Okay this might not sound great to a Westerner, I mean spine does not really sound tantalizing does it? However, Hae-Jang-Gook is probably the best soup Korea has to offer. The stew is served with rice and some other small side dishes, and Kimchi of course, but the best thing is the broth and the meat in this. Most Korean soups are served too hot, are watery or suffer from belligerent over-spicing, this one is a notable exception.

Hae-Jang-Gook is spiced just right with a mix of pepper, peppers, herbs, miso paste, green onion, beef and pork bone stock. The centrepiece of course is the chunks of seasoned pork spine that you must pry the tender meat from. Not for the queasy, but incredibly tender meat comes from the spine which has a very low fat content and a nice steak texture. Most restaurants that serve this dish provide big bone buckets for you to deposit your spinal column chunks into. So not only is it delicious but there is a little work to the meal.

The restaurants which specialize in Hae-Jang-Gook are open 24 hours a day which is perfect for me as I get off work at 11pm. The reason for this is that, like everything Koreans eat, there is a superstition that this will make your penis bigger, no that’s dog soup/snake soup/ginseng chicken soup…… Koreans think that this will kill a hangover which might be true as Koreans are expert at getting drunk and in turn being hungover so it is a possibility. I myself have never put this to the test, but it is obvious by the midnight crowds in the Hae-Jang-Gook shop near my work that many drunk old boys are scarfing this down in hopes of killing the eventual soju nightmare they will live through tomorrow.

In any case, go to a local Korean restaurant and ask for a steaming bowl of pork spine (Hae-Jang-Gook) you will not be disappointed, or at least you might ward off a hangover.