Something lost in the translation

This review was published in October 2001.

It's a shame Han Kang's menu has been translated directly from Korean into English because Korean dishes have marvellous names such as bee bim bap and bulgogi which I was looking forward to trying out on our waiter.

I'm the first to confess Korean cuisine isn't something I'm intimate with but the truly sweet staff weren't a huge amount of help. Staccato menu descriptions added to our confusion. We wanted a vegetable dish to go with the chicken marinated in soy and sugar and the garlic and sesame strip loin of beef we were having barbecued in the centre of our table. (This was a laborious process, enlivened by the waiter's halting conversation about his desire to study IT.)

Korean food is heavy on chilli and pickled vegetables, sesame oil and garlic. Kimchi is central: pickled Chinese cabbage with red chilli powder - its appeal rather palls after a couple of mouthfuls. Radish was treated similarly and had the same effect; spinach with sesame seeds and garlic was excellent. The barbecued meats were good but miserably portioned.

On the other hand, I'd rather forget about the chillied buckwheat noodles - cold, slimy and claggy; or the spaghetti-like strips of chilled beef, doused in sugar, garlic and soy, sitting on shredded nashi pear and topped with a raw egg yolk: a candied steak tartare. High-ish prices don't seem to deter the largely Korean clientele - it's clearly an acquired taste.

Han Kang
Hanway Street, London, W1T 1UE