodle soup for tallasiandude, to address his noodle craving.

Hedge ordered a stew that she tells us is a guilty pleasure in Korea, since it came to exist because of desperate poverty during the war, when people were hungry enough to pick through the castoffs on the army base and throw whatever scraps of hot dog and spam they could find into the stew pot. It actually tastes great, the oily savoriness of the spam and sausage making a nice contrast with the tangy kimchi and broth.

There was also one item in the array of very good pan chan that truly rocked my world. It was a dried-then-reconstituted turnip shred in a spicy chili-powder brine. The dried turnip gave it a sweet chewiness/crunchiness that knocked me out. Delicious!

And as the sweet at the end of the meal, this place brings you a cold cup of sweet spiced liquid, with a few chinese dates and pine nuts floating on the top. It’s completely unexpected and completely refreshing, just the thing you want after a rich spicy meal.