Different regions of Korea have their own food specialties. Jeju Island is known for their black pork, seafood and tangerine. The black pigs don’t actually have black coloured meat; they appear black due to their black hair. Their meat is supposed to be less stinky compared to regular pork. So, of course, a trip to Jeju Island would be incomplete if I don’t try their black pork.
I read a few food reviews saying that some restaurants will trick you and sell you the regular pork at the exotic price of black pork, thus you have to be careful. One trick to authenticate, is to check the skin for black dots (hair follicles) or black hairs. Or, there is this Jeju Black Pork Street packed with restaurants that specialize and guarantee in serving local black pork.
We decided to go to 88 Dwaeji, a top rated BBQ place 2 minutes away from our airbnb (“Dwaeji” means pig in Korean). At that time, I didn’t know about the Black Pork Street yet.
We ordered the black pig combo of belly and lean meat.
The black pork came as two huge chunk, one belly and one lean. Their server was so friendly and helpful. The guy was literally standing by the fumes for a good ten minutes, cutting and cooking for us the whole way.
The lean part was so delicious?! Slightly charred outer crispiness packed with juice and flavour. I wasn’t a big fan of the belly section. It had a really hard cartilage part in it and was also too fatty for me. B didn’t like the fact that he could see the hair on the skin, but that didn’t bother me. I was just content that the hair was black, lol?.
I also ordered a side of kimchi stew, because nothing better to help digest greasy BBQ than that of the acidity from the kimchi. It was more sour than some of the other kimchi stew I have tried, but I really liked it!
Overall, it was a good amount of food for two people and more than we thought it would be. I was a little wary to try this restaurant at first because of some reviews stating poor service, except I still succumbed to the lure of great food according to some other reviews. We both had a pleasant experience, really friendly service and the food was awesome too!
88 Dwaeji
7, Je Won-Gil, Jeju Island
Black pig combo – 57,000 kwon
Kimchi stew – 7,000 kwon