Sapphire and Hagfish night

 

For Saturday night outing, we tried gin highballs and the most exotic Korean food (but it is not an exotic for us because hagfish dishes are not rare in Korea at all!) hagfish restaurant.

Certainly, highballs remind us of whiskey and izakaya. But recently, many also recognize gin-based highballs too. This is because gin highballs, which seems to be fresher than whiskey highballs, have appeared and started to gain popularity in Korea.

In the late 1800s, as carbonated water was invented in the United States, Scotch whisky and cocktails mixed with carbonated water began to be called Scotch highballs, and later in Japan, whiskey highballs were introduced when Western culture was imported in the early 1900s.

As I mentioned in the past post, it became very popular in Japan, resonating with Japanese consumers who hate the strong taste of whiskey and later the influence of the depression, people tried to seek something cheaper than pure whisky. In Japan today, highball is a combination of various kinds of liquor and soft drinks. The latest highball is the gin highball. Unlike the dryness of whiskey highballs, gin highballs have a refreshing herbal scent, and are much lighter and fresher, so more and more people are enjoying them with a variety of foods.

The reason why Bombay Highballs are welcome lies in their excellent food pairing. Bombay sapphires have the advantage of being naturally and stably harmonized with various ingredients, alcohols, and beverages. With Bombay sapphire gin, tonic, and ice, you can easily make Bombay highballs, so you can always enjoy high-quality gin highballs in an Izakaya environment, not a bar. The unique flavor of Bombay sapphires that seem to contain nature and the unique clean and refreshing taste created by tonic make it perfect for an appetizer. Various consumers who are not familiar with alcohol can drink lightly, so it is perfect anywhere.

After our time in a local izakaya, we moved to a hagfish restaurant. There are two main types of grilled hagfish dishes, salted grill and grill with seasoning. We went with grilled hagfish with seasoning, which was our preference. The owner was a very kind old lady who was willing to come to the table and showed us how to cook them to enjoy these monsters to their fullest.

Freshly caught hagfish have a bizarre appearance. The body structure is much simpler than that of general fish, and the bones are very soft, so you don't need to remove the bones, and it's easy to peel the skin, making it easy to handle. Unlike lean meat, the skin of an eel cannot be eaten because it has mucus-producing organs.

As far as I understand, this fish is enjoyed only in Korea and sometimes it is promoted as stamina-enhancing food. Due to high consumption here, 99% of the hagfish consumed in Korea are imported and they live on the East Sea, Taiwan, and the eastern coast of Japan. It is safe to say that most of this fish caught worldwide are consumed in Korea. Except for Korea, I am not so sure if there are any hagfish-based cuisines in other countries.

In Busan, this type of eel is called ggomjangeo, eaten in the summer as a seasonal food, but it is usually eaten in all seasons in Korea. Hagfish is very rich in protein, fat, and vitamin A, and are very popular as nutritious food.

Depending on the different restaurants, it comes out completely dead in the kitchen, but most of the time, it is usually pulled out of the tank to appeal the freshness and freshly caught living eels were cooked on a briquette fire in front of the customer. Those who love these eels may have seen their bodies dynamically fluttered in response to the stimulating seasoning or heat.

Since foreigners probably never had this fish in their native lands before, hagfish dish is viewed as an eccentric Korean food by them. when images and videos appear in various online communities including YouTube, people’s reactions split with extreme likes and dislikes in the comments section.