What is bulgogi? Where to find the best of South Korea's delicious barbecue meat dish

One of the most popular, and greatest, dishes you can have at a Korean barbecue is bulgogi.Credit: Marina Oliphant

PLATE UP

All hail the Korean barbecue, surely the greatest culinary gift the peninsula has given us. Diners sit around a table with a gas- or charcoal-fired grill in the middle and cook various meats to their own liking, eating them with an array of spicy, tangy sides and washing it all down with beer or soju (or somaek, a heady cocktail of the two). One of the most popular, and greatest, dishes you can have at a Korean barbecue is bulgogi: thin slices of beef – though sometimes pork or chicken – marinated in soy, sugar, garlic, black pepper and sesame oil, and grilled over high heat. Stuff it in a lettuce leaf with some rice and ssamjang (a spicy paste) and you have yourself one tasty morsel, and one that will lead to the consumption of much beer, and more bulgogi.

FIRST SERVE

I've said this dish is from South Korea, though truly it's from the Korean Peninsula, and technically from what is now North Korea. Bulgogi was developed sometime in the early centuries BC in the Pyongan province – in the far north of the peninsula – as a skewered meat dish, which gradually morphed into what we know today (the word is a compound of "fire" and "meat" in the Pyongan dialect). It became popular in the south after liberation from Japanese occupation in 1945.

ORDER THERE

In Seoul, head to the eternally popular Yetmat Bulgogi in Hongdae (oldbulgogi.modoo.at) to sample old-school bulgogi served with simmered noodles, mushrooms and vegetables.

ORDER HERE

In Sydney, visit one of the classic Korean barbecue restaurants, 678 in either Haymarket or Eastwood (678sydney.com.au). Melburnians, feast on bulgogi at Hansang in West Melbourne (hansang.com.au).

ONE MORE THING

Though I've concentrated here on the popular grilled form of bulgogi, the dish can also be something approaching a soup. Ttukbaegi-bulgogi is a beef stew made with bulgogi seasonings, cooked in a clay pot. And it's delicious.