“I will come again to Ikkoi, which fulfilled my breakfast cravings for four days. Nayoung.” This is a message left by broadcaster Kim Na-young in the guestbook of Jeju ‘Ikoi & Stay’.
Jeju Ikoi & Stay was opened in 2014 by CEO Jeong Ji-won, who ran the Japanese home-style restaurant ‘Ikoi’ in Yongsan, Seoul. Ikoi was a small restaurant in a local market, but it was a famous late-night restaurant where fashion and advertising industry people and other fashionistas from all over the world gathered to eat highballs and udon salad and burn off the fatigue of the day. Jeju Ikoi & Stay is a place where people who remember the now disappeared Ikoi in Seoul stay when they visit Jeju.
One of the reasons to come here, aside from the various accommodations in Jeju, is because of the breakfast prepared by CEO Jeong himself. Side dishes made with seasonal vegetables purchased at the Jeju Folk Oil Market, fluffy pot rice cooked with care every morning, and most of all, one fish per person generously grilled and bigger than an adult’s palm… . The hearty hospitality of this breakfast table has brightened the lonely hearts of many people. The words filled in the guestbook of this place, now 10 years old, testify to the ‘comfort of breakfast.’
“I empty my head, fill my soul with a delicious breakfast, and give my body and mind some rest.”
“I’ve been feeling empty these days, but surprisingly, I feel full. “I feel energized because the shiny pot rice cheers me up to start the day.”
“I realized the importance of breakfast, which I didn’t normally eat.”
A guest who was traveling to Jeju alone after a long illness and was concerned about diet management left this message in the guestbook. “While I was eating a delicious breakfast, Yang Hee-eun’s song ‘It’s So Good to Have You’ was playing. A feeling or thought that came to mind in an instant. ‘Yes, it’s great to be able to stay here’. Since I was here for 10 days while I was traveling alone, I think I came back in the evening and rested with a clean bed and food. thank you.”
On the 16th, I met Jeju Ikoi & Stay CEO Jeong Ji-won, who everyone calls ‘chef’ but who actually wants to be called ‘owner’. He is a cooking expert who runs the ‘Salon de Ikoy’ cooking studio in Yeouido, Seoul during the winter. On this day, he prepared a breakfast table with spinach and sesame sauce, stir-fried blanched fern, crunchy braised lotus root, braised hijiki, grilled horse mackerel, cabbage and onion miso soup, carrot salad, and pot rice, and prepared stewed fig wine for dessert.
-What standards do you use for preparing breakfast?
“We use 100% domestic ingredients. Make sure that the ingredients, cooking methods, and seasoning bases do not overlap. If it is stewed in soy sauce, it is served with stir-fried dishes seasoned with salt, and seasoned dishes seasoned with sesame sauce or tofu. Then the textures won’t overlap. “We try to avoid overlapping colors as much as possible.”
-Why are you so serious about breakfast?
“I just focused on each ingredient and prepared breakfast for the guests with minimal seasoning. When I think about it, I think the breakfast that my mom made and ate together with my family since I was little made me strong. Since my father, now deceased, always went to work early, we ate breakfast early every day. Breakfast is a precious family memory. “After seeing the reactions of people saying that they would gain strength to go back to their daily lives after eating breakfast at Jeju Ikoi & Stay, I realized, ‘Breakfast gives you the strength to live like that.’”
-You also published a cookbook called ‘I Came to Ikoyi’ last year.
“A male customer’s face lit up at the smell of warm breakfast. When little customers who normally don’t eat carrots eat the carrot salad I made and ask, ‘Please give me more,’ I think, ‘What I’ve been doing all this time wasn’t wrong,’ and it makes me live another day. We made the recipe public so anyone can make it at home and also introduced recommended attractions in Jeju.”
-How do you manage your daily diet?
“For dinner, if possible, I try to eat enough vegetables and limit carbohydrates. At the Jeju Folk Oil Market, we purchase enough vegetables for 6 meals, then prepare them and distribute them into containers. It is convenient to have a salad spinner and a household vacuum at home. Vegetables can be eaten for about three days if you drain them and store them on a paper towel. If you vacuum-pack it with a home vacuum and place it in the freezer, it can be stored longer than regular freezing due to less moisture loss. “I buy a lot of beets in season, roast them in the oven, vacuum them, and then eat them.”
-Do you now cook breakfast for your mother, who has cooked it for you since you were young?
“When my dad was suffering from illness before he passed away, my mom worked hard by his side the entire time. What I can do for such a mother is prepare a meal. I made my mom’s favorite breakfast side dishes: stewed hijiki, seasoned deodeok, potato salad, and Japanese-style egg rolls. “I recently found out that my mom likes jinmichae, so I made some seasoned jinmichae for her, and she was happy eating it with warm white rice.”
-Does breakfast really have great power?
“As I read the guestbook praising breakfast, I realized that for some people, breakfast is not just a meal, but also ‘heart,’ ‘warmth,’ and ‘healing.’ I wake up early in the morning, cook breakfast, wash the dishes, and clean up afterward. Although I actually eat a late breakfast, which is closer to lunch, I feel that my heart is conveyed to the breakfast table, so I try to put good energy and sincerity into it. Not long ago, I was moved to tears when I read the phrase, ‘What you work hard for does not disappear’ in a book written by In-ah Choi. “I think about that attitude of life every day.”
〈Carrot Salad〉
Ingredients: 1 carrot (about 180g), 1/4 onion, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, a little grape seed oil, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon seed mustard (whole grain mustard)
1. Slice the carrots and onions. Chop the garlic finely with a knife.
2. Mix all the ingredients in ①, put them in a microwave container, add grape seed oil, and microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
2. Add white wine vinegar and mustard seeds to ②, mix well, let cool and store.
〈Stir-fried blanched fern〉
Ingredients: 250g blanched raw fern, 50g pork, a little minced ginger, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon perilla oil, a little salt and pepper powder each.
1. Wash the blanched raw fern cleanly and cut it into bite-sized pieces. After cutting, add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and mix well for about 15 minutes. Leave it as is.
2. Slice the pork thinly.
3. Put perilla oil in a pan, add ginger and stir-fry until fragrant. When it rises, add pork and stir-fry.
4. When the pork starts to turn white, remove the prepared part ①. Add bracken and stir-fry.
5. When the fern dies, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and a pinch of salt. Add and stir-fry once more, then turn off the heat and season with pepper. Sprinkle lightly
〈Crunchy stewed lotus root〉
Ingredients: 400g lotus root, 1 dried red pepper, a little grape seed oil, 4 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons rice wine.
1. Peel the lotus root and cut it into slightly larger bite-sized pieces.
2. Soak ① in cold water for about 5 minutes and then drain through a sieve.
3. Put grape seed oil in a stewing pan and fry the red pepper. When the aroma comes out, add the cleaned lotus root and fry it.
4. Add soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine to the pan in ③, cover with a lid, and heat over high heat. When it boils, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and cool completely in the pan. Switch up and down two or three times in between.
Source: www.donga.com
