A Porky Affair @ SoonDaeYa Korean Restaurant, Ampang, Selangor

Soondae (or sundae) is a type of pig's intestine sausage and is a popular Korean street food. Some of you may have seen this in Korean dramas but have you eaten it before? Thanks to Caroline who introduced us to SoonDaeYa Korean Restaurant located in Ampang Putra, we got to sample this unique Korean delicacy.

According to the owner, SoonDaeYa is the one and only restaurant in Malaysia serving soondae (at the time of writing). The restaurant has only been in operation since earlier this year, but while we were having our dinner there, we could see that it was very popular amongst the Koreans. The ambience is very casual and you will even find lots of graffiti on the wooden walls.... apparently, the owner encourages his customer to doodle or scribble or write something on the wall to leave their mark at the restaurant. I think it looks pretty cool!

On each table, there are two huge tubs of kimchi just waiting to be devoured. The kimchi here is not too sour, just enough to whet our appetites.

Napa cabbage kimchi

Radish kimchi

We started off with some complimentary pajeon. Pajeon is a type of Korean pancake made primarily with green onions and a batter of eggs, flour, and rice flour. The version here is not too oily and was lovely eaten with the chilli dip. Pajeon is traditionally paired with makgeolli (rice wine) which we got to try here too.

Soondae is usually made by boiling pig's intestines that are stuffed with various ingredients. Here, the pig's intestines are stuffed with beancurd, noodle, pork and vegetable and comes in three different flavours -- Meat Soondae, Vegetable Soondae and Kimchi Soondae. Hubby said that the soondae here reminded him of haggis, the famous Scottish delicacy made with sheep's intestines. Surprisingly, we enjoyed this dish very much and was good eaten on its own without any condiments. Out of the three, I would say that my favorite is the  meat soondae.

Modum Soondae

The specialty in this restaurant, soondae

Another specialty here is the Bo-Ssam, pork belly boiled with Korean ginseng, bay leaves and bean paste. The pork belly was melt-in-the-mouth and simply awesome. It was hard to stop eating once I started, but had to remind myself that I would put on A LOT of weight if I didn't :P This was served with some sweet kimchi and fresh lettuce, and the way to eat it is to place the pork belly on a piece of lettuce and top it with the sweet kimchi. Or you can just eat it on its own.. just like that.

Sweet kimchi and fresh lettuce

This is the way you eat your bo-ssam

The Soo-Yook platter consists of various pig's "spare parts" such as small intestine, heart, head meat boiled with bay leaves, bean paste and Korean ginseng. I couldn't really identify all the different parts since I'm not usually a fan of spare parts, but I quite liked the one with the crunchy cartilage (which my mum thinks is the pig's ear...eeeek!). So far I'm getting the impression that Koreans eat very healthily since all the dishes we've eaten so far are boiled or steamed with Korean ginseng.

Is that really pig's ear?

We enjoyed some makgeolli (rice wine) and soju with the meat. I prefer the makgeolli since it is sweeter. We drunk it from metal bowl, just like how the elderly Koreans in Korea do it.

Makgeolli

Soju

It seems that the Koreans love their pork.. judging from the menu here, almost 80% of their dishes have pork. We also tried some Korean stews / soups, which seem to be rather popular among the other diners. The soup is a milky colour as a result of being boiled on low heat for 40 hours. The soup that is served to us has not been seasoned, so it tastes rather bland on its own. But on each table, there are three types of condiments --  gochujang (red pepper paste), pepper or scallions which you can add to the soup and season to your liking.

Condiments

Soondae Guk - Soup with soondae and pork in hot plate served with rice. Personally, I prefer eating the soondae on its own rather than in a soup.

Seol-Leong Tang - Korean traditional soup made from beef, ox bone, spring onion, and noodle in hot plate. The noodles reminds me slightly of eating mee sua.. I kinda like this one.

So far, all the food we have eaten has been pretty mild in taste. But not the Sogogi-Guk, a fiery beef soup made with hot pepper sauce in hot plate served with rice. My tolerance for spicy food is not that high, so this was too hot for me, but a fellow diner seemed to enjoy this very much.

The King Donkatsu was one of my favorite dishes, a huge pork cutlet which has been deep fried and served with a special brown sauce and sesame seeds. The pork was crispy and very delicious!

We ended the meal with some Korean dessert drinks such as rice drink (sik hye), cinnamon ginger tea and Korean coffee. A lovely meal indeed!

Korean coffee

From the main road, look out for Shin Sun Mi Korean Mart and SoonDaeYa is on the first floor of the adjacent row of shophouses

Verdict: The dining experience in SoonDaeYa was definitely unique and we got to try so many authentic Korean dishes which we have never tried before. Not your regular Korean restaurant. I would highly recommend the soondae, bo-ssam and king donkatsu here. 

Full set of photos available to view here. 

Opening times: 11.00am - 10.00pm daily. 

Location: Soon Dae Ya Korean Restaurant, No. 17-L2, Jalan Ampang Putra 6, Ampang Putra, 68000 Ampang, Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Tel: 03-4251 5170

GPS Coordinates: 3.150532, 101.748244

Join their Facebook page here.