[New in Town] Goaji: Seize-and-go Japanese lunch packing containers for workplace employees

Whether or not you might have it for lunch at your desk, within the automobile in your strategy to a gathering, and even put it aside for the tip of the day, a Japanese lunch field, or bento, is a good mid-day meal choice, particularly for busy workplace employees. Bento will not be solely economical, it is a wholesome and enjoyable strategy to deal with your self to quite a lot of meats, greens and soups.

Goaji — a Seoul restaurant whose identify in Japanese is suggestive of deep flavors — focuses on grab-and-go bento lunch packing containers, that are ready each morning. Situated close to Hyochang Park Station on Subway Line No. 6, the menu at Goaji adjustments on daily basis, with the calendar outdoors the store displaying the alternatives quickly to return.

Below the motto “To make a meal extra fascinating,” Goaji makes bento utilizing the Japanese technique — one soup and three aspect dishes — within the kaiseki culinary fashion.

The homeowners humbly say they have no particular recipes, however the restaurant prides itself on cooking scrumptious meals utilizing high-quality broth, salt and soy sauce.

The entrees embody teriyaki hen, butano kakuni (braised pork stomach), katsu, grilled mackerel in soy sauce, assorted tempura, and Japanese-style stir-fried beef. The aspect dishes embody pickled veggies, stir-fried pollack roe, and a salad of carrot and pickled seaweed. The soup of the day alternates between sizzling miso soup and matcha tea, which is served chilly and goes properly with the meals.

One specific distinction between bento at Goaji and the standard lunch field meals accessible at Korean franchises and even comfort shops is the beneficiant quantity of sauce on the rice at Goaji. This fashion, you may get pleasure from your bento to the final chunk with simply the suitable proportion of rice and flavorful aspect dishes, not operating out of both.

Whereas this 6,000-won bento is a horny lunch choice, there’s another reason to go to Goaji later within the day: beginning at 5 p.m., Goaji transforms right into a Japanese tapas bar.

The tapas menu is extra diversified, together with Japanese-style pasta alongside a spread of tapas plates based mostly on totally different primary substances — meat, seafood and greens. The tapas menu contains braised pork and steamed potato, pollock roe and sliced cucumber and braised seasonal fish in soy sauce. Every tapas plate prices 4,000 gained. The drinks checklist can also be numerous, starting from Kirin draft beer to Santoro highball and Goaji’s signature highball, which prices 5,900 gained.

Goaji’s lunch packing containers are bought from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on daily basis. After the break time from 2 p.m. to five p.m., it is open till 10 p.m. Solely 100 lunch packing containers are ready every day. Discover out extra on the restaurant’s Instagram web page, @goal2024.

Goaji

116-5 Saechang-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul

From the hippest Korean eateries to world-renowned eating places’ Seoul branches, The Korea Herald tries out new eating spots in its New In City sequence. The Korea Herald pays for all — Ed.