NAE:UM :: 'Episode 4: Han River Sunset'

Had our New Year's dinner at NAE:UM. The restaurant has refreshed its menu for 'Episode 4 : Han River Sunset'. The snacks were presented on such a cute vignette, featuring a couple and their dog having a picnic on Han River at well... sunset. It was utterly delightful. Opted to follow up with duck galbi sliders. Then we had halibut sashimi on a bed of lemon gochujang and ssam.

Passed on the alcohol pairing, and ordered a bottle of sake (Emishiki Masterpiece "Un" Junmai Daiginjo / 笑四季 マスターピース 2020-21 吽), and also unwisely chose to sample its non-alcoholic tea pairing. The sparkling teas were fine. The selection of kombucha towards the end weren't; mostly because we aren't kombucha people.

Of course we added on the somyeon.  Tonight's iteration held striped jack. We love the restaurant's somyeon and can never not order it each time we're here. Hahaha. The milssam of wagyu beef wrapped in Korean crepe with pine nuts was okay. Not a big fan, but okay. You can't go wrong with lobster & jeon. I didn't care so much about the jeon which came adorably small, but I wanted the lobster — Boston lobster, white asparagus and wanja.  

I forgot to ask for a replacement in this dish of pigeon with sweet cabbage and gang doenjang. The kitchen seared the pigeon beautifully. But I simply dislike pigeon. I had a bite and passed everything else to the man who didn't mind the protein.

Then it was the dish I was looking forward to. TASTY RICE in the form of deopbap. I wasn't disappointed. There were morel and autumn mushrooms with beautifully steamed rice in a claypot. Mmmm. The man was horrified by so much rice in a portion, but it was really not that much. Of course I cleaned out my bowl. The man ate it all anyway. He would regret it tomorrow. Hahaha.

The rice heralded the end of the meal, so to speak. It was time for dessert. There was pear with yuzu makgeolli and ginger. I liked that! Tangy! A rare thing when we talk about desserts. We weren't sure of the other add-on dessert, and opted only for one plate. It was their jujube ice-cream with glutinous rice (like a jeon), honeycomb and fig. Not bad at all. I would order it again.   

We ditched the teas after the third glass — we couldn't appreciate the fermentation at all. We were happy finishing the sake. That went great with the food. Both of us didn't fancy the dagwa. We didn't like it the last round and should have remembered. Tonight's was equally weird. Glutinous rice, some fermented thing, and some nut thing. Sorry, I didn't remember the names of three items that made up the dagwa. Unfortunately they were a one-bite thing, and I still ate them all.