WEEKENDER On the road for the table

Ryu Tae-hwan, chef owner of Ryunique, looks at the fish displayed at the auction in Maryang Port in Seocheon, South Chungcheong Province. / Korea Times photo by Yun Suh-young

• Published May 3, 2018 5:47 PM KST
• Updated May 4, 2018 11:05 AM KST

Chef's cross-country journey finding authentic ingredients

By Yun Suh-young

Three years ago, chef-owner Ryu Tae-hwan of contemporary fine dining restaurant Ryunique in Seoul, was confident, bold and daring. Ryunique was listed 27th on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, the Asian equivalent of the Michelin Guide, in 2015, alongside Jungsik (No. 10) and La Yeon (No. 38) from Korea. The restaurant was on a steady ascent and its popularity soared after the listing. This happened in the fourth year after the restaurant's opening in 2011.

Ryu was ambitious. He was hoping for a star when the first Michelin Guide for Seoul came out in 2017. He didn't get it.

Over the past several years, this reporter encountered Ryu several times at food-related events. His confidence, at times, made him seem arrogant, especially around the years before and after 2015 when the restaurant was at its peak. Ryu doesn't deny this.

But he changed.

Earlier this year, when this reporter met him at a month-long cooking class she joined out of personal interest, Ryu gave off a different vibe. He was humble, careful and sincere. This didn't mean he was less bold or daring when it came to cuisine -- not at all. But observing him for a month as her cooking class instructor, this reporter noticed he was down to Earth and back to basics.

What made him change? A sudden epiphany of the importance of ingredients and their origin. After 15 years of cooking, he started all over again. Back to the basics.

“I realized how ignorant I was about the ingredients I was using. I'm Korean but I felt I knew so little about ingredients from my own country. So I started doing research. Starting three years ago, I began to create my own map of ingredients. I started traveling across the country to find unique ingredients from genuine suppliers, with whom I can keep lasting relationships,” Ryu said.

“I like the feeling of learning from level 1. As I learn more, I become more meticulous and analytic. I see cooking not as a technique but also as liberal arts. I can deliver my message through food from my own perspective. I feel like I can differentiate that way from others,” said Ryu.

He had laid low for a few years, avoiding press and publicity. Instead, he focused on learning about ingredients all over again in an effort to really understand what he was using.

“Becoming known was not good for me, which is why I don't appear on TV shows. I feel joy in learning. My job is to create food with a philosophy based on facts,” he said.

“I travel every month to the countryside to find seasonal ingredients. I call this my R&D tour. Ingredients are what determine 80 percent of the taste, so if the raw ingredients aren't good, the food won't taste good. We need to be appreciative of the ingredients and the people who are producing them.”

Ryu said this throughout the cooking class, stressing the role of quality ingredients and explaining why he put so much effort into finding them. Feeling his sincerity, this reporter grew curious about his research tours. After the third week, she asked the chef if she could join him on one of his tours.

“Sure,” he said, “but it's going to take longer than a day. Can you endure a tough itinerary and long hours on the road?”

Indeed. So began the 48-hour journey following the chef's path in search of the best ingredients.

BONGHWA, North Gyeongsang Province, SEOCHEON, South Chungcheong Province -- After a four-hour drive from Seoul, the three-person crew -- Ryu, his senior chef de partie Kim Ing-girl and this reporter -- arrived in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province, where a very special meat producer was waiting.

Here, “hanyakwoo,” or cows fed on medicinal herbs, are bred. The beef is unique to Bonghwa -- it's a trademark registered as a regional brand.

“Hanyakwoo has a rich and deep taste. This region is cold so the aroma of the medicinal herbs becomes richer because they grow slowly. Six types of local medicinal herbs are added to the animal feed. About 0.5 percent of the feed consists of these herbs mixed into it. The county finances all of these herbs for the farmers because this beef is a regional brand,” said Jeon Ho-cheol, livestock business manager at the Bonghwa Agriculture Technology Center that is run by Bonghwa County.

Around 90 tons of hanyakwoo are produced in this region and it has been produced since 1995.

“Bonghwa is famous for cultivating medicinal herbs because of the mountains and forests. Danggui (Korean angelica root) is the main ingredient used among the six herbs,” Jeon said.

Chef Ryu started cooking hanyakwoo recently at his restaurant -- mostly rump round, eye round and chuck flap tail. After ordering the first batch as a test round, Ryu liked the beef and decided to come see how it is produced.

The distribution of the beef is centrally controlled by the stock raisers' association. For the purpose of seeing how the cows are bred, officials from the Bonghwa Agriculture Technology Center took the team to Daewon Chooksan, a farm run by Bae Myung-seob. It breeds 250 cows to be sold as hanyakwoo.

After about two hours looking around the farm and also talking to Bae about hanyakwoo, Ryu headed to a sweetfish farm nearby run by Hong Joo-seon, a sweetfish expert of 30 years and a passionate entrepreneur in his 60s striving to make the fish known to more people. It wasn't Ryu's first time there, but there was a good reason why he makes return visits.

“I use his sweetfish regularly. The reason why I come here from time to time is to keep in touch with him personally. It's important to see face to face with the producers and make the relationship more personal and lasting,” Ryu said. His R&D trips thus serve two purposes -- finding or checking new ingredients and building relationships with their producers.

“Sweetfish is really good for health. It's good for strengthening the immune system. It's full of unsaturated fatty acid and omega 3. But Koreans don't know it well,” Hong said.

Ryu uses sweetfish as one of the 20 courses on his menu at Ryunique.

