Soon dae
Korean food is not all spicy pickles and marinated cook-it-yourself meats. It can also be bloody simple—literally. Exhibit A: soon dae.
It’s Korea’s answer to Spain’s morcilla, the Philippines’ dinuguan and Italy’s sanguinaccio dolce. So yes, it’s blood sausage and a real nose-to-tail experience.
At New Korea Restaurant, it comes in various dishes. It can served plain and sliced, or with other off bits, and even in soup.
The sausage isn’t dotted with chunks of fat like a black pudding. And though it has a distinct irony flavor, it’s pretty tame compared to anything like boudin noir—mellowed by green onions and far less of a saline bite than most sausage. (The lack of sodium is why all soon dae dishes are accompanied by a small dish of salt.)
But the real delight of this bloody treat comes from springy, bouncy rice noodles which make up the bulk of the volume in this particular dish. The noodles expand when steamed, or prepared swimming in a plain broth.
So really, that leaves New Korea’s soon dae is like any kind of blood sausage, except far more texturally interesting—not like you’re eating, well, blood.
NEW KOREA RESTAURANT, 300-D Carmel Ave., Marina. 384-7171.
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