GOBCHANG

Gobchang is a Korean beef dish.

The project I was working on in Seoul was coming to an end, so my Korean business partner asked me what I would like for dinner. He suggested that since I had been in Korea for several weeks, perhaps we should eat western food. Knowing that I would soon be eating little else except for western food, I declined that, and requested Korean food.

He then asked me what Korean food I preferred. Having enjoyed many a meal where we had eaten finely sliced beef, which we had barbequed at our table. I said I would like to eat something with beef in it. We then had a bit of a misunderstanding because I thought my Korean business partner was offering to take me to eat corgi. Korea is famous for it's dog meat, but up until then, I had always managed not to eat any. Eventually it turned out he was saying "gogi" not "corgi". I have since learned that gogi means meat.

My business partner then promised to take me to the best beef restaurant in Seoul. Fifteen minutes later we were sitting at our table. The usual accompaniments such as kimchi and and various salads had arrived. Our waitress then brought us a steaming pot of what looked like wide diameter macaroni, which was simmering in a cloudy red liquid.

Some of this was ladled into my bowl and we started to eat. This macaroni like tubes were slightly chewy and contained some soft powdery residue. The taste was of a beefy chili soup.

My business partner told me that these cow's intestines in chili were his favourite of all Korean beef dishes. It was very tasty and I did not decline the offer of a second helping.

To my ears the the name of the dish sounded like gorp chang. However having used Google to check for gorp chang, gorpchang, gopchang, gorb chang, gorbchang and gobchang, the number of hits tells me that the most common English interpretation of this Korean word is gobchang.