Korea – When the Day Comes Restaurant

Restaurant: When the Day Comes
Cuisine: Korean
Last visited: April 5, 2010
Location: Seoul, Korea
Address: n/a (if you can read Korean, I took a picture of what I think is the addy)
Price Range: $10-15CAD

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4.5 (based on what I tried)
Service: 3
Ambiance: 5
Overall: 5
Additional comments:

• Popular for home made AUTHENTIC rice wine
• Very local
• Located in a basement
• Great for drinking/snacking
• Late night
• Very casual, laid back atmosphere

**Recommendations: Rice wine, any of their Korean pancakes (Pajeon)

This place is VERY local and very popular for rice wine. My Korean friends took me here and they’re local so it’s obvious not a tourist trap. If you’re looking for authentic and delicious Korean pancakes and rice wine then this is the place! I can’t read Korean so I took a photo of what I think is the address. Now you just need a translator!

These giant Korean pancakes (pajeon) are meant to be eated on rainy days with rice wine. It’s comfort food and they do it really well here!

When the Day Comes attracts a younger demographic and it has a very laid back traditional atmosphere so you can stay here for hours sipping on rice wine and picking at appetizers.

They serve more than appetizers though. There’s a great dinner menu and the portions are pretty big so it’s common to come here with a large group of friends. It’s location is a bit dodgy and it’s almost in a basement…it’s underground and very dark. The atmosphere is lounge like and very casual and you can tell it has it’s regulars. You can even write on the walls.

On the table:

**Rice Wine – 6/6

• This is a must try in Korea and this place is known for their rice wine. It’s made in house. This is authentic Korean rice wine.
• They serve it in a big bowl (like a punch bowl) and then you portion it into individual cups for each person.
• This wine is served cold and made from fermented rice starch and some fruit to give it sweetness. It’s served with very finely grounded ice (the size of rice).
• It’s carbonated and almost milky, but not thick and creamy.
• The ice “crystals” slowly melt so it dilutes it a bit, but it’s still quite strong.
• This is the REAL DEAL rice wine…not the bottled kind. This is home made.
• It’s served with some traditional Korean appetizers – beside the rice wine is tofu slices.
• I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the flavour, but for what it is – it’s one of the best out there!

Korean Salad – 4/6

• I really like the Korean salad. This is pretty much the most popular and common salad in Korea.
• The slices that look like ahi tuna are actually slices of buckwheat/acorn jelly. It tastes like jello but firmer. It’s either made out of acorns or buckwheat but they don’t taste very nutty. It kind of tastes plain, they’re not sweet or salty.
• The dressing is a soy, chilli, sesame cinaigrette. I love it. It’s salty, sweet and slightly spicy with a tang.
• There’s also some cucumber, carrot and onion.

Dried Fish – 2/6

• This is an appetizer. I loved dried fish and this is perhaps an acquired taste.
• This fish is compressed and dried and it’s slightly sweet and very fishy tasting obviously.
• This one wasn’t that good for me though because the texture was like plastic. It was very hard and tough and I felt like I was chewing on twist ties.
• It was served with candied coffee nuts which were delicious and great with the rice wine.

Korean Oden – 3.5/6

• Oden is commonly known as Japanese food, but this is the Korean version.
• It was very similar but it had lots more soup and different ingredients, but still all made from fish paste.
• The broth was salty and fishy tasting and it was made out of onions, dried anchovies, and radish.
• It was communal soup too. So everyone has a spoon and you drink from the same bowl. Not good if you’re a germaphobe…but do as they do when in another country!
• A Japanese Oden can be found at Gyo-O Kaisen Shokudo Restaurant. See my review for it here.

**Seafood Pancake (Haemul Pajeon) – 6/6

• Mixed seafood (squid, octopus, shrimp) chives, re hot peppers, onions and carrots $1100 ($11 CAD)
• This is a Korean style savoury pancake. This one is massive and it was about 1 foot in diameter.
• The texture is gummy and chewy and it was loaded with ingredients and the squid wasn’t overcooked.
• It’s served with soy vinaigrette sweetened with sugar and also some chili flakes and sesame seeds. Love the sauce!
• I had a home cooked version the night before and I tried a few others and this was definitely the best.
• We have this in Vancouver but it’s not like this one! Now that I have something authentic to compare to they actually do a pretty good job here (a Korean place in Vancouver!)

**Kimchi Pancake (Kimchi cheon) – 5.5/6

• This is the kimchi version…because one is not enough!
• This one tastes similar but it had big pieces of kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) in it.

Fruit Salad – 2/6

• I don’t really know if this was an appetizer or a dessert.
• It looks like dessert for Western standards, but they served it in the beginning with the other appetizers…?
• It was a mix of canned and fresh fruit on a bed of ice cubes with a couple raisins on top.