The Prince

I love Korean food, but I don’t understand it.  I didn’t eat any Korean food until I was an adult – I figured it was just BBQ, odd sushi and delicious, hot kimchi. Now I know different, though.  Recently I came to understand that there is a spiritual intersection between heavy drinking and pork belly that is a holy place, and disturbingly unknown.  But eating at The Prince, with in the company of several AGCC artists who know their way around Koreatown far, far better than I was another experience all together.

The inside of the prince is a disturbingly red leather, neo-edwardian nightmare.  The owners just bought it from the previous restaurant and didn’t change a thing, other than replacing the old menu with a Korean one, which takes on a Twilight Zone quality when consumed in the totally alien confines of the restaurant.  I should have taken pictures of the interior, but they wouldn’t have done it justice – you’ve got to experience it for yourself.  Given how dark it is inside, it was damn hard to get the photos I got without making the place look like a strobe light was going off – guess I’m finally developing a steadier hand for long exposure shots, which is good, since I’m stuck with the dilemma of wanting to eat in dark Korean places and also to take photos unobtrusively in them.

Two things not pictured below, which deserve to be mentioned.  First, no matter what you order, and for no other reason than to fuck with your mind, The Prince serves chips and salsa as an appetizer.  No one at the table, Korean or non-Korean could explain this, but it’s best just to accept it as it is.  Secondly, The Prince is known for its fried chicken, which is truly delicious and is the one dish that also surprisingly makes it possible to probably bring even the most picky or put-off by snails and other fun meats eater with you.  The chicken comes in two sizes, small and large.  The large is cheaper if your looking for volume, but the small is better in flavour.  You can see bits of chicken poking out of the corners of some of the photos.

Above – Silkworm larvae.  I first heard of The Prince via this dish.  I missed out on going there recently, and everyone was talking about this.  I knew I had to have it.  Any time to check off another member of the animal or insect kingdom on my “creatures I’ve eaten” list is an opportunity I can’t miss.  It’s part of my dominion of the planet as a member of its dominant species.

This was pretty good, but apparently not as good as it would be in Korea, where they’re less stew-y and served hot and crunchy in a paper cup.  They had the great “burst in your mouth” action that often accompanies larvae and other insects, which was great, but they were pretty flavourless, and had a bit of a sawdust finish.

Above – blood sausage, liver and tripe.  I wasn’t into this.  I love blood sausage, and I like tripe (I’m still not a big eater of beef liver – it’s just never very interesting), but I though this dish was a little bland.  The blood sausage didn’t have the rich flavour I would look for in it, and was packed with so much rice that its texture was almost rubbery with gluten.  There was a dipping bowl with salt, but I didn’t think that added much to the dish.

Above – the highlight of the evening.  Sea snails with noodles.  This dish was perfect, mostly because of the combination of slightly spicy noodles and the green vegetable.  The sea snails were great, and were like little treasures in the dish.  The noodles were sort of like angel hair in texture, but soft.  Everybody seemed to like this, and I really got into it – I could eat this every night for a month before getting tired of it.

Above – The last thing that came to the table was this awesome seafood pancake.  full of lots of baby octopi, green onions and other mysterious delights, and accompanied by a sauce that kind of reminded me of takoyaki or sauce for some reason.  Fun to eat and altogether delicious, this is bar food at its best, the perfect thing to wash down with an OB.

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