“The fish is usually fried, steamed or marinated. At our restaurant, I fillet it and turn it into a fossil-like crust served as an appetizer,” he said. At Ryunique, regional ingredients such as sweetfish are identified on a small map placed on the table to educate customers about where the food comes from.

After taking a quick look around the fish farm and listening to Hong's sermon about the excellence of sweetfish, the crew set off to eat hanyakwoo for dinner at a nearby restaurant. As we heard, the beef was juicy, rich in flavor and soft.

“After seeing and hearing about how this came to be, doesn't it give you a better idea of what you're eating? It makes you appreciate it more,” said the chef.

Marine boy

The next day, the traveling team headed out at 6 a.m. for a long ride to Seocheon, South Chungcheong Province, where the chef was looking forward to seeing freshly caught fish ready for auction.

“I have a close connection to the sea. I was born in Busan and lived on the coast for 20 years. In elementary school, we would jump into the ocean after class. My father was a marine biologist. I lived in his research lab. That's why I like fish and know a lot about them. I love nature and wildlife,” Ryu said in the car.

“I think these memories impact my cooking. I think the ocean is something inseparable from my life. It's like destiny. I plan to move back to the coast in a few years and create my own lab, open a boat-to-table restaurant and contribute to invigorating the regional economy.”

His travel in search of good ingredients didn't come without a cost. He put a lot of effort into online research and legwork.

“At first I started off from general information such as which region is known for which products. Then I narrowed it down. Instead of factory-like farms, I like small farms that produce high quality with devotion,” he said.

“Although it'd be nice to be their only customer, I believe good ingredients should be shared. And the efforts of hardworking producers should be recognized.”

Can customers distinguish the quality of better ingredients? “Not really,” he says. But the reason he still uses them is not to gain their approval.

“It's self-satisfaction. It's also about class. Just like there are different classes of vehicles, ingredients are the same. And it's our pride.”

Not all chefs hit the road to find the best ingredients. In fact, it's hard to find any like Ryu who travel regularly for research.

“I've never seen or worked with any chef like Ryu. He's the first person I met who really goes out to find the ingredients himself and to learn about them. Most restaurants just order products online and never really visit the producers,” said Kim Ing-girl, senior chef de partie at Ryu's restaurant, who accompanies him from time to time. His employees take turns traveling with Ryu for educational purposes.

Seafood galore

After a four-hour drive, the crew arrived at Seocheon at around 10 a.m. where we met with 33-year-old Shin Kyoung-shik who runs Seafood World, an online mall selling fresh seafood products. His father is a fisherman and Shin decided to turn his father's fishery into an online business at age 22 when he established the company. Shin's company, among many others in the town, makes more than 1 billion won in sales a year.

“I'm sorry you couldn't see the ship coming in. My father sailed out at 1 a.m. and still hasn't hit the dock. It's like that. You never know how the fishing goes. They don't come in unless they have a good catch,” Shin said.

The region is known for its abundance in aquatic produce, he said.

“Seocheon is responsible for most of the seafood produced on the west coast. It's the top one or two. It's famous for halibut. About 20 tons to 30 tons are caught and processed every day,” Shin said.

Thanks to the popularity of chefs and their use of a variety of ingredients, demand for once-unpopular ingredients such as monkfish and gizzard has risen.

“Demand for crayfish grew a lot recently. Three hundred kilos were sold in a day since I introduced it for the first time this year. It replaces blue crabs which are hard to catch these days,” he said.

Seocheon is a small fishing town but its people are all financially well off because of the abundance of seafood which keep business going year round.

“Apparently the fish come here to eat the seaweed along the coast. They come for food, but that's when they're caught. They follow the coastal line upwards. It's during March to June and August to November when most of our annual sales are determined,” Shin said.

After a brief introduction to the business, Shin took the crew to see where the seafood auctions are held. The live fish auction was finished but the dead fish auction was still ongoing and was open to individual customers.

“Wow, this place completely changed my mind,” said chef Ryu, after touring the auction site in awe.

“They have so many varieties of fish and they're really fresh. I was prejudiced about west coast products because I thought the produce would be unclean due to the mudflats in the region. So I've used relatively few west coast products. I also thought they were mostly imported. But these are all local and very clean. This trip changed my mind,” he said.

It was a pity not to be able to see him cook the freshly caught produce right in front of us but he wished he could.

“Of course I feel like cooking when I see ingredients like these. I usually buy them immediately but I can't because they will rot in the car. During the summer I don't go on research tours because the weather is hot and the ingredients aren't good. So spring is the last season I head off. Then I keep the same menu until fall,” Ryu said.

Instead of buying live fish, Ryu bought two bags of a dried assortment of seafood including shrimp and anchovies. Filling our stomach with sashimi made from live halibut Shin brought from the auction for lunch, we left for our last hunt for ingredients.

Driving two hours and 40 minutes up north, we arrived in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, to see purple asparagus grown by Jang Soon-pil on a small patch of land. Jang brought the asparagus seeds from overseas and he boasts he is the only one in Korea who produces them.

“They grow best when the temperature is 15 to 18 degrees Celsius. We have another patch of farmland in Inje, Gangwon Province, but we invited you to see the products here as samples,” Jang said. Unfortunately the products weren't available for mass purchase at the moment due to their condition, but Jang snapped a handful of purple asparagus for Ryu to take home as samples. The taste was sweeter than green asparagus.

“If this taste can be maintained in this condition, I think we can use it at our restaurant,” Ryu said. His eyes lit up, seeing another opportunity to add a unique product to his menu.