Discover Gangneung, the South Korean metropolis well-known for a novel tofu dish

The KTX rockets eastwards from the commuter-crowded platforms of Seoul Station, ratcheting on top of things because it slices by Seoul’s sprawling suburbs. Alongside the monitor, town’s city jigsaw unfolds: high-rise towers, flyovers, constructing websites, development cranes looming like Martian invaders as they labour on the megacity’s neverending enlargement. Gradually, the cityscape melts right into a gentler, greener panorama: hills, valleys, rivers, slate-roofed cities, paddies and pastures.

Two hours later, 100 miles east of Seoul, the prepare pulls into Gangneung. For most individuals, this east coast city is a seaside resort. It has one in all South Korea’s longest stretches of sandy shoreline, with ribbons of yellow stretching for miles, backed by accommodations, buying promenades, coffeeshops and gelato makers.

There is, nevertheless, one more reason why folks go to Gangneung. This coastal metropolis is synonymous with a particular form of tofu generally known as sundubu, which is historically served in jjigae — a stew that additionally consists of seafood, meat or greens. Silky delicate, white as cream, sundubu was recorded being made way back to the 1500s. The legend goes that the recipe was developed by a member of the royal family, who blended soy milk with seawater, creating thick, delicate curds. This is what offers sundubu its attribute velvety consistency.

Nowadays, sundubu is offered in supermarkets throughout South Korea, however the majority is factory-made and mass-produced, packaged in plastic tubes. Gangneung’s sundubu is one thing else fully: handmade, unpasteurised, artisanal. And to style it, I’m advised there’s just one place on the town to go — Chodang-dong.

Set again just a few hundred yards from the seaside, Chodang-dong barely qualifies as a neighbourhood, spanning a few palm-shaded blocks close to the inland lagoon of Gyeongpo. But that is the place the city’s oldest tofu eating places are positioned. Many of them have been open for many years, nonetheless run by the households who based them. Among them is the Oldtime Chodang Sundubu Restaurant, the place I meet up with proprietor Lee Young-soon. She’s often featured in Korean cookbooks, magazines and journey reveals — and together with her rouged cheeks, eyelashes thick with mascara and lilac hoodie, it’s not exhausting to see why. Flamboyant and slightly fearsome, she is a personality I shortly heat to.

“We make our tofu every day, by hand. Not many restaurants do that anymore,” she tells me, as we step by the sliding glass door into her tiny restaurant, which feels a bit like getting into somebody’s lounge. Filled with vinyl-topped tables and potted vegetation, the flock wallpapered area is hung with framed black-and-white photographs of former prospects together with, I’m advised, a number of Korean celebrities and TV stars.

“We only use fresh seawater and top-quality soybeans,” she explains, main me into the little kitchen, the place pans sizzle and a battered outdated radio blares out Ok-pop. She lifts the lid of an enormous metal vat; inside, a cloud of recent sundubu is marinating. “We don’t strain our sundubu. It must keep its soft texture.”

She gestures for me to sit down down at a desk and bustles off to plate up my lunch. Sundubu jjigae could be served plain, Lee explains, however she recommends I strive the spicy model. It’s flavoured with a pungent soybean paste locals name the ‘rice thief’ — as a result of it’s so scrumptious, it makes you eat an excessive amount of, she tells me with a cackle. The dish is served piping scorching and effervescent in a particular ceramic crock, accompanied by sticky rice and an assortment of banchan — facet dishes together with kimchi, fried flatfish, sprouted soybeans, marinated peppers and pickled radishes. For a last flourish, she cracks a uncooked egg into the stew. It’s scorching, spicy and wealthy, with an umami tang and a chilli kick that tingles on the palate.

“People travel from all over South Korea to Chodang-dong to enjoy our sundubu jjigae,” Lee says. “It’s soul food: a taste of the old days, like grandmother made.” She heads off into the kitchen to begin on the subsequent batch of orders. The lunchtime rush is beginning, and by the appears of issues, it’s going to be a busy shift. Every desk within the restaurant is taken, and a queue of consumers stretches out the door and onto the sand.