Knight Diner Road
Episode 16
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It seems like the other day was a winter when the bitter cold air seeped down to the bones, but it's already easy to see people dressed in short sleeves in the city. There are days when it's so hot that you can't take your breath away when the sun shines brightly. In this early heat, weak people like me are twice as tired as usual, and they often get tired.
I'm a little worried about my convex stomach, but in this case, I need to eat health food. Koreans' love for health food, including myself, is very different. Choose a menu based on healthy foods made from soup or juice to eat or based on the benefits of the food. Mizutaki made from a chicken, bak sok octopus soup, a delicacy from the west coast, and thick sliced croaker sashimi are some of the popular dishes every summer. Among the many summer health foods, the first thing that comes to mind is “eel.â€
Eel is a typical health food in Korea and is rich in essential amino acids, including EPA and DHA, which are types of omega-3 that are effective in preventing various diseases such as lowering cholesterol and promoting brain function. Therefore, it is good for recovering from fatigue for people who have lost their energy due to the recent hot weather.
However, from a restaurant standpoint, eel is also a menu that cannot be easily selected because it has a lot of dirt and is difficult to remove the fishy smell. Therefore, most restaurants in the article usually choose stir-fries and deep-fried foods using pork or chicken, but there are places that choose these difficult ingredients to run restaurants. Today, Kishi Diner Road visited “Bokdon Driver Diner,†which is loved by taxi drivers for its eel bowl.
Bokdon Knight Diner started from the trade name “Darae Kisa Diner.†It was a popular rice bowl where bite-sized eel was stir-fried in sauce, put on rice, and grated on rice, and was very popular among taxi drivers. Then, in 2012, the current boss took over the restaurant and moved the company and location together, but it seemed that regular taxi drivers who couldn't forget the taste were still steadily visiting.
The trade name Bokdon was coined by the current boss. Bokdon Knight Restaurant, which means “get a lot of good fortune†and “make a lot of money,†is located between residential areas, so it's not easy to get there. The interior of the restaurant is as clean as the exterior. When I see something like this, all the ridiculous images that come to mind when I think of knight restaurants seem to have become old sayings. The interior looked busy with customers and employees coming and going to enjoy the meal.
â—‰ The exterior of Bokdon Kisa Diner
Diners
| The menu at Bokdon Kisa Restaurant
Self-serve bar where you can eat side dishes
â—‰ The soup and pumpkin porridge that change day by day
Only enough side dishes to eat!
If you order the eel rice bowl, you can immediately put only the stainless steel noodles with plenty of vegetables on the chin, and put the side dish on the plate at the self-service bar next door. There are five side dishes that catch your eye first, such as tteokbokki, herbs, and kimchi, etc., and when served in this form, it's common for people to blindly pour in a lot and then leave a big mess behind. However, it is said that this method will continue to be maintained in the future to show that side dishes are not recycled.
The main menu, eel, arrived soon after, and it had a pretty unique look. Both sides of the square cooking pan are concave. Since the recipe is cooked and eaten at the dinner table, it was a method devised by the owner who opened the restaurant for the first time to ease the burden on taxi drivers who were pressed for time. It's also because every minute and every second is money for taxi drivers, and the boss laughed, saying, “These fans won't be sold anywhere.†However, the unique idea is good, but the recipe for putting seasoning on silver foil and eating it while simmering was a bit disappointing.
A little while after the fire was raised hard, the eel slowly shriveled as it made a buzzing sound. Most taxi drivers eat the eel by turning it upside down with their familiar touch, but if they wander around with an awkward expression, the boss quickly comes to his seat to help with cooking.
When the eel turns round, you can reduce the heat, then scoop out a large ladle, put the rice together in a spoon containing the vegetables, and grate it well.
Eel served in a concave pan
â—‰ Stir well so that the seasoning soaks into the eel.
â—‰ Han table
â—‰ In a bowl containing vegetables
Pretend to scoop up eels! Put it on and eat it.
After being stir-fried, it's delicious to eat. I don't like the fishy smell unique to eels, so when I ate eel, I always ate it with plenty of ginger sauce. Therefore, before grating the rice, I was worried that “it might smell fishy,†but when I picked up one item, it caught the fishy smell very well. The strong flavor of the gochujang sauce also played a part in this, and a companion commented that it was difficult to feel the natural flavor of the eel because of this sauce, which was disappointing.
The eel here uses peruvian conger eel, and it is said that every day they clean and remove the eel's debris. As a result, there are few things that are annoying when eating.
The sauce is not very sweet, and the balance of rice, vegetables, and eel fits well. Here are some tips on how to season eel from the owner of this place.
[Eel seasoning tips for Bokdon Knight Restaurant]
Make a sauce with basic ingredients such as hana, gochujang, soy sauce, sake, starch syrup, and sugar, and add minced garlic and minced ginger to catch the fishy smell of the eel.
2. Adding “plum juice†to the sauce is a secret unique to Bokdon Kisa Diner! Adding plum juice adds umami and has the effect of blending all ingredients well together when mixed with rice.
| Finally the finished eel bowl (7,000 won per serving)
â—‰ The sweet and spicy seasoning was well soaked in.
| Grate it well with the vegetables~
4. One bite!
Another dish on this restaurant's menu, bulbaek wrap, is reminiscent of Songlim Restaurant in Kondae by putting seasoned pork ribs on a grill and eating them (see Kisa Diner Road episode 1), and it is said that the current boss benchmarked the cooking method by recalling memories of running a knight restaurant near Songlim Diner before running this place. Other than that, I was impressed by the fact that they had all of the chauffers' favorite menus, such as grilled meat and stir-fried octopus.
Other than that, they also have small things for drivers all over the restaurant; they also have a space on one side of the store where you can easily wash your hands after a meal, and every time the car leaves, the boss walks out of the restaurant and shows the way out of the restaurant so that the car can get out smoothly.
When I leave the restaurant, the words “Be happy and earn a lot of money†on the white wall seem to greet me. A place where you can recharge your energy with eels and fill your heart with happiness.
Tips for eating
•Address: 30 Baekjegobun-ro 22-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul
• Menu: Eel bowl 7,000 won, rice bowl 7,000 won, octopus bowl 7,000 won
• Business hours: 08:00 to 22:00 (closed on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month)
•Add rice: free
•Vending machine coffee: free
•Parking space: 10 cars