19 Dec Mum’s 24 Restaurant, Christchurch

Maybe because it was Friday night, and also the last Friday before Christmas, but there seemed to be quite a number of large groups going for after-work dinner or Christmas parties. At first I was going for the galbi BBQ because I thought I hadn’t tried it before, until I found out that it was the same marinade that’s used in the DIY Korean BBQ. I picked the spicy pork so we could compare it to Miga ($17), and also the galbi stew ($20). We considered the ginseng chicken soup, but it would be too much to finish between the two of us, unless that was the only thing we ordered.

The banchan today were: pickled and salted broccoli, cauliflower and carrot; beansprouts; daikon kimchi and potato in sweet sauce. The spicy pork wasn’t as nice as the spicy pork and squid at Miga. It seemed more one-dimensional, less umami from maybe something like soy. Or maybe it was a different dish altogether? The menu at Miga only had Romanised Korean and the menu at Mum’s 24 had English, Korean and Chinese so I couldn’t compare the Hangul characters. Although not as good as Miga’s, it still wasn’t bad and wasn’t that sweet.

The galbijjim actually tasted very similar to the Indonesian beef stew mum made the other day, so perhaps that’s part of the reason why we both preferred this dish of the two. At first glance the pot looked like a small serve, but there were at least six pieces of short rib in there. Oddly there were pieces of walnut sprinkled on top; I’m not sure if that’s normal.

Mum’s 24 Restaurant
62 Manchester Street
Christchurch Central, 8011
New Zealand
http://www.mumsrestaurant.co.nz/