While you may not get a free trip to Korea, Ticket to Korea (TKK) intends to bring you simple Korean food as well as their fusion foods. Perhaps you'll get a glimpse of Korea that way?
TKK is located in Setia Walk, Puchong and opened 6 months ago by this couple that both start with the letter J. The dude that you meet when you enter? Sorry ladies, he's the 사장님 (sa-jang-nim; manager, owner, president, whatever you want to call it) of the place and is taken. The other half of the duo is behind in the kitchen.
Service is slow and they don't seem to have any other staff in the front besides the J-dude and perhaps why even drinks will take about 5-10 minutes to arrive but the J-dude is pretty friendly, polite and wouldn't mind conversing with you.
We first ordered my favourite dish during cold winters or even random days while in Korea - a 부대찌개(budae jiggae - army stew) that went by the name sausage & ham soup. Honestly, if you're familiar with Korean foods by their Korean names like me, you'll be wondering what on earth these mean. Is Korean Chilli Stew 매운탕 (mae-un-tang - litereally spicy stew) or something else? The army stew (I'll just call it this) was pretty basic. Spicy broth with pork, ham, sausages, rice cakes, cheese, baked beans, cabbage etc. The rice cakes were store bought but it's pretty rare to find hand made ones (not to mention the effort it takes. While I lived in Korea we always got it from those ajumma's at the morning market) It already comes with 라면 (lamyeon - ramen) as a budae juggae should and Medium (RM 35) can easily feed 3 people and if you don't find it enough you can add on more ramen for RM 6. In true Korean fashion I recommend letting the soup dry up and finish it by ordering rice to make a congee. Tho we didn't try it so I don't know if they'll do it here.
We then also ordered a cheese stick (pic) which is half sweet potato and half mozzarella cheese wrapped in wonton skin and deep fried. The cheese didn't have that nice stringy effect I wanted and it tasted very strongly of 고구마 (sweet potato) hence if you like sweet potatoes, this will be THE ONE for you. But it's RM 6 per stick so there's that.
해물전 (hae-mul jeon - seafood pancake) - RM 20 came up next. These were my supper foods with friends while in Korea along with some 소주(soju) or 맥주(maek-ju - beer). That being said I'm spoilt since all my seafood pancakes are loaded with cabbage, chives and cut 오징어(o-jing-eo a type of octopus) and they give a bite to every mouthful. This had good batter, it was flavourful. But the seafood was just small rings of squid on top which made me a little sad. That being said it's RM 20 while the ones I eat in Korea are at least 10-16 USD depending on where I eat them.
Next was the Kimchi Quesadilla (RM )18.50, a korean twist on the quesadilla. Don't ask me to pronounce it. I just pointed at the item and waited for the dude to say it for me. The quesadilla was simple food I would say. Cheese, kimchi, and more cheese. It's simple, but I can't deny it's good comfort food. It tasted like pizza with the occassional wild kimchi. If you like cheese, this is fer yah.
Ok I'm almost done. The bill comes with a 10% service charge and no GST.
If you've made it this far, kuddos! We probably can be friends!
