Not your usual Neighborhood’s Salt Baked Chicken!

A 50 Best Signature Session with Chef Byungwook Kang @chef_nextk saw an infiltration of K-ingredients from Jeju into Neighborhood. For a couple of hours, Chef David Lai @davidtlai ’s flavour-forward styles got bolder with spicy and fermented tones; much to the delight of riotous Korean covers present!

The signature Salt-baked Chicken was wrapped with Kelp for this collab. Salt-baking retains moisture for succulence and improves texture, that precious Kelp from Jeju added savory and sea-brine, imagine the tenderisation and infusion. The local Chicken was served on top of delicious barley from Jeju, with lots of Jeju seafood - hand dived abalone (with its liver), and finished with house-made Kimchi. I’ve never seen a sexier “Chicken Risotto/Rice” or tasted one that intense at Neighborhood…

“Cold Bouillabaisse” - local seafood cooked in Korean fish soup and chilled… Deceptively simple looking but so tasty this Teochew Uncle had to pace myself with this opener and I was already hunting for some soju to make the experience.

A Jeju Black Pork (heukdwaeji) course! If you are a Pork connoisseur, you know a Jeju Black Pig. It’s unbelievable these pigs were used in latrines in the 1960s. Today, Jeju Black Pigs are prized for its fat distribution, fat (flavour) to meat ratio. It was ridiculous, look at slides 7-9, ridiculously tasty. David didn’t need to do much to it, just grilled!

For the many times I’ve been to Neighborhood, I’ve always appreciated David’s ingenuity and “I cook whatever I want”. This visit, bloody amazing to see what David and Chef Kang could do with K-ingredients!

K-love for Neighborhood has spawned aplenty (and will likely spawn even more - will share why in my next post); coveted seats to enjoy David’s “no menu”are even more coveted now.

#noneedmeepok Less