02.03.2012 / World Bulletin
Lunch at the temple
Fresh vegetables from the garden, savoury 15-course set meals, food presentation worthy of a great food stylist and a totally meat-free menu – although the bean beef might easily pass for sirloin steak.
Seoul, South Korea. In the artsy Insadong neighborhood, where tourists come hunting for handicraft and local pottery, there’s a small restaurant right in front of the Jogyesa Buddhist Temple where you can taste temple food prepared by the monks using vegetables from the temple’s garden or supplied by local farmers.
If you’re wondering what temple food is, forget the idea of pale and tasteless dishes; to Buddhist monks, cooking, just like eating, is a religious practice that must be performed with love and care, although emphasizing on cleanness, frugality and respect toward all forms of life.
Dae Ahn, the female monk in charge of Balwoo Gongyang (the restaurant’s name refers to the Buddhist meal with traditional wooden bowls), is a refined chef whose dishes daily attract hordes of foodies form around the world – which makes reservation highly recommended.Speaking of food, what you should expect is a spicy, tasty and colorful cuisine.
You can choose among three different set meals including 10, 12 or 15 courses; with what sounds like some sort of Zen irony, the latter goes by the name of “Enlightenment”, and it would certainly feed beyond reason even the most ravenous meat-eater (maybe even managing to convert him to vegetarianism, hence the name…).
Among the most peculiar and spectacular dishes, the Lotus – a genuine lotus flower with rice-stuffed roots laying on it – is a real must.
Yet, even the simplest dishes, like the shitake mushroom soup, the dumplings or the deodeok salad (made with a root that vaguely resembles ginseng), are presented with that tipically Oriental smart minimalism.
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