Restaurant Week: Sel de la Terre Seoul Kitchen
Sel de la Terre Back Bay has a Korean bar menu (a/k/a “Seoul Kitchen”) created by Jiho Kim (L’Espalier’s pastry chef) which L and I have been hankering to try for the past month. The summer is a good opportunity for us to go off on culinary adventures, so off we went. A short review and a couple of pictures after the break.
We had the Double fried chicken wing wrapped in gyoza (under KFC), Korean braised short ribs, kimchi, and soy mayonnaise (in the Steamed Buns section), Bulgogi, bone marrow with ASF sweet caramelized onions with Fourmes d’Ambert blue cheese (in the Tart section — note that “Tart” refers to the format which is basically a pizza, not the flavor), and Spicy chicken and seafood Udon in the Noodle section.
The chicken wing was an excellent rendition of the rather trendy Korean Fried Chicken (L and I thought it was better than BonChon in Allston) and we chose it as the winner for the meal. The winglets were meaty, evenly cooked throughout, and very consistent in texture all the way down to the bone. When I cook wings I find it difficult to get that kind of consistency from skin down to the middle so this was impressive execution. Did I mention that the flavor was also excellent? The Gyoza part of the dish (2nd from left in the picture below) was crispy and had more chicken in the middle. I thought my gyoza was quite tasty, but L said her piece had raw chicken in the filling. No big deal - the wings were still excellent.
Double fried chicken wing wrapped in gyoza
The “tart” (bone marrow, caramelized onions, and blue cheese) was our second favorite. I found that the blue cheese became increasingly compelling on the palate as I progressed through the slices.
Bulgogi, bone marrow with ASF sweet caramelized onions with Fourmes d’Ambert blue cheese
The Spicy chicken and seafood noodles were nice. I found the broth especially good, albeit quite salty. But hey, Ramen is supposed to be salty so there’s nothing wrong there. L was expecting something a bit more along the lines of a traditional ramen, but it’s not really chic to do a traditional Ramen when everyone making Ramen in Boston is trying to one up everyone else.
Our least favorite was the Steamed Bun (short ribs). We both found the pork dry.
So this was definitely a worthwhile venture. I’d gladly go back just to have more of the wings. I hope that SdlT and Chef Kim continue to push in this direction.
