- So, we are here in Toronto, at Owl of Minerva.
I mean, look at this place.
There's an owl with a graduation cap on,
I feel smarter already.
And this 24-hour joint
serves one of my favorite Korean dishes of all time.
It's called gamjatang, or pork neck stew.
And, in fact, it's not just my favorite,
people of Toronto love this Korean dish.
I'm gonna be joining my friend who grew up here in Toronto.
We're both gonna try to figure out
why this city loves gamjatang so much.
(electronic music)
This is such a rib-sticking food, you know?
I feel like, if it's cold out.
You know, I don't know what it's like
to be cold all the time, cause I live in LA.
But I can imagine, here in Toronto,
you guys are so cold that you just build
tunnels underground so you don't
have to cross the street outside.
(laughs)
So if you guys have to go to that extreme,
you know, this kind of a dish that's just warm and hot
and steaming and full of this super tender meat
for ten bucks. - Yeah, yep.
- Yeah, it's definitely gonna be in my regular lineup.
- It's like you what you're getting when you order it.
It's very popular here, I guess
not just in Toronto, but like the suburbs.
That's where the real food action is right now.
And it's really being driven by like these
immigrant communities that are out in the suburbs.
And so gamjatang is often like the go-to
for people at these restaurants,
because it's cheap, you get a ton of food,
and then you get all this flavor, too.
- [Matthew] And it's so spicy and like so soulful.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
People saw that it was popular,
so they start ordering because it's like,
oh, that's popular, it's a popular dish.
- But it's also funny. - Yeah.
- It's an interactive meal. - Mm-hmm.
- You can talk about it.
You're hanging out with some friends.
And you're all just digging into pork neck soup.
Like, it's a good time, it's a good time.
- Having a competition to see
who can eat it most disgustingly.
- Yeah, or cleanest, which you would win.
(electronic music)
In Korea, my best memory of gamjatang is when
I was out drinking with my friend
and it was like 3:30 in the morning
and he was like, "You know what? I got a place."
Go around the corner, we're in Seoul.
There's a place that only serves gamjatang.
- Mm, of course. - And...
When you're kinda just trying to like fight
this hangover of you've had a lot to drink,
and then just--I don't know.
Why do Korean restaurants, why are they bright?
They're like "boom!" and you're like "ahh!" you know?
It wakes you up to your senses and then you get
the steaming bowl of like pork bones.
'Cause it's like overflowing with bones and meat.
I want to eat this every day.
Wouldn't be good for my health.
It's my favorite hangover food.
But honestly, it's just my favorite late night Korean dish.
It's just one of my favorite Korean dishes.
- Try and get a piece of this.
Just dig in.
- Oh. - I gotta do this.
It's just so like warming, even when you just eat the meat.
Like it gets you really like...
- Yes, I feel warmer. - You feel warmer?
- I feel warm inside. (laughs)
If you've been drinking all night
and you need something to save you,
this will do it. - Oh, yeah.
- This will save you from hangover.
- The difference with this broth is that
it has a lot of like seasoning in it.
Like, you got the perilla seeds and you've got
like the spice and salt and everything.
- Yeah, I think the perilla seeds
are really nice, they're kinda nutty.
And it gives a different dimension.
There's kimchi in here, right? - True.
- So there's huge pieces of Napa cabbage kimchi
and that kinda gives it a little bit
of that fermenty kind of goodness.
"Gamja" is potato and "tang" is soup.
But interestingly enough,
the gamja actually refers to the bone.
- Yeah, I've heard that, too.
Because I've had this before and there was no potato in it.
And I was like, "Why is it gamjatang if there's no potato?"
- Right, 'cause gamja means potato.
- Yeah. - But...
Very confusingly, it refers to the pork meat.
This one obviously does have potato,
a very, very nice Canadian potato.
- I was gonna say, maybe they added it
after the fact 'cause they were like--
- Yeah, they're were like,
"Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.
There's potato in the name,
we should put potatoes in there."
(laughs)
(steady music)
See these huge bones and you're kind of like okay,
I guess I gotta just dig through it.
And you get the little pieces of cartilage in between.
It's a little chewy, but then the meat
is super tender, really juicy, like it just
soaks in all that flavor from the soup.
- And also it's just fun to eat things
off the bone sometimes, you know?
- This is a good date thing, a date scenario
where you're like, okay, is this person a keeper?
How are they gonna approach the bones?
- Are they down? - Yeah.
(laughs) - Oh, man.
- Are they down to bone? - Are they down to bone?
- Eat the bones.
- It's part of the experience to just like
have bits of bones come out of your mouth.
- Oh yeah, I think it's like the best part.
- It's supposed to be like--
I don't wanna say garbage, but garbage meat, right?
You know? - Yeah, I mean,
that's probably why it's so cheap.
It's an unloved, unsexy cut.
You know, you're not gonna see this in a fancy restaurant.
(upbeat music)
it's very unclear what all these little particulates are,
but when you take a sip of it...
(sighs) I mean-- - It's like
fatty but not greasy, it's like rich, you know?
- And I think another way to eat this,
because this stew is so rich in flavor
and so many good things, is you could just
pick up a bunch of it and just spoon it over rice.
I think that's another really good approach.
- I usually dip the rice in the stew,
I don't know why. - Oh, you're the rice dipper?
- Are there factions? - You know, I don't know.
I tend to be...
Take the soup out and put it in the rice.
- Oh, yeah. - But you--
Okay, you know what? - Yeah?
- Let me try your method. - Try my way.
You get more soup that way.
- [Woman] That's how I do it, too.
- You might've changed my life.
- That's how you get the broth that's so good.
- I like this. (laughs)
This is--look at that. - Welcome to the other side.
- Oh, yeah.
Thank you so much
for joining me. - Thank you.
If you wanna see more of my dining adventures in K-Town,
click right here.