Haewah Dal Korean restaurant

Friday, December 6, 2019

New restaurant in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach. www.haewahdal.com.   There were six of us tonight. We all had good opinions of the place.   Interior is beautiful,  table settings are upscale and the wine glasses are good quality. Service was very good. Food was excellent. But I  do think that this will be a short lived restaurant in the place it is at. It is too pricy for the area. The area is "walking".  The foot traffic will bypass it because of the pricing. It is a great destination restaurant and would be better suited  someplace else.

There were six of us tonight. We all had good opinions of the place.

All of us choose the six course tasting menu at $80 per. plus $20 corkage for each bottle They did give us a few "amuse bouches" along with the six courses.

Started out with a Heirloom tomato marinated in 2 year aged plum juice. The marinating took the acidity out of the tomato. Next we had  fried oyster in squid ink with mustard grain aioli And a dish of sweet potato fries, Very thinly sliced and salted.  Presentation is everything.

A bowl of Seaweed soup with Kimchi fritter and spinach. Great flavor.

I choose for my tasting menu Diver scallop, mushroom, roasted beets and butternut squash.  Scallop cooked perfectly. Flavors were great. This is a three bite dish.

Tuna tartar, trout roe, Korean pea and seaweed cracker. A tasty morsel. Again 3 bites. But with the long gold metal chopsticks it became a few more.

Chilean sea bass with Doenjang marinade (soy bean paste) berry chutney, green beans, Korean black raspberry wine reduction. Again a extremely good dish. This one was about four bites.

3 day processed braised short rib with gingko nut, dikon radish. I was a bit disappointed in this dish. Meat was tender and flavorful but a bit on the dry side.

Lastly came Bansang. Small side dishes served with rice.. Kimchi, spinach  and a few other bites. There was sauce that you mix in with the rice along with some shredded vegetables. I ate a couple of the side dishes and left the rest. At this pint I was full. Dishes were small in portion but I was full at this point and we did have dessert coming.

Two desserts were served. Cheesecake ice-cream with raspberry compote and a  Red bean gelee with chestnut.

There were four wines tonight6 I brought a champagne from Reims, France. Parker and Co. Fiurst year imported into the US. Bought a six pak at a tasting a few months ago. It was as good as I remembered. Everyone seemed to agree.

2015 Arbe Garbe,  Sonoma, blend of bianco, tocai and ribolla gialla..

2016 Mail Road,  Sta. Rita Hills, Pinot Noir

2017 Williams Selyem, Russian River Valley, Pinot Noir