Going Korean at Kimchee

It’s a bold venture to name a restaurant after a type of cabbage. I know of no other restaurant in town that is happy to advertise itself with this, the blandest of all vegetables. But then again, the Koreans don’t do cabbage in the same way that we do, boiled to the point of disintegration and then dumped on a plate as part of a Sunday roast. Kimchee is a preparation of cabbage with various different spices, which is served up with most meals in Korea.

The restaurant in Holborn is a large version of a Korean shikdang, a hole-in-the-wall eaterie with everyone packed in tight. The seating arrangements end up being an eccentric combination of sleek Asian design applied to school dining room efficiency. When I arrived on a busy Friday night, it was pretty much fully booked out.

If you are going to come to a restaurant named after a particular type of cabbage, it makes sense to start with it. This along with Gogi Mandu: steamed chicken dumplings served with both chilli and soy sacue, and Pa Jeon pancakes, made up the starters.

The kimchee, as well as being prepared in a different way, was served up in a fashion I had never previously encountered. Rather than the leaves liberally tossed around, here they were cut into neat rectangles. The way in kimchee is prepared, being pickled along with other spices, allows things like ginger, chilli and garlic to be infused into the leaves. All of these certainly came to the fore to produce a taste sensation completely different to anything I’d normally ever experienced with cabbages. Sunday lunches at my aunt Betty’s will never quite compare.

The Gogi Mandu dumplings had just the right amount of crispiness although a tad more chicken in the filling would have been appreciated. The Pa Jeon pancakes, with their mixture of spring onion and seafood were delicate and light, with the seafood flavour not too overpowering.

For main, I plumped for the Chicken Katsudon, a noodle-based dish featuring egg and chicken. The portion that came was on the pleasingly heaving side and full of flavour, with the honey and mustard sauce being a good compliment to the chicken. By the time the last noodle was slurped down, I was full to the point of bursting but keen to get onto the ice creams. The chestnut ice cream was wonderfully creamy and added a succinct flourish to the end of the meal.

Kimchee
71 High Holborn
Holborn
WC1V 6EA

Tel: 020 7430 0956