Haute cuisine a la food trucks

By Yun Suh-young

JEJU — An unexpected 12,000 people gathered on Jeju between Oct. 29 through Nov. 1 to grab a plate of servings from Korea’s finest restaurants including Sushi Cho of The Westin Chosun Seoul and Ristorante Eo of Cheongdam. How did they all manage to get a bite? It was possible because these restaurants came as food trucks.

KOREAT, an authoritative restaurant ranking guide launched in September, organized a festival on Jeju Island featuring restaurants from the top 50 list it announced when it was launched. The purpose of the event was to allow visitors to enjoy Korea’s finest cuisine at an accessible price (5,000 won per plate) — all at a single location.

From Haevichi Hotel in Pyoseon to Haenyeo Museum in Guja-eup, to Iho Land in Jeju City, the 10 food trucks moved from one location to the other during the festival period and the visitors moved with them. A total of 15 restaurants listed on the top 50 participated in the food truck festival — some only for a day, others for the entire period.

Visitors queue in front of food trucks set up at the Haenyeo Museum on Jeju, on the second day of the KOREAT festival, Oct. 30. / Courtesy of KOREAT

From the first day of the event, the festival location at Haevichi was heated with excitement and the frying of pans. Even before the food trucks officially opened at 12 p.m., people lined up at each to grab their first bites.

On the first day, Byeokje Galbi, Terreno, Merciel, Maison M’O, Votre Maison, Sushi Cho and SCOPA The Chef participated.

The line at Byeokje Galbi wouldn’t shrink and people waited for more than an hour to grab a plate.

“The line won’t reduce,” said a person in the queue, in a frustrated but fascinated tone as she did not expect such a scene. At the same time, people seemed to think that it was worth the wait as these restaurants aren’t easily accessible.

Of the trucks, the contestant to leave the earliest was Merciel of Busan which ended sales at 2:30 p.m. as its prepared amount for the day (350 plates) had sold out.

Chefs serve dishes from the Byeokje Galbi food truck. / Courtesy of KOREAT

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“We’re the earliest to end!” shouted Merciel’s handsome chef, who seemed delighted and proud at the result.

The situation next day wasn’t much different. By the time the reporter arrived at 12:10 p.m. at the Haenyeo Museum, just 10 minutes past opening, the queue was already long. More restaurants participated including Oneul, O Kitchen and Jin Jin.

“I came all the way from Jeolla Province just to participate in this festival. I’m going to taste every dish from each of the food trucks as I’m curious as a person working in the culinary field,” said Kim Young-chil, who was busy delivering plates to his friends as he got his hands on them.

The line at Byeokje Galbi was the longest again on the second day. This time the reporter also challenged herself at waiting in the line, which she gave up the previous day due to lack of patience.

Visitors wait for a dish in front of the Terreno food truck. / Courtesy of KOREAT

“I mean there are complaints of people waiting in the line, but if so, why come here?” said Lee Tae-hee, who was in the long queue, referring to some complaints he heard nearby regarding the queuing issue.

“Where else would we have an opportunity to experience all of these top-quality restaurants in one place? We’d have to visit the whole country to do that. If people complain about the lines, they shouldn’t be here,” said Lee saying he took a vacation to participate in the event with his family.

“It’s part of the fun to be in the line. It’s such a rare festival to be held in Korea so I think it’s worth the wait,” said his daughter.

Cho You-mi, head of KOREAT organizing committee and CEO of Welcomm Publicis, the advertising company which is the one of the main organizers and sponsors, said she did not expect such a crowd.

Macaron mini burger served at Votre Maison/ Yun Suh-young

“It’s beyond our expectation. Honestly, we were worried that the ingredients might be leftover. Well, it turned out to be an unfounded fear. The number of visitors exceeded our estimate. Tomorrow we will have a group of Chinese tourists coming in by a cruise ship and it’s almost as if we’d have to stop them due to the overflow of domestic visitors,” said Cho on the second day of the festival.

“It’s delightful to see people enjoying the food trucks. It’s surprising to see that they came from all over the country, some — just for this. I hope the event can help flourish the culinary culture in Korea in the sense that people really learn to appreciate and care about what they eat.”

In fact the foods served at the food trucks weren’t the type that people would easily find in other locations. It was healthy food with the best ingredients. That was needless to say as the participating restaurants are recognized as the finest in the country.

Tomato-jamon salad served at Terreno / Yun Suh-young

Chefs from the restaurants participating in the festival seemed excited as well as it was their first time to serve in food trucks.

“For us, it was a very unusual yet great experience to engage with the public. As our restaurant is part of a hotel, this was an opportunity to lower our barriers and reach out to people comfortably. As one of the best Japanese restaurants in Korea, we were happy to be able to serve our food to many people,” said Han Seok-won, chef at Sushi Cho of The Westin Chosun Seoul.

“It was rewarding when our customers told us, ‘When will we ever taste this food if not here?’”

The experience was also new to Wang Yu Cheng of Jin Jin, a popular Chinese restaurant in Seoul.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a food truck. I wanted to do it well so I closed my shop and came here. I brought my best chefs with me. It was delightful to get free PR but also because people loved it. I’m planning on participating in more of these events whether it be for profit or nonprofit,” he said.

Wang’s truck ran out of ingredients at 2 p.m. due to the long queue and had to reopen at 4 p.m. after purchasing fresh ingredients from nearby.

On the last day, Ruling Saenuri Party Chairman Kim Moo-sung visited the event with Jeju Special Self-GoverningProvince Governor Won Hee-ryong.

“I’ve been to many food festivals all over the country and the food served were usually street food such as odeng, tteokbokki, dakkochi and makgeolli. But this festival seems like an upgraded version,” said Kim.