The Beat September 2002

In many conversations with Koreans and expats over the years, I‘ve noticed that the name Texas Street evokes dark and fuzzy images of roving prostitutes, Mafia dealing, and Russian sailors pillaging the town on shore leave. I‘ve met many people who‘ve never been there, yet they‘re full of warnings and admonitions handed down from the bad old days of the Korean War, when American servicemen were themselves serviced there in great numbers. As a regular down there, I knew that these characterizations aren‘t entirely unfair, though they fall well short of the whole story.

Texas Street is a shopping/entertainment district for foreigners, mainly Russians, and a fair sprinkling of Asians, Europeans, and North and South Americans, depending on the ships passing through. By day, it‘s fairly innocuous; the shops hawk clothing, appliances, and tourist kitsch, and homesick sailors shop for long-distance telephone cards. By night, the “entertainment” kicks into gear, and the street belongs to the hopelessly normal and the normally hopeless, the vitally unusual and the unusually vital.

Everyone seems to agree that Texas Street somehow “caters” to people, though many seem unaware that this “catering” is also very much of the gastronomical kind. Many Busanites were overjoyed when the big foreign restaurants opened in Haeundae Beach, and these quickly became popular feeding grounds. What is less known is that Texas Street has had more variety for years. You won‘t find megachains, but lots of Mom and Pop. No Starbucks, but plenty of Bang for your Buck. No Indian or Vietnamese, but you‘ll find a variety of Russian, Filipino, Chinese, and Western—from posh eatery to no-frill grill—to choose from.

The Beat‘s Food Critic Commando Unit (John, Andy, Mike Bradie, and Pak Min-Ju) recently spent a weekend down on Texas Street with a camera, a tape recorder, and an appetite. Our first stop on Saturday afternoon was a Filipino Karaoke restaurant called Pinoy. The entrées at Pinoy are mostly priced at W10,000, and the most expensive are W15,000. Working off a hot tip, we ordered up some Pork Tocino (sweet fried pork), Bangus Sinigang (fish soup), Lumpiang Shanghai (deep-fried pork spring rolls), some rice, and a few Pepsis…

Pork Tocino

John: Mike, you got some Pork Tocino there, right?
Mike: Mmm Hmm.
J: How is it?
M: Gorgeous.
J: I‘m gonna…
M: Gorgeoussssss…
J: …dip into that.
M: You gotta try it with the rice. Get a mouthful of rice. It‘s really nice together.
J: This is the only one I‘ve tried before, I think, over at Manila. I loved it over there. It was killer.
Andy: What‘s going on here? Is that the Tocino?
J: Mmm Hmm.
A: Alright. (eats some) Oh yeah!
J: Min-Ju, what do you think of the Tocino?
MJ: It‘s so sweet. Ho! To me it‘s like kid‘s food.

J: Kid‘s food?
MJ: Yeah our school usually served this kind of chicken.
J: Alright Mike, you‘re gonna be the first to do the Gambas.
M: The what?

Clockwise from rice: Lumpiang Shanghai, Pork Tocino, Bangus Sinigang

J: I‘m sorry, I mean the BANGUS.
M: Alright, I‘m going in.
J: Mike is going into the Bangus. Bangu means “fart” in Korean.
M: (sizing up the Bangus) Pepper. Fish. Cabbage.
MJ: A lot of cabbage. Tomato. Green pepper.

J: It looks like a mackerel, right?
MJ: I don‘t know. Ask her. Excuse me! What‘s this fish? Mackerel?
J: Is it? (looks closer) Oh no, maybe not.
MJ: She said yes.
J: She said yes before we even asked her. She‘s just trying to be nice.
M: (eats some Bangus) Wow, that‘s HOT!
J: Spicy hot?
M: It‘s FIERY hot, and it kinda tastes like Kimchi Chigae.
MJ: It‘s a little bit sour.
M: It‘s delicious. Extremely spicy.
J: It‘s spicy?
M: Extremely. You know what though? I think I ate a green pepper.
MJ: Yeah, I think so.
M: I ate a green pepper, that‘s why.
MJ: I tried the soup. It‘s not spicy at all.
J: Mike ate a pepper and he almost hurt himself.
M: I forgot about that.
A: (Digs in to the Lumpiang Shanghai) Oh man!
J: I like it.
A: Wow!
J: What do you think, Andy?
A: I love it. Kinda chewy.
The food at Pinoy was a big hit with our crack team of food critics. The portions were a bit smaller than we would have liked, though you get more for your money (we paid W48,000 for our spread) than at the other Filipino restaurant (Manila) down the street. (It should however be noted that Manila‘s higher prices buy a lot more atmosphere, mainly in the form of lovely Filipino hostesses in tight miniskirts.)

Later that day, we hit the Chinese side of Texas Street. “Shanghai Street” is home to several Chinese restaurants, some of which have been there since before the Korean War. They seemed to be run by real live Chinese folks, which is always an encouraging sign.

