Looking for dinner one night in Shimizu after a tiring day exploring Seiken-ji temple and the Satta Toge pass, I didn't want to go far, so I just looked up and down the covered arcade adjoining my hotel. I found a Korean restaurant, liked what I saw on the menu and, despite already having had Korean food for lunch that day, decided to go in. Korean people eat Korean food twice a day, I thought, so why not enjoy myself?
It's a lively, welcoming place, with a big raised central space, where you sit on tatami mats with your legs in a hole under the table. Around that there are some booths for two or four people, and round the corner there's at least one private room. It had a warm, convivial atmosphere, especially when it got busy, with mustard-coloured walls and lots of fun decorations, pictures of food, large decorative fans and framed drawings all around.
It was the chijimi (flat filled pancakes) that had caught my eye: they had a seafood one and a cheese/kimchi one on the menu, so I asked if they could do me a cheese-kimchi-seafood mix, and they could (for a higher price of ¥1000). It was very tasty, the mild, smooth cheese contrasting nicely with the piquant kimchi, and a good size too, leaving me satisfyingly full. Of course, it's the law that in a Korean restaurant I have to have some kimchi on the side too: I went with the kakuteki variety, chunky, crunchy cubes that were memorably spicy.
The menu is in Japanese and Korean only: there's no English, but there are plenty of pictures, labelled with the Japanese so you can cross-reference to find the prices. I couldn't read much of it, but from what I could decipher, meat was between ¥780 and ¥1380 per serving, salads from ¥290 to ¥980, chijimi ¥680 or ¥780 (more if you're awkward like me), rice or noodle dishes ¥780 to ¥980. Of course there's a long list of different kimchi varieties, at ¥290-¥390 for one dish, or ¥780 for a selection of three.