We visited Buhang, and we were told that their chef had worked at the Lotte Hotel for 7 years (as a chef, we presume). We discovered that this was probably true; the menus said “Busan Lotte Hotel” on the back. Happily, the prices fell short of that range, but the quality of the food certainly approached four-star, or as the Chinese say, wow.

We ordered a set menu: Cold Appetizers (abalone, pickled radishes, fried jellyfish, 100-year-old eggs), Shark Fin Soup with Crabmeat, Braised Sea Cucumber, Shrimp with Chili Sauce, Sweet and Sour Beef, Sautéed Scallops with Broccoli, and Fried Rice. The sets ranged in price from W20-75,000 a head. Ours was the cheapo (W20,000 a head), but the servings (4) were still more than even we commandoes could handle…

The Shrimp that did it for Andy

A: The shrimp in the chili sauce really did it for me.
J: What did it make you want to do?

MJ: Yeah, these guys denied the most expensive stuff.
M: You‘ve been DENIED!
J: Nobody ate the most expensive part of the meal…
MJ: Yeah.
J: …which was the shitty eggs that are fifty years old.

A: I ate an egg, and I really feel…spoiled.
J: You remember those old, semi-translucent, rubber pencil erasers?
A: That‘s right.
J: You ever chew one of those?

The Eggs were not our favorite, though they looked lovely

A: Yeah.
J: That‘s kinda what that egg was like.
A: It was! Not quite that tough, but…
J: Like a 100-year-old pencil eraser.
A: It‘s similar.
J: Yeah, but not as tough.
M: That meal calls for TWO cigarettes.
A: I think so too.

Texas Street has several good Russian restaurants, but word on the street indicated that the consistent favorite was the Kuritsa Grill. The dishes are very reasonably priced (W3,000-6,000). For the full Russian experience, they also have one-liter bottles of Smirnoff for W85,000.

The Food Commando Unit returned to Kuritsa Grill on Sunday with two extra stomachs: special reinforcement commandoes Jeremy Roy and Heather Gurr. We ordered Pelmeni (meat dumplings), Akroshka (cold yogurt and vegetable soup), Galutsuy (cabbage stuffed with meat), Cataleta (beef meatballs with mashed potatoes), Cartoshka Vereniky (Potato dumplings), Borscht (cold beet soup with sour cream), and Blini (crepe roll). This and five draft beers set us back a mere W46,000. We were also given some Russian bread as “service”.

John: Mike, have you tried everything?

Mike: Yep.
J: What‘s your favorite?
M: I really like the bread. It‘s good bread.
J: Hey, that‘s cool because the bread was free.
M: I think bread is free for everybody. I think she was just yanking your chain.
J: Right.
M: Trying to make you feel good.
J: Yeah.
M: You were being stroked.

The Cataletta

J: Uh huh.
M: But the bread is kind of like pumpernickel? Or maybe…
Andy: It‘s like a rye, man.
ALL: (mumbles of assent)
M: It‘s really nice bread. Everything‘s good; it‘s hard to choose favorites. I really like the cabbage roll.
J: Heather, how about you?
H: The meatballs (Cataleta). And the borscht.
J: Jeremy?
JER: What‘s this soup again?
J: Akroshka.
JER: Yeah, THAT. Akroshka. It‘s really nice. It‘s a summery sort of thing. It‘s got all sorts of veggies, and cream.
J: A lot of Russian stuff, they use a lot of yogurt and cream. I don‘t normally think of that as something you cook with. I mean, I know you DO, but it‘s like curdled this and sour that.
H: It reminds me of that Indian dish. The yogurt dip.
JER: Yeah, uh, it‘s not Dahl…
H: No.

We were slowing down but still found teh energy to duel over the scallops

JER: (racking his brains) Oh! It‘s Reitea. It‘s cucumber and yogurt.
J: Min-Ju, you like this stuff?
MJ: All the dishes are okay, but someone told me the dumplings are really fatty and oily, but it‘s not like that. It‘s not what I expected. She said they use a lot of mayo and margarine and butter, but it‘s not that oily.
JER: Yeah it‘s not as heavy as I expected.
MJ: Yeah, it‘s not heavy.

J: Andy, your mouth is still full. You enjoyed it?
A: I didn‘t get to that [Akroshka] yet, so I don‘t know…
J: Try that.
A: I didn‘t try this [Blini] yet either, so…
J: Oh, try THAT! That‘s MY favorite.
JER: The blini?
J: I love it, yeah. It‘s kinda sweet.

The Commando Unit ate well all weekend. Frankly, we made pigs of ourselves, but sadly, our finite stomach space kept us from sampling all the other places and dishes we heard about. There are many more little gems tucked here and there on Texas Street. Yours to discover.

To get to Texas Street: Take subway, bus, or taxi to Busan Station and cross the street. Texas Street is the first street parallel to the main road